May I have your attention, please? The following is not the real Jeff Fox review If you used to think beekeeping would be an inexpensive hobby You might be a beekeeper If you are convinced your honey tastes better than any other in the whole wide world. You might be a beekeeper. Okay, let's do some simple math here. Now, if when you run a financial analysis on what it really costs to produce your honey, and it comes out to $20 a jar, and you think you're getting rich
selling it for 15. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping presented by our good friends over at Man Lake. Today our guest is Cindy Elsenbeck from upstate New York and we'll be discussing beekeeping with children. So if you're a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, school teacher, you name it, you'll get some great insights on how to make beekeeping with the kids in your life safe and fun. Before we jump into that, we have
some news bits from around the globe. First, from Italy, headline, plants produce more nectar when they hear bees buzzing, scientists find. Okay, settle down, no jokes about plants not having ears. Let's get into the research here for a second. According to this new study, plants can actually hear bees buzzing and serve up more nectar when they're nearby. The research suggests that plants are a more active partner than previously thought in their symbiotic relationship with
pollinators. The behavior could be a survival strategy that favors giving nectar and sugar to bees over so -called nectar robbers that do not offer plants any reproductive benefits. This is growing evidence that both insects and plants can sense and produce or transmit vibroacoustic signals. said Professor Francesco Barbero, a zoologist at the University of Turin, who led
the research. The findings add to the truly astonishing multitude of ways that plants can perceive their surroundings, including the presence of beneficial and harmful insects, temperature, drought, and wind. In the future, the team suggested, buzzing noises could be used on farms as an environmentally friendly way to enhance the pollination of crops. While it's clear that buzzing sounds can trigger nectar production, the scientists are now looking into whether sounds from plants are being used
actively to draw in suitable pollinators. And from Texas, a man is dead after bees swarm him while mowing his lawn. So what happened here is this guy's mowing his lawn, bees attack him, He runs for his vehicle. They follow him into it. He drives away, but there's bees in the car. It causes him to crash. When police arrived at the scene, they observed that the driver of the vehicle was being swarmed by bees. So that's inside the car. A witness said she saw the man
and his truck nearby. Then the next thing you know, I look down and hear a loud boom and he's in my parents front yard. The man later identified as Stephen Daniel was mowing when he apparently disturbed a large honeybee nest near an abandoned building. Though he was still being attacked by the bees, officers were able to get him out of his truck and into an ambulance, at which point he lost consciousness and he died at the
hospital a short time later. From Bulgaria? You think the bee die -off here in the states is bad. In Bulgaria this spring beekeepers have reported 90 % mortality rates among their bees. I'm not even going to say anything else about that. All right, let's put smiles back on our faces. We have a fun topic today. So let's get right to it. Children and beekeeping. I would love to welcome to the show today, Cindy Elsenbeck. Cindy, good morning. How are you? Good morning,
Eric. I am fantastic. And you're in upstate New York? Yes. Yep. Foothills of the Adirondacks. Beautiful, beautiful country. It sounds beautiful. Where is that from the Finger Lakes? Oh, probably about four hours. Oh, it's a long ways. Okay. Yeah. All right. That shows my ignorance and geography today. So I've already embarrassed myself, but I have been to the Finger Lakes region, beautiful area, and I'll get out to your part
of the state next time. We're going to have fun today because we're going to be talking about involving kids, children in beekeeping. You're an expert on the topic. Come on, admit it. Alright, okay. I hate to use the word expert, but it is something that I am passionate about and I've been doing it since COVID. Fantastic. I want to hear how did you get started in it? What made you think, hey, I'm going to put kids in harm's way? That was an unusual way of putting it. However,
it is more than putting them in harm's way. It's more helping them to alleviate the fears that children seem to have with honeybees that unfortunately many times they get from the adults in our lives. When I was gifted a beehive, nothing I ever thought in my whole life that I would do. My son and daughter -in -law and three granddaughters gave me a beehive. And I said, oh, nice. And what am I supposed to do with this? I took a year, learned everything, touched bees, played with
bees, treated bees, you name it. And of course, I fell madly in love with honeybees. And I love children. It is just built in. It's who I am. The year after I had been keeping bees, I said, I need to share this amazing insect with kids. So I contacted some schools and I started zooming and I prepared PowerPoint presentations and thank goodness for Zoom, I was able to share amazing facts and pictures and stories about honeybees
and kids got so excited. That is awesome. When did you start doing things in person with bees and kids? As soon as I could. So as soon as I started doing it with a mask on, so as soon as schools opened back up, I was invited to come in. Like I said, I started with a mask. Not my favorite. I am a bit expressive and I like the kids to be able to see my face. That's how I started. So I would probably say 2022, as soon
as we were having some limited access. Prior to that, though, I had some homeschool children come over to my house and we did a garage education session. And then we went out and I have kid suits because as you already know, Eric, I have grandchildren that are beekeepers as well. So we took them out in the beehives and They did a lot of observing and a couple of the older ones wanted to hold a frame and they're well protected. And it's just, it's just so much fun.
I love talking to kids about bees. Let's talk about the fear first. Okay. If you were to guess on percentages here, because kids are also super curious, what percent are really sort of overcome with fear versus some that have maybe too much curiosity where they're not going to be safe. And those that are in a good place in the middle, like your perfect grandchildren. Thank you. I'm going to say that there's at least 25 percent that are really afraid. And it's one of the things
that I often ask when I get started. Sometimes I hear things like not only are they afraid, but they hate. bees. And it's that sting story. And that's the elephant in the room. And I kind of have to get to the sting story before I get to too much else. Because once we get to questions and answers, they all want to share their sting story. So we don't want that to distract from the importance and the excitement. So we do a couple of sting stories, and we discuss that,
yes, indeed, honeybees sting, however. they are way too busy collecting food for their family to chase children around the yard and sting them. So 25 % I would say are just either don't like them at all or are terrified of them. Probably about 50 % are okay with them and I'd say there's if there is 25 % that are where my granddaughters are, this is an amazing insect. There are classrooms
that I have visited more than once. I have gone and seen the same group of children when they were in first grade, second grade, third grade. I just did their fourth grade presentation. Those kids can't wait. There is no fear. They can't wait to hear what I'm gonna tell them, what I'm gonna show them. learn something new, and they just love honeybees. So the sting is real, and we're not going to say that it's not, and they want to know if I've been stung, and I tell them,
yes, I have. But as we know, it's always my fault. So we address it, but we get past it. And that just reminds me, that is one of the most common questions with any non beekeeper when they find out you're a beekeepers. Do you get stung? Right. Right. Oh, yes, I do. Well, of course. Right. Of course. But we manage it. We manage it with protective suits and smoke and things like that. Exactly. It's not out of control. And then there are some really weird people like me that do
a little stinging on purpose. And we have a whole episode on apotherapy that people can go listen to, but I find it fascinating. And I don't like the pain, but I love the results from it. That is not medical advice. That is just Eric's personal experience here. I want to talk about the fear just a little bit more. Do you very often run into kids that... Were actually stung by something else and call it a bee because that's what their parents called it How do you educate on that?
So I would say go let's go back to percentages I would say 95 % of the children that have been stung have not been stung by a honeybee Anything the flies and stings is a bee Adults, kids, it doesn't matter. It's a bee and they put them all in the bee. So in addition to keeping bees and teaching about bees, I love to take pictures of bees. So I have enlarged pictures of... many wanna bees. So I have yellow jackets that look
an awful lot like a honeybee and wasps. And we talk about the stinging insects and the difference between the honeybee who is working for her family, who's collecting that food, who is not, like I said, not going to chase them and the wasp who is actually a meat eater and is going to possibly eat our little honeybee. And then there is the sting issue. And most children surprisingly know that honeybees die when they sting. So we
always bring that up. So if they sting, do you really think that they want, if they die, do you really think that they want to sting you? If that is gonna be the end of their life. They only do it if they're absolutely terrified. as opposed to those other stinging insects, whose stingers are like a pin instead of a fish hook, and they can sting you as many times as they want to. And sometimes it seems like they're just having a bad day and they want to. Oh, it's
not just a bad day. I think sometimes they just do it for fun. Just for funsies. Look at that guy on his bicycle. This is what happens to me. Let's go sting that guy five times. Yeah, I was in my car just finished a bee presentation. All of a sudden, I was like, ouch, did one of my bees get out? No, it was a wasp stung me three times in my own car. So what I tell children
is there are singing insects out there. And the best defense is to not freak out, to not run, to not flail your arms around, because whatever it is is going to be intimidated. But most likely, you are not being stung by a honeybee. Okay, I like that. Let's talk protective gear for a minute. When I work with new beekeepers, I recommend, and this is just my personal thing, you get a
bee suit from head to toe. And you completely wrap up, you have the thickest gloves you can deal with and everything else, because if you do that, that's going to help alleviate some of your fear. The less fear and anxiety that we have, then the less anxious the bees are going to be. They're going to be calmer. We're calmer. It's a whole circular thing here. Do you do the same thing with children? Absolutely. And just as a little aside, I do teach adult beekeeping
classes as well. And it's the same philosophy. Do not watch people on YouTube with their hair flowing in the breeze and a short sleeve shirt scooping out handfuls of bees. Don't watch it because they are singing insects. Like you said, we want you to be comfortable. So especially with children. So my granddaughters received their first bee suits when they were four and five. The two that are actively keeping bees. I have five of them that like to go out in the
bees, but two are actively keeping bees. They have their own hives. So it started with just exactly that. From the ankles to the top of the head, full suit, leather gloves. You would think that teaching children to be calm in the bee yard would be difficult. And maybe for some children it might be. And so far I've been very fortunate. I have not had an extremely anxious child who is making a lot of noise or being overly active in the bee yard. But they do incredibly well.
When you tell a child the bees can sense how you're feeling. and they need you to be quiet and to be slow. I am amazed by how well they do inspecting the hives. And then the children who are not mine, that we have friends of my grandchildren come over. I guess I do homeschool groups that come over. I have adults that come over. Beekeeping is just so cool. They... Also,
some will come and hold a frame. When the granddaughters come over, they go in their own hives, whatever their temperament is, they know what we have to do in those situations. When I bring a guest over who doesn't know a lot about bees and maybe is a little anxious, I'd pick that hive that, you know, we all have that one that, boy, this hive is just so sweet. This hive just... is always easy going. I can go in here anytime and hardly
have to use smoke. And that's what I'm going to use because it's going to be, again, that much more memorable experience that is nice and calm and pleasant, because that's what we want, right? We want them to have a good time. So what are some of the things that get them really into it? That they just get loving it? And I'm thinking of one off the top of my head while you're thinking. I had a new bee last year come over this young lady and I had a frame out and there was a bee
emerging right then and there. And I pointed it out and that was like, wow, that's so cool to see that happening. What kinds of things turn on kids like that? Yeah, the visual is definite. Kids... love to see bees actually being bees. pollen substitutes, food and feeders, and the knowledge base to help you know how to use it, including Bella, their AIB -keeping genius. Just look for her icon in the bottom right -hand corner
of your screen at manlikeltd .com. While you're there, don't forget your discount code MLBlove10, it's in the show notes, for $10 off your first $100 purchase. have an observation hive that is just a single frame observation hive that I can easily take into classrooms. And the kids will spend, and I keep it covered up until the end of what we need to talk about or what I'd like to talk about, what I'd like to share with them. Because once I take the cover off that
observation hive, it is like a magnet. And it is, oh, look at this one. Sometimes, so. I always clean my observation hive before I go. Maybe there's a little piece of paper towel in there. Well, here's a honeybee carrying around a piece of paper towel. Here's a worse one. This just happened last week. Somebody must have gotten pinched in the door when I shut it and screwed it tight because there was a bee carrying around another bee body part. The kids are not upset
or freaking out. They're amazed. And of course, the poor little girl, she's working, trying to find her way to do her job to get that body part removed. And she can't find out. They feel bad because she can't complete her job. And they wonder why she keeps going. And I tell them it's because her job is to take dead bees out of the hive. I do not bring my queen. I leave her home. Sometimes I'll mark a drone just so they have
something to find. And they like that. That's one of the first questions they always ask is, where's the queen? I want to find the queen. So it is fun to have something for them to be able to find. They've had the same experience. They see bees emerging, capped brood. I don't like to bring a lot of that. In the summertime, it's OK. But this time of year, it's a little cool. I don't like to have them leave home. They just sit and watch. So then I've kicked it up
a notch. I have a living observation hive in an elementary school. So I found this grant through the Bee Cause, and I said, oh, I love kids. I want to put a bee hive in a school. What school is ever going to let me put live bees in a school? Well, I found one. And not only put live bees in, but drill a hole through an outside wall in a building? No problem. It's on the second floor outside the library, which is perfect.
And I am able to teach the kids. We usually do second and third grade, because that's when they're learning about insects and life cycle. And then they can go out and see the bees. They also see them many times during the day. The cool thing about the observation hive is we all know honey bees build wax wherever they can, right? There's a spot, oh, let's put some wax here. So of course, they put wax on the plexiglass. and the kids can see inside the cells as the life cycle progresses.
It is amazing. They get to see the waggle dance. They can find the queen, and hopefully they do. So it's eight frames double -sided. It's just the coolest thing. So I've seen a lot of portable observation hives. Explain a little bit more about this permanent one that you have at the school. What does it look like? How does it attach? Did you just take one wall off of the box and have that be plexiglass? Tell me what's going on here. Yeah, so it is up and down. It is eight,
so it's four. frames, one on top of the other. They slide into grooves. And then the other side are four more frames that slide into grooves. So you have frame side back to back. So you can only see one side of the frame. You can't see what's going on in the middle. And then outside is plexiglass, and it's all screwed tight. It's safe. They cannot get out. There's vents on the side. There's a hole at the top to put in sugar syrup if you need to. Tray in the bottom. for
Varroa mite to fall into. And then there's a hole that's drilled through the wall. And there's a tube that the bees, it's not really a tube, it's a short space actually, where they come and go. There's a little porch, that's what I call a porch, a little landing right outside this hole. And the hive is on a bracket that swivels. So they can look at one side and they can look at the other. And when they're not using it, it has a quilted cover that keeps it because
we know honey bees work in the dark. So it keeps it covered. It's in a place that is warm enough. They get to see the progression. So you know how we talk about, so now all of a sudden they start bringing in nectar and they make honey. All of a sudden they're seeing frames that are honey. It is just amazing. Right outside there's a door that goes out onto the roof, which is perfect. It's a flat roof. So... I can take that observation hive outside. You can block the entrance.
I have two friends that help me because it is heavy. And we don't want them to swarm, if at all possible. So we can take that out and we can pull some frames of brood, just like we were going to do a split in one of our eight -frame hives. beehives at home so we can pull some of that brood, put in some empty frames and potentially prevent them from swarming. So it's managed very similar to an eight frame beehive that we might have, except we can't add honey supers. Do you
have a picture you can send? Absolutely. Of course you have pictures. You said you take bee pictures too. Go ahead and send a picture. We'll figure out how to post this maybe to our Instagram page or something like that. All right, you got it. That will be fun. I will be happy to. How about an awkward topic? How do you explain to these kids about drones and exactly what their life is all about? I knew that's what you were going to say because it always comes up, right? So
I want My sessions to be interactive. I don't want to stand up there and talk at kids I want it to be so I'll go in saying oh, we're gonna talk about life cycle next thing I know we're doing pollination and we're doing this It's just like, you know, we talked about with your podcast.
Let's go with wherever it goes So I always talk about who lives inside the hive Everybody seems to know there's a queen and that it has to be a queen and there's one we're good with it Then we get to the next two members And the first question I ask is who do you think does most of the work in the beehive? If you think the boys, I always do the boys first because guess what? That's who they think does most of the work. So I say, who thinks, you know, boys do
most of the work? Most of the children raise their hand. And then who thinks the girls do most of the work? And we get a few, and then I raise my hand. And I tell them that not only do the girls do most of the work, they literally do all of the work. And we go through. absolutely everything, but the big things of taking care of the babies and making the home and bringing
home the groceries. That's when I talk to kids, I say, no, but the flower is a grocery store for honeybees and they bring home the groceries. Before I even get to say anything about boy bees, hands go up. So if the girls do all the work, what's the boy bee do? and you know it's coming. So without getting into detail, I tell them that as we all know, you need a boy and a girl for there to be babies. So the boy's job is so that
the queen can have babies. Now if I'm talking to adults, I can go into more details, but with kids, I leave it pretty simple as that. I try to find a positive spin on our drone. So I will say things like in the spring, their bodies are a little bigger, so they may help keep the hive a little bit warmer in the spring. And then we
talk about how long do bees live. So when we talk about what happens to the boy bees in the fall, the young men seem to get a little... upset, and some of the girls as well, that the poor drones get kicked out, but I assure them that when the queen starts laying in the spring, not to worry, well actually starts laying in the winter, not to worry, she is going to start laying boys first. They are needed. They are important
to the hive. They just don't do much work. Like I say, they're the teenagers in the basement playing video games, going out drinking with their buddies. You got it. Yep. I want to hear more about your granddaughters. How old are they and how is this affecting the grandmother -granddaughter relationship? Oh, there have been so many positive things from this, Eric, that it's Just amazing. So they are currently 11 and 10. There's about
a year and a half between them. So the one just turned 10 and they have been in the bee yard since they were four and five. One of my favorite pictures is one of the older granddaughter who at the time was five. When you get excited about something, you can easily transfer that to other people. So after spending a year learning about bees, I shared, I shared, I shared. How exciting, how wonderful. So it's time to go out in the bees. They're all suited up. They've got their
boots on over the bottoms of their pants. They've got their gloves on, little tiny peanuts, and out we go. The older one, the only thing she wanted to do was feed the bees. I just want to feed the bees. And to this day, her favorite thing is watching her bees and caring for them. So she goes out. This was an installation. We installed a nuc. They came out and they watched. They did pick up some frames that didn't have as many bees on them. So the five -year -old
picks up a dandelion. and she stands there and don't you know a bee comes and lands on that dandelion and that is my favorite picture of this five -year -old so proud holding this dandelion that it's just it's mind -boggling they open their mouth that they're 10 and 11, so last year, 9 and 10, they, without assistance, open their hives. They inspect their hives. They need a little help taking honey supers off, but so do I some days. But the one of my granddaughter's
hives had swarmed. And so I told her they love to find their queen. So I said to her, don't even worry. That queen is not marked. Haven't had a chance to mark her yet. Don't even worry about finding your queen. Look for signs that she's there. Look for your eggs and your larva. So I have both of them. So I'm kind of going between hives because I want to show me things and ask me things. So all of a sudden she goes, oh, I found my queen. I said, no. No, you didn't.
Because it's not marked, you can't. So I go about helping the others. Really, I'm really sure this is my queen. So I go over, sure enough, there she had found her unmarked queen. They are incredible. And our relationship is just phenomenal. They, when I go to their classes, they get to help talk. They are excited that I come. They are proud of me. So this past January, my 11 -year -old was chosen to go to the North American Honey Bee Expo as scholarship for next gen. So that's
our relationship. It was the most amazing time. And she was so excited, just the two of us. got to go and visit the vendors and listen to speakers and oh oh we have to sit in the front row she says because you know we don't want to miss anything amazing it is just it's wonderful and that same little girl when she graduated from pre -k she literally crawled down the aisle because she didn't like anybody looking at her. She now does presentations in front of her class. It has built
her self -esteem, her confidence. I'm telling you, getting your kids excited about bees, it's a great thing. And this certainly isn't just grandparents and grandchildren. This is parents and your children. And I'm sure we could think of a lot of other relationships, too. But I think it's brought probably a new level of closeness that you would not have had otherwise. Yep. And someday in the very, very distant future, you're going to be gone and guess where your grandkids
are going to remember the most. Right. I think so. I think so, too. I agree. All right. Couple more things before I let you go. I want to hear a wild and crazy beekeeping story. You are a fun person, which means you probably have 50 of them. Give us one or two. All right. Oh, two. Good. OK. So I'll tell you my first since I get to do two. So the first one is not as crazy as the second one, but it's pretty hysterical. So
I wanted an observation hive. So I'm getting to go to schools and I want to bring my bees, right? Because we already talked about how much kids love seeing bees and watching them. So I need an observation hive. So Jim too has directions online for free to build an observation hive. So my husband's pretty crafty. So I gave him said instructions and I said, build me this observation hive. So he did. and he's up, yeah, I'm just,
I'm not crazy about how it came out. I'm not sure that this is really gonna be, I said, it's fine, it's fine. So I go out, pull a frame of bees, I put it in, I shut it up, I... Take it back up to the garage as I get up there. Bees are pouring out of this thing left and right. Hundreds of bees are just pouring out of this and I'm freaking out. Not because the bees are pouring out because I want to show the kids. So I'm grab the duct tape. I'm duct taping the
thing around and around. I probably ended up with about 100 bees still in there and the children did see them and they enjoyed it, but. We ordered an observation hive online and it's been much better than mine. My poor husband tried very nicely to create. By the way, as a beekeeper, if you have never had an experience of driving with a car or truck full of bees flying around, you're not there yet. All their level. All right, go ahead. Story number two. So the other one,
again, it involved children. So I had a presentation in the morning, nine thirty. I had to be there at nine thirty. So I wanted to wait until the very last minute to get the bees out of the hive, because we know that the morning they're not morning insects. That's not their time of day. So I was dressed and ready to go. So put on my jacket. put on my gloves and lit my smoker. Now, I happen to be wearing black capris, and capris
may not be as popular anymore. They're kind of a cross between a short and a pant, and they were black. But, you know, I had on a yellow top, you know, I gotta, you know, look the part here. So I go out to the beehive and I take off the outer cover and... instantly greeted by thousands of little faces. So I smoked them. Well, oh darn, that smoker went out. Oh, I said to myself, that's okay. I'm just gonna pull one frame. I really
don't need that smoker. So a few more bees came out and at this point I got a couple of stings on top of my hand through my gloves. I wear nitrile gloves at this point of my beekeeping career. Took a couple of stings, but again, you know, it's for the kids. So I'm not done. I'm not going to give up yet. So I pull out a frame. Well, with that, anger ensued and the backs of my calves got stung. And I did what I tell children never to do. I ran like a fool to the house, flailing
my arms, being chased by thousands of bees. Well, probably not. But you know how it seems like at the time. It seems like that. So I get up to the house. They don't follow me into the garage. So what did I do? I lit my smoker. I went back out and I got that frame of me. Put it in my
observation while I took it. Determination. And I have learned now that it's probably better to grab that frame of bees in the afternoon and let them sit in the nice garage just overnight than try to risk doing it in the morning again. Oh, it's fun to learn all these lessons, isn't it? Hey, any last minute advice for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers that want
to work with kids? Get them interested. Show them the amazing thing that are honey bees children are Just blown away when they find out that that honeycomb is made from wax that the bees actually make on their own bodies that They don't have a nose yet. They have an incredible sense of smell That they don't have ears yet. They can communicate with vibration the amazing things that are Part of a honeybee are incredible things to share with children. And when they become
amazed, they become much less afraid. Great way to put it. Cindy, thank you so much for being on the show. And you know what? Thank you for reaching out to me and offering to be on the show just to let everybody know out there. If you're a plain old beekeeper or have a fun story. or want to chit chat about bees, hey, I'm always here. Shoot me an email. You can find all that in the show notes and on the website. And we would love to hear from you. And thanks again,
Cindy. Thank you, Eric. It was my pleasure to be here. And I just hope that everyone has a great day. And we always remember to be happy. Thanks again for joining us here on Be Love Beekeeping, presented by Man Lake. Remember right now to follow or subscribe and share this podcast. Also a quick shout out to Vita Bee Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control range of products includes Apistan, Apigard, and now Varroxan, Extended Release Oxalic Acid Strips. Thanks guys.
Enjoy spring everybody, enjoy your bees, 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. you