in a world brimming with complexity few creatures embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless precision she dances from bloom to bloom each motion guided by millennia upon millennia of instinct each act in service to the whole and then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards
of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist, part poet, they move along their hives with the efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to the bees' needs as best they can comprehend, and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their
journey. Partners in Beekeeping, Man Lake. Today we'll be talking with Jerry Hayes, editor of Bee Culture magazine, to discuss the status of the beekeeping industry, yeah and a whole lot more. First a few quick headlines from the world of beekeeping. From Crystal City, Minnesota, the City Council has officially adopted a revised animal control ordinance that significantly expands what residents may keep in their backyards. Residents can now have ducks in their backyards and beekeeping
is now officially legal. Under the newly adopted rules, residents may keep up to four hives, even on lots under three quarters of an acre. Way to go Crystal City! And out of Canada, beekeepers ask government to ban overseas bee imports to protect local hives. What's it all about? Of course, they're alarmed by the spread of the tropal alaps mite, and they're calling on government to do something about it. Now this one out of California, the headline reads, Almond milk kills
bees. Five shocking California impacts. This one, I'm not... Gonna touch with a 10 foot pole, but it's actually kind of an interesting read. We'll put a link to the article down in the show notes. I'll leave that completely up to you. Lastly, while Texas beekeepers lost approximately 61 % of their colonies this year, there is some good news out of the Lone Star State. Thanks to much needed rainfall, honey yield is way up. with production surging to its strongest level
in years at over four million pounds. Way to go. I'd like to welcome to the show, I should say back to the show, Jerry Hayes from Beat Culture magazine, the editor, the big cheese there. Hi Jerry, how are you? Good, how are you doing Eric? I sure appreciate you giving me a few minutes
to just unwind here. I'm doing great getting my feet back on the ground as the listeners know I was on the Big Island for a few weeks and actually did podcasts from there which was good fun but I'm back in the mountains trying to deal with having no humidity again but other than that feeling great and and I wanted to get back with you just kind of get a pulse on what's going on with beekeeping right now and I'm just going to throw out some stuff and and let you start
talking and then ask you questions if that's okay but for example as we all know this last winter of 24 -25 there was a huge bee die -off here in North America and commercial beekeepers that I've talked to most of them have recovered pretty well But I'm curious what your pulse is from talking to them and if they're doing things differently since we're nearly into winter again here. And let's take it from there. So give us the 30 ,000 foot view. Dolly, and that's an easy
question. Oh my gosh. Yes, we had, you know, the numbers show about 1 .6 million colonies. parish and golly, tens of thousands in the commercial industry, some commercial beekeepers, one commercial beekeeper that I know lost all 16 ,000 of his colonies. And yes, in that particular case, you know, if you have a thousand colonies and you lose 500, you can take the other 500 and split them and make them up. When you lose everything, you can't do that. And so his return on investment,
this is a business. And so a lot of beekeepers who have lost a lot of colonies and are aging, and their family doesn't want to take them over, they're selling. And there are some groups that are taking all these and have maybe 100 ,000 colonies now. I have no idea how you manage that. I just don't know. And that's one of the problems with thousands of colonies is how do you manage that? How do you get enough people that know
what they're doing? And then of course, you know, we have indoor wintering a lot now, trying to maintain temperature and humidity so that the bees are under a little bit less stress because of everything that's there. Exposed to those bees. I wouldn't be keeper. I talked to he said the bees look great Coming out of the storage
and then two weeks later. They were all dead So yes, we've had USDA tell us that it could be a virus mutation that's impacting the bees and we have no of course control over viruses and then those viruses are in the bees because of Roa many cases and Roa causes decrease in in the bees ability to fight off bacteria and diseases and what have you, their immune system is compromised and we are not controlling grow up very well and we're not feeding very well
and climate change is happening and think about thousands of colonies and then to think about loading this insect in their nest on a semi and driving it across the United States to California for almonds, let's say, or someplace else. It's incredible. And the industry on a commercial level is suffering. And then we have, of course, you know, our hobby backyard beekeepers as well that are struggling. And most of this is management. And how much time do you put into managing your
colonies? And what do you do to control pest predators and diseases? I have not had a chance to speak with some of the people that lost everything like you have, but some of the commercial beekeepers that did okay and were able to bounce back well tell me they were really on top of Varroa and
they were really on top of feeding. So anything that we can do for hobbyists, for sideliners, for commercial, anything we can do to keep our bees stronger And to keep the viral levels down because they're spreading the viruses, we just have to do it. That's just the way it is. Beekeeping is not easy. No, it's not easy. And to think, you know, and there again, who's managing who? Are they managing us or are we managing them?
They're trying to stay alive. And unfortunately, on all levels of beekeeping, we have beekeepers who aren't doing as you said, they're not. For instance, Varroa control. Sample for Varroa at an appropriate time, say during the season or getting ready for winter. What have you, sample for Varroa, pick a Varroa control, and then after it, sample again to see if it actually worked.
And nobody's doing that. And then commercial beekeepers, when you have thousands of colonies, yeah, how do you do this with the expense of labor and the Varroa controls and what you get them? I know all these things there's not a whole lot of return on investment considering what they're getting paid for him. Pollination contracts for and we're getting beat up by imported honey coming in and real cost and all these things
that causes a struggle and the thing that. Turn it makes my blood pressure go up is that we've done a horrible job of advertising and marketing ourselves of the value. of not only beekeepers, but honeybees, pollinated dependent agriculture, the food supply chain, and then nobody's ever showed me a number for the environment. You know, honeybees are going out and foraging in a two,
two and a half mile radius. Well, that's, you know, like 8 ,000 acres or something like that in the environment and pollinating plants that produce seeds so they can reproduce or fruits or nuts or what have you for squirrels and turkeys. And then you got the plants growing in carbon sequestration and water retention. And nobody knows this error. And so we're thought of as the only stepsister of agriculture. Well, and
until we can. get some of those chemicals under control and I'm not going to name any by names today but we all know what they are until we can get some of that stuff under control. A lot of that's out of our hands and we can't control it but there are things that we can control and so let's control those things as well as we can. There are new treatments for varroa that we can try. There are new things out there every year.
I've tried some of the ones that were new this year and had good success with them but it takes work. And let me just throw out one thing that's a reminder for all of us and you mentioned testing before and after treatment. What we used for Varroa last year and the year before and the year before that may not work for us anymore. there is a tolerance that can be built up and that's why we have to test after because that may not be working anymore and we may have to
move on to something else for a while. And in three years we may be able to go back to that treatment that we loved but it may not work for a couple of years. So be willing to be open -minded, do your research. Sorry we're getting kind of preachy here now but it's a big deal. No, it's a good thing because in my world and it's been in my world for decades, I'm here because honey bees are important to agriculture and to the environment and beekeepers are incredibly important
because they're managing this insect. It may seem early, but right now is a great time to order your live bees for 2026 because they do sell out and because Man Lake is offering a discount for beloved podcast listeners. Wait, what? I know, you're saying live bees, they never go on sale. Well, they are now. Click on over to Man Lake, order your bees any variety, nukes or packages, and anything in the beginner essentials
category. And when you check out, use the code getstartedinbees, it's down in the show notes so you don't have to remember, for a discount on everything. So get your orders in early and save. How many insects do we manage as humans, you know, that can be moved and transported and what have you? And then as you were saying, for a Varroa resistance, let's say to certain Varroa
sides, Varroa is trying to survive. And so if you only kill 90 % of the Varroa in your colony, that might be good for a little while, but then you got 10 % of the Varroa that is laughing at that Varroa side and they're going to mate. and reproduce and have babies that are resistant to that boroside. So as you say, we have to rotate these out and then we have to really try to manage by sample, treat and sample again. Yeah. And
hopefully that's going to work. It should at least, it's something you can do to increase your odds, right? Absolutely. But like I'm headed into a very cold, wintry environment here in the next few days. And I need to go out tomorrow and I need to test again to see how my most recent treatment worked. Now here's the problem. If it didn't work very well, I don't have very much time left to fix things. So I'm going to do what I can. And that's just the kind of world that
we live in now. All right. No, it's true. It's true. And then we have to Not only about treating and when but what have you and what you pick and this is where the tools for management guide for honeybee. Console is so good because it doesn't tell you what to do it gives you options. Because there is collateral damage when you're trying here this is over all night and i'm a honeybee
how do you kill a bug on a bug. without hurting the big bug and so i can spray rainier face every day eric it's not gonna kill you what's gonna happen to you in ten or fifteen years something is going to happen and when we're doing this to honey bees trying to kill an insect on an insect wrong terminology but you know i'm talking about a bug yeah again a bug how do you do that safely and this is where some of these biologicals
that are coming out now by a rational. Products i think we need to yeah migrate to some of those and in this process of using different products we rotate some of these things in and out so that we get some more use out of them and control for all better alright. Let's let's quick kick in this horse. Let's move on to some other things that can be concerning. What do you know about yellow legged hornets? Yeah, you know, certainly, you know, I'm in northern Ohio now, so kind of
on the eastern part of the country. So. I keep in contact with Georgia and South Carolina and what have you, and Alabama, where some of these things have been found. They're doing their best to limit the spread of them, but that's incredibly hard to do by looking for nests and putting out things that will attract them to that. Yes, they can help, but is it going to be 100 %? I doubt it. Yeah, well, that Asian giant hornet, supposedly the couple that were up in the Northwest, those
were taken care of. They'll be back someday. So the yellow -legged one in the meantime, and I've talked to a lot of people over in Europe that have been dealing with it for a while, and they're, you know, they're dealing with it. It's not easy, but they're dealing with it. It's kind of like us dealing with Varroa. Yeah, no, it's true. And you can deal... There again, that just adds another level of management and management
skill to this. And we're talking about, I think the Natural Honey Board says there's like 125 ,000 or 135 ,000 of us beekeepers. About 1 ,000 or so are commercial beekeepers out of the millions of colonies that we have. What does that do to the other 124 ,000 that are hobby and backyard beekeepers who are struggling now as it is and then you add another level of this on it and That's where so many of them drop out after three years and become stamp collectors or less than
three years Yeah, no, absolutely. It's just honey bees are amazing. What they do is amazing. How they live is amazing. And that passion for most of us grows as we look in a hive and separate ourselves from the crazy world out there looking a hive. But yeah, how many people want to do that all the time because they're not all doing it now? Well, part of what I love about beekeeping is there's always something to learn. You never know it all. The bees are smarter than we are.
And nature's smarter than we are because there's a lot of other things going on and I just had to throw this out there on that topic because we also have chickens that we've had for the last, I don't know, since we moved out here into the country for the last 10 years or whatever. And I like the chickens but they're easy. and maybe I'm just naive, but they're really easy compared to bees. And I tell my neighbors that have horses, they think bees are really easy.
I'm like, you need to know as much or more about bees as if you're taking care of a horse. I mean this is not an easy thing, but it's very rewarding also. So one last pest that I wanted to talk about is, and this is nothing new, but this is the Africanized bees. because they are spreading. I read an article just yesterday of somebody in Las Vegas that was attacked and got 400 stings. Luckily he survived, but he's in the hospital.
I don't even have a question for you, Jerry, but talk about Africanized bees for a minute. Yeah. And so a long time ago on a planet far, far away, I was the chief of the ape area section for the Florida Department of Agriculture. And when I was there, That's when Africanized bees made their way to Florida mostly as swarms on shipping traffic coming from Mexico and the first real incident that I was involved in was and this never happened before was You know an 800
pound horse was killed. It was in a stable and these bees attacked the horse and the horse didn't die of envenomation. I was there during the autopsy and the vet pulled out, I'm guessing two or three pounds of bees from the horse's lungs and stomach because the bees are attracted to CO2 and they went up the horse's nose and down and stung in the meantime, which caused the trachea to expand
and the horse suffocated from that. But yes, not only to livestock but to to people because we had a problem in florida where these things were in the news media and the citizens of florida were afraid of having beekeepers around them because people most people are afraid of insects anyway and now you've got an insect that's gonna kill your horse or your dog or sting the kids
at the school bus stop or what have you. And so we really had to work hard on building the value of honeybees and our inspection service that would intercede and help both communities out. A couple of people that we had on the show earlier this year that I want to mention. One was a beekeeper in southern Arizona. She catches a lot of swarms and she does what she calls rescuing those swarms, which is catches a swarm. It's easy to tell if they're Africanized. Not a swarm.
It's not. No way, Jose. No, all swarms are basically gentle because they don't have anything to protect. Well, within days of hiving that swarm, she can tell. I'll put it that way. There you go. She then dispatches the queen, requeens with some kind of gentle breed of queen, and things go along pretty well. I had another beekeeper on from Southern California that also does a lot
of swarm removal. In his opinion, and he hasn't had all the lab tests done, but in his opinion, there have been so many crosses now between European honeybees and Africanized bees in Southern California that he feels like all of the bees that he sees and that he works with have some Africanized genetics in them. They're not as hot as a fully Africanized strain. It's been diluted with generations.
That's his theory and he's used to them. They're not as aggressive as fully genetic, sorry I don't know the right term there, Africanized bees. They're good honey producers, they're pretty good at taking care of Varroa because they're kind of hot, and so he doesn't mind it so much. So I don't know, what are your thoughts on those things? Well there again from past experience,
yeah the drone carries a grumpy gene. And so, when queens are out mating in the DCA, I don't know how many bees are around there, but the, you know, the DCA could have drones from a huge amount of different colonies out there, and as a virgin queen goes in there and those drones compete and mate with her, you can have, and we found this again in Florida, you can have a colony, and depending on what sperm... the queen is accessing to fertilize those bees those
bees could be just kind and gentle and nice and then when she runs out of that sperm she may get into sperm from a drone that has that grumpy gene and those bees will chase you into the kitchen but then when that's used up I mean so this is all over the place so yes this is a little bit awkward because you can say oh gee whiz to your
neighbor my bees are calm and nice. I raise my own queens and I pick out the the gentle ones and then the next day something ugly happens and so this is where you have to be really careful and maybe access queens from other areas that may not have those particular drones. Okay sounds simple. The fact is the African eyes genetics are spreading As far as I know they can't handle real cold climate yet the part of my state that I'm in We don't have any but the southern part
of the state. It's a lot warmer and we do well and and there again And I hate to say this but there are queen producers You know in Arizona and Texas and New Mexico and what have you? that are queen producers and then beekeepers here in my state of Ohio now buy queens from them and they bring them up and they're grumpy. So we have spread these genetics all around because we're not thinking ahead appropriately. That's a very good point. What do we do different? How
do we think ahead better? I think it goes back to what you said earlier about our connection to honeybees, our passion for honeybees. and wanting to be good managers, because if you want to be a good manager, you're out looking for
appropriate information, data. You know, I think the worst thing, and I hate to say this, in many cases for beekeeping, that it's easier to go to a podcast someplace where somebody's telling them to control Varroa with green jello because nobody knows the right if I was if I would want to learn about physics and I went to a physics podcast and they said some how would I know if it was right or wrong if I don't know anyway so this is where you know yours and and others
are so good but there's others out there that are saying goofy things And people don't want to read anymore. They don't want to access books. They don't want to get newsletters. Some of them don't even want to belong to local regional associations. So our educational outreach needs to be better. We also on this show try not to tell people what to do for their Varroa. We'll talk about, yeah, test, treat, or if you don't treat. That's a whole other path that you can study and go down.
But here's options. Here's this option, A, B, C, D, E, F. You do your research, you figure out what's best for your bees. We're not going to tell you because it's different for everybody. It is different from everybody. And there again, we have no genetic consistency in honey. This isn't like black angus cattle or the chickens in your backyard. that have bred and bred for certain traits, certain colors, what have you.
The bees are out mating in these drone congregation areas and the drones are, you know, whatever drones show up is the ones that have the opportunity. And so that's one of the reasons bees can survive from pole to pole, basically, is because genetic diversity. But by the same token, we don't have that consistency and pest predator and disease issues that would help the industry out a little bit better. All right. I don't want to make this whole show a downer on these tough things. Let's
get some good news out there. I don't know about where you are, but we had a really good big honey crop where I am this year. How about you, Jerry? Boy, you said you wanted a happy, a happy one. No, we. See, so I've lived all over the country and the nation. Some parts of it had a wonderful honey crop. We here in Ohio didn't. And this is one of those strange things that I've learned since I've been here for the last five, six years.
If it doesn't rain, and we had this drought issue, if it doesn't rain in July, then that impacts, strangely enough, Goldenrod and Astors when they come up. a couple months later, and so we had beautiful golden brown, beautiful asters with not a bee or a honeybee or a native bee or anything on them, because for some reason, if they are not rained on in July, it doesn't happen. And so, yes, my colonies, instead of getting, you know, 50 or so pounds of honey, I might have
had 15 or 20. And so... It's different everywhere, and some beekeepers did great, and bless her heart. Boy, down her Debbie today. No. Jerry, give me some good news from somewhere. No, but the good, I think the good news is that we have Apia Inspectors of America who are hanging in there and are great mentors for beekeepers. And for the most part, they're not the bee police. They're Extension. because extension doesn't
exist anymore. And then we have the Association of Professional Appicultures, all these people that have labs at universities that are still working so hard on our behalf. And we have USDA with all this crazy USDA stuff, but they're hanging in there for a grave. So we have this whole... contributor connection partnerships with really smart people with great equipment and labs that still want to help and are connected to us. And I think that is a true blessing for all of us.
And we need to engage them more and show them that we appreciate them and what they do so that, you know, they can still get funding and carrying on because that's what's going to make us successful or not. What are other good sources for information? You mentioned Honey Bee Health Coalition. Right. What else? Well, you've got Honey Bee Health Coalition, which is great. And then you have PAM, Project Apis Malifera, which is great. And then you have, as you were talking about, you
have, you know, Apimondia. That was before we were recording. But yeah, I went to Apimondia this year. It's amazing how much scientific information is out there at places like Appamondia. Well, and then I just got an email this morning, COLOS, which is a European organization that has researchers from all over the world and dealing with honeybee management issues and success. They're going to be meeting in Washington, up at the University of Washington, coming up in June of this year.
So we have an international organization coming here. And then, of course, you have your state and local associations who are, I'm assuming, will be connected to, you know, HBHC and PAM and AIA and APA and all these other things. And we have ABF and, you know, HPA and everything else. All these organizations are working on together on our behalf. And I think whoever is listening now, you know, Google all these up and take a look at their websites and what they
do and support them. Because, you know, without our support, they don't exist. And your advice about podcasts? And I'm going to lean towards, well, I'm going to just stretch that a little bit and mention YouTube because there's a thousand times more beekeepers that claim to be experts on YouTube than there are on podcasts. And some of them have good information and some don't. And the hard thing is you don't know which is which. No, Beth, how do you discern that if you're
trying to learn? I don't know how you do that. This is why these These fundamental organizations and, you know, and podcasts like yours are so important for people to identify as places to go. I didn't warn you of this, but the last time you were on the show, I asked you to come and share some kind of fun, wild and crazy beekeeping story. Do you have any others in mind for us this time? We'll give you a minute to think about
it. The fun know that I think some of the fun thing is all this new equipment that's coming out and new hives and different things that will allow us or will theoretically allow us to manage bees so that they can maintain, you know, what they do. You have to think of honeybees. You know, they're looking for a cavity certain size. to live in, and we give them these wooden boxes, and we call that their home, but is it insulated enough? Is the entrance in the right spot? Is
it in the right dimensions? Is it longitudinal? Is it horizontal? All these things as we experiment with bees because bees are very patient and you know I've seen bees living in a mailbox and I've seen them living in a you know a hollow tree and I saw one at one time living in a junkyard in the trunk of an old Buick. So bees can live in a lot of different places but how do we beekeepers help them live successfully? What's your favorite
kind of hive? Just standard Langstroth now, but and then here in Ohio, I've gone to some type of insulation around them because you know, it gets kind of chilly here and the temperature goes up and down and You know that one inch wall on that wooden Langstroth box probably isn't Insulated enough as it would be say in a hollow tree that's got six inches of wood around the cavity and so these are all things that We're still trying to learn about there again. We have
no consistency. If you were asking a black thing is cow producer, what he or she does to raise them. They could, they could give you the checklist. We'd we have a checklist, but it's four times longer because you never know which part you got to check. Well, now I don't know about you,
but I like to experiment. Yeah. I've picked up some of the new things that are out there these solar heater things and these different blanket things and different kinds of insulation and different kinds of hives that are This thick and having our value through the roof and and I'm trying all this stuff to see what works for me in my area Yeah, no and that that's true and that's a good thing for you to do and for me to do and for people out here to do but there
again if you have If you're a commercial beekeeper and you got five thousand colonies, you can't do that. No, no, that's not realistic at all. No, it's not realistic at all. And so how do we how do we support that? Because when you walk into the grocery store. You don't walk into the aisle with the cleaning supplies in the toilet paper, you walk into the produce section that most of the time is there because of honeybees
pollinating for a fruit, not a vegetable. But then you also have some that are pollinating for seeds. So you like lettuce or something that's the seeds that, that are there. So, you know, if, if that all disappeared, do we want to buy all our food from Guatemala? I prefer Peru. I'm sorry, I can't be that serious this morning. Jerry, I appreciate your time so much. I know you're busy. I appreciate you putting out the Quality magazine, B Culture magazine, and the
good information that's in it. Do you have any last thoughts you want to leave us with? No, but I want to, you know, if you were closer, I'd take you to lunch because I really appreciate what you do, how you're doing it, and how you're being connecting to the beekeeping industry to give them a foundation of validity. So pat yourself on the back. Thanks for joining us on Be Love
Beekeeping presented by Man Lake. If you like this content I hope you'll share it with a friend, follow and subscribe to this podcast, and even sign up for our newsletter at BeLoveBeekeeping .com Also, just a shout out to Vita B Health for their support, we appreciate them. Vita's Varroa Control range of products includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Veroxan, Extended Release Oxalic Acid Strips. Thanks guys, and remember, if you're not just in it for the honey or the money, you're
in it for the love. See you next week.