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. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping presented by our great friends over at Man Lake.
By the way, if you haven't yet, please subscribe to and follow the show, tell your friends about it and click on over to Be Love Beekeeping dot com to sign up for our free newsletter. Today's guest is a beekeeper in Connecticut and we'll be discussing everything from swarms to self -service honey stands, wild and crazy beekeeping stories. It's going to be a whole bunch of fun. But first, I loved this recent article from Environment America titled 10 ways bees are smarter than
you think. So can you think of all 10? Tell you what, here we go. Number one, bees can solve puzzles that require impressive problem solving. In one study, researchers created a box with sugar inside that could be opened by rotating a lid, but the bees had to rotate a blue lid for it to work, not the nearby red one. After trial and error, the bees learned that only the blue lid unlocked the box. Number two, bees are
math whizzes. Bees can count and discriminate up to four objects at a time, understanding that each one is separate. They can even look at two groups of objects, compare the two, and identify which group has fewer in it. Even more impressive, researchers think that bees might even understand the concept of zero, an idea that puzzled even mathematicians for many years. Okay, I better give a little bit shorter explanations or we're not gonna get through the list. Let's keep going.
Number three, some bees use tools. Number four, bees are their own GPS. When bees travel miles to faraway fields and gardens, they use the position of the sun and earth to return home with impressive accuracy. Number five, bees have dreams and daydreams.
Number six bees can teach each other think of the waggle dance Also in one experiment when one bee figured out how to solve a puzzle other bees observed the behavior and followed suit Number seven bees have their own language Again, think of the waggle dance as a great example number eight bees can recognize human faces number nine bees might even be able to play soccer? Scientists have trained bees to manipulate a small ball into a goal -like structure for a
reward of sugar. And lastly, number 10, bees experience complex emotions. bees tiny brains release dopamine and serotonin when they eat sugar, signaling happiness. And bees even feel PTSD like symptoms after traumatic events and feel more optimistic about foraging after they've found a good food source. So again, amazing, amazing, amazing. Our buddies the bees, they are just incredible. Alright, I am so happy to welcome our very special guest today, Lauren
Donninger. How are you, Laura? Good, good. Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me on. And you're in Hamden, Connecticut? Right, right outside of New Haven. East Coast of the U .S. for those that are off in another country someplace. And I appreciate you jumping on here because you were just explaining that you've been in the bee yard all day and you've been working out. Yeah. So you're not dressed up like Glamour Queen. You're like a real live beekeeper. And that's
the best part. So love that. So I want to jump into I want to talk swarms first. Sure. Because you're pretty good at catching swarms. I mean, I know that you saw that I posted in a Facebook group just I do every year. This is what a swarm looks like. If you see a swarm. Call me. I'll come get it. You can name the queen. I'll bring you the first pound of honey. Don't spray it. You know, that sort of thing, which I think is, you know, most hobbyists do that in their like
local community groups. So I posted that in a reporter, I don't know, picked up on it and thought it was a good human interest story. So I catch a few swarms a year. I have some swarm box up. But, you know, I'm not I don't have any special skill. No, that's OK. We're just regular old beekeepers here, around here. How many swarm boxes do you have up and what do they look like? I have four and they're like the 40 liter, they're
wood. A couple of years ago I got this strap and it goes around the tree and then there's a hook on it so you can hang it on and that has been a very helpful little innovation and tool
and you know I don't put them up that high. have you know I bring a six foot ladder with me and you know maybe ideally they'd be a little bit higher but I have it has to be fun I have to be able to get it and then they're just they're places where either friends who are interested or people who've called me like I've won this year it's a condo complex and they've called two years in a row with a swarm so I was like I'm bringing a box for you this year and maybe
wherever you know those bees are coming from maybe we'll catch them. So out of your boxes Just give me some kind of a ratio, like how many swarms do you catch each year? Well, I mean, I go out and in my boxes, I definitely catch probably four. Like most of the boxes catch at least one swarm. So like one swarm per box per
summer. OK. Typically, yeah. Yeah. And then in terms of going on swarm calls, I have to like I have to say no sometimes because I'm a backyard beekeeper, and I can end up with just like more bees than I can manage. But I love to go do it. And I maybe go and maybe get five or six swarms that are just a call. So on your average, how many colonies are you keeping at any one time? Right now. I think I have 15, which is a little bit more than I would like to, but I do vertical
splits. So I don't know, maybe you could call it 30 if you do it based on queens. But I do the vertical splits because I don't want to make more colonies. I don't want to do a split and then have another box at another location. So I use a Snellgrove board or a double screen board. You know, as long as you brought that up, Why don't we talk about what a vertical split is and exactly how you do it. Just kind of walk
us through the steps. Yep. So usually in the early, early spring, I overwinter usually in two deeps. And then in early spring, depending on how the colonies look, I'll get them down to one. I'll put them all down to one. Hopefully don't need to feed, but if I need to feed, I'll
feed. And then once that colony builds up in the one box, I will, I'll leave the queen, the overwintered queen, I'll leave her in the bottom box and then I'll take really all, nearly all of the frames of brood and put them in another box. So it'll be the deep with the queen and you know, I've been beheading for a while so I have a lot of resources so they don't have to make comb. The queen, I'll leave a frame of pollen, frame of honey and then empty frames.
queen excluder, honey super, then the double screen board. And on top of the double screen board, I'll put the box with all of that brood, and they'll make a queen. And the box has a series of doors on it, and I'll open one door that is
the exit for the top box. all of the bees that are oriented below will just go home to the bottom box and then the nurse bees will you know they're obviously not going to leave the brood and then as the brood emerges from that top box after about five days maybe six I will close the door and there's a little door right under it and I'll open that door so now the bees that have oriented to that top box, they're going to come back. And now it's not going to be quite the
same door. It's going to be the door below. So I'm bleeding off and giving more and more workers to the bottom box who don't have a lot of brood yet, because it took all the brood. So they don't have anything to do but make honey. And then so when I close that door, I open one on the other side, because always the top box always has a place to leave. Five or so days later, I do the same thing. And then I open the last
door for the top box. And that's the one where when the queen, the virgin queen emerges, that's the one that she's going to take her mating flights from. And at that point, and this is a lot of what I was doing today, at that point, I have really bled off the field force from the top and pumped up the field force on the bottom.
So I will sometimes say I was feeding that top box because for that virgin to be strong enough, you know, once she's mated, some of them are mated now, in order for them to really get started. Sometimes I'll give them some feed, and then I'll decide if, like, who, I'll decide who lives. Which queen am I gonna keep? Usually the new one, you know, usually the new one, and at some point I'll pinch one or the other, leave them, you know, for a few days, and then combine them,
and by then they have a big field force. That's a big responsibility, deciding who lives and who dies. It's terrible. Wow, playing God here. It's terrible. And it's terrible because, like, she's a perfectly good queen. And yeah, it's terrible. It's so hard to pinch a queen. Yeah, it's just so hard to do. And one thing I've noticed about this technique that I need to make notes for myself next year, I need to wait a little bit later because Those bottom boxes today, I
had swarm cells in those bottom boxes. So I was like, oh, that weren't supposed to swarm. I caught them. I'm so lucky. I can't believe I caught them. One of them, I had just done the manipulation, and I watched the virgin queen emerge. And she was now in the top box. It was like, they would have swarmed tomorrow for sure, because that virgin emerged. So that's how I like to do splits. So when you get swarm calls from people, how have they found you? Just from your website or
what? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think they Google. I mean, the fact that I have a website is I had a, it was a friend of my daughter's who was doing some certificate in web development. And she said, I need to build a web page. Could I build you one? I was like, yes, Megan, you can build me one. So I had tried to build one myself. not a skill I have, not a skill I want to have. And it was frustrating. And then, you know, here I got this web page. So, yeah, I think they find
it from that. Yeah, I looked at it. It looks nice. Thank you. And it has a little thing about your honey selling business. And I mean, you say you're just a hobbyist, but if you have 15 or even 10 or 20 hives, you're going to end up with a lot of honey at the end of the year. So explain to everybody how you sell it. It is very casual and you asked about like people calling me. I live in Hamden now it's like 13 years but I didn't raise my kids here so you know I didn't
really have a sense of community here. I don't work in Hamden I work in New Haven. The bees are how I ended up sort of getting to know people in the community and that has been just a particular delight. Somebody will say I have a swarm and people will say you know, yellow house honey and they'll link me. And so what I do is, it's
a self -service stand. I put the honey on the porch and there's a little welcome sign on my porch door and people, it's just a little bookshelf with glass doors and people help themselves and leave cash or do Venmo and yeah, it's really casual. I don't know, I think it's very, like obviously it's an honor system. worried about it. And I think people really like the, I don't know, just the open trust element. I have a little sign that says, if you need change and I'm not
home, short me. Don't short yourself. Absolutely short me. Or take, you know, and make some other little products. Like take something else instead. Or, you know, catch me next time. It's very local and very friendly, which I really like. Yeah, that is awesome. But I want to make sure I'm clear. This is on your front porch. You have like a closed in area with a door. It's a side porch. So my house is a little just like my logo. That's my house. It's a little yellow Cape Cod
style house. And I have a garage that has a little porch with a door on it and then When you come in the porch, the garage is on the right, but it's all closed and the house is on the left and straight out is slider to the to the bee yard. So it's just a little, you know, it's a closed in porch and people just come in and help themselves. That's great. And you sell all the honey you want to sell that way. I do. I sell out every year. I sell out. No farmers markets
or any of that kind of stuff. You know, I did. I started I did start. at farmers markets. It is rough to go to a farmers market because honey is heavy. Honey is really heavy. And if you're not at a farmers market where you can park right there, like I've been to some where you're supposed to unload and then drive away. So I haven't needed to. I admit a pet peeve of mine is that it seems all beehives are white. Yeah, boring old white.
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.com discount code show me the color. You know like the conversation and so forth at the farmers market but it's a lot of work and I've sold out so usually I sell out so I don't need to yeah. A lot of work and a little bit of money and and like they say a pound of honey weighs two pounds. Yeah. I wanted to just finish up one thing on the swarms and that is so when you get a call and you go to their house Now, you were telling me you don't do cutouts. No. Tell me why. I don't
have the carpentry skill. Yeah, I don't have the skill to. to do the cutting and I definitely don't have the skill to do the repair. And there are some, a couple of beekeepers locally. There's a woman, Erin Stevens. She's fabulous. If I get a call and I see that it needs a cutout, I'll call Erin. There's also, he's a big beekeeper. His name is Ryan Griffith. He's at Necker, Necker Farms. He might even be commercial. He does so many cutouts. So there are people who are very
good at that. I have heard of that place and I'm trying to remember if he was on the show. Ryan Griffith, he's great. And with those cutouts, I know some beekeepers that they'll either do the cutout, but then they have a handyman that they work with that comes back and fixes everything, or the handyman will actually do the cutout with them. and then they'll do the removal handyman and come back and fix it. In some states you are not even allowed to fix it unless you're
some kind of a licensed contractor. That kind of makes sense. Just letting everybody know there's Make sure you know what you're doing as far as those local laws and that kind of stuff because somebody may think, oh, oh, he's just going to make this little cut to get the bees out. But the beehive might be this big. And the next thing you know, you know, a three by six foot part of your wall is gone. And that's going to freak
out some people. So. I got a call last week from the, it's a little community theater in Waterbury and they thought that they had a swarm. They didn't, they sent me videos and I think a swarm probably landed there and there were some left behinds. But they had once before had a swarm that had gone, it was between the walls and their handyman cut it out and a beekeeper removed it and so I would do that. fellow, he was so, he was so, they were so pleasant, the people at
the theater. And if they end up with bees moving in, if there's somebody who's going to cut, then, then I would be happy to. And also depending on where it is, I'll climb a ladder, but not, you know, so high that it's, I can't be breaking a hip. I'm going to be 65. I can't be breaking a hip. Do you ever use for swarms way up in a tree, one of those poles with a bucket on it? I made one. Yeah. Oh, good. I made one. I bought a pull saw. It was a pull saw retractable thing
on Facebook. It was ancient. And the guy was worried if I knew how to use it. I said, I just need to know how to take this off because I'm attaching a five gallon bucket to it. So I've had that for three years. I drive around with it in my car and other swarm equipment. And I've not yet have gone high enough to use it. But I'm hoping for one this year. You will. You will.
It'll happen. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show when we were chatting the other day is you said you've made so many mistakes and that is how we all learn. We're going to talk about wild and crazy stories in a few minutes but give me an idea of a couple of mistakes that you've made that you learned a lot from and others
that are listening can learn from. One early mistake, I had gotten my first, I bought a nuc actually, and I had one colony, I had gone to bee school in the winter, and now it was early spring, and I got a nuc, and I was having my yard fenced in, and the timing worked out that where I wanted to put the bees, Like they couldn't put the fence in and then I had learned in bee school that like don't move them more like three
feet is the max. So I set up the hive and I put it in a wheelbarrow and then I moved it a little bit every day. And by the time I got those bees to where I wanted them, they were mad and aggressive. And it was not fun. So I was like, I'm not doing this. This is not a fun hobby. Why would anybody do this? I can't even step in my backyard. I'm getting stung in Connecticut. Maybe it's true elsewhere. You can't sell bees without having the bee inspector come. So I called the bee inspector.
He's like, I don't want to do this. Come inspect. And he walks into my backyard. He's like, ah, is it always like this? I was like, yes, I don't want to do it. He's like, you need a new queen. Which I didn't know. And this is not. something the B inspector typically does, but it was just a dumb luck circumstance that the experiment station is like two miles from me, and he had an extra queen. And he went and got a queen, and he replaced it, and I was good to go. I had
rattled them up, right? Like they had had an earthquake every day as I moved them. So that's a mistake I won't make again. And then I overwintered barely successfully. The queen was there, and they were alive, but the cluster was so small. So I started another package and wanted to balance them. So the new package, they start laying, and I knew that you should give eggs. I didn't know, and the nurse bees. So I thought like if you put bees in a hive with a queen that isn't
their queen, then it'll be war. I have this week week hive. I'm supporting this new package and I gave this fabulous frame of larvae and eggs like just the new queen had done magnificent work and I put it in that overwintered and they ate it all because they were you know I didn't you don't know you don't know I didn't know I need to leave the nurse bees on never made that mistake again although a story related related, just like how nice the beekeeping community is.
It's probably everywhere. It's really nice in Connecticut. There are three bee clubs in Connecticut. I belong to Connecticut Beekeepers Association. I can't begin to say enough good things about the organization and the leadership. I had overwintered. They were barely alive. I had wasted the frame of brood and larva by not putting in the nurse bees. I wanted to have survival. And I started calling beekeepers on the list saying, can I buy a frame from you? And this beekeeper in the
next town, his name is Ray Sala. I don't think I've ever seen him again, but, you know, I see his name. He's like, oh, you're a new beekeeper. I'll bring you a couple of frames. He brought me frames of overwintered brood. And he gave it to me. I mean, of course I offered to pay for it. He gave it to me. And that was my first overwinter experience, which, you know. They didn't really survive. They wouldn't have. But yeah. Beekeepers are the best people. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. Yeah. The other bee clubs, besides the Beekeepers Association, there's, I think it's called Eastern Connecticut. The person who runs that is Adam Fuller. He is phenomenal. If you're looking for a guest, he's great. And have you interviewed Bill Hesbeck yet? No. Bill Hasbeck, he's the president of Connecticut Beekeepers Association, which is one I belong to, and he does a lot of research. Actually, I use Bill's... condensing hive. He's published a lot in Connecticut
Bee Journal. I mean, American Bee Journal. He runs, it's called Bee Talks, the second or third Thursday of the month. It used to be in person before COVID. It was so much better in person. But, you know, it's been online since. But which, you know, is accessible for more accessible for a lot of people. And then there's also backyard beekeepers. I'm not as familiar with them. Connecticut Beekeeper is quite a resource. fabulous resource. I'll have you send me their information later.
I will. And hopefully everybody's excited about hearing from those guests. I'll reach out to them. Thank you for the referral on that. Sure. All right. Every beekeeper has had some kind of wild and crazy beekeeping story. I swear I have one every single time I'm out with the bees. So can you think of one or two that you want to share with us? The first year that I got honey, which was probably my third year, I was aware of, you know, how carefully I have to be about
robbing. And I took the frames out one by one, took, you know, used smoke, used a brush, got all the beads, like ran to the side porch, stacked them all up, like very meticulously, very carefully. And then it was a few days. I had to work and it was a few days before I could extract. And I was... so mindful of shutting that slider door.
I have a dog, so I'd let the dog out, shut that slider door, and it was probably, I don't know, maybe it was gonna be like four, it was four or five days that I am religiously shutting this slider door. So these frames of honey are actually in part of the house. They're on the side porch where the honey stand is. That's the porch. There's a separate door that goes into the house. And about how many frames? Easily 20, maybe. Oh, probably more. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was
my fourth year. I had them in boxes and there were many boxes. All right. This all sounds so safe. No problem. I don't know where the crazy part's going to come in. I went to a little family event, came home. It was dark. I stepped onto the porch with my dog. And it was like I was in another universe. I didn't know what was happening. It was like a roar of an engine that was crunching under my feet. I'm reaching, trying to open the house door. When I open the house door, I'd left
the slider open. was mayhem. I mean, it was terrible that the honey was gone, but like the number of dead bees, ugh. I mean, it was just a, it was massive death. It was terrible. They were, you know, just, it took so long to clean up. They got in the house because when I came home, I opened the house door and they were all in the door because there was a light further in the house. So they're, you know, on the door and I opened it into the house. It took a long
time to clean up. And then for days, these were just dive bombing the slider. Just dive bombing. Like we know that that honey is in there. Oh, gosh, that is a mistake. I don't think I'll make again. Yeah, I have one kind of similar. This is this is not a one up you in any way, shape or form. The first time that I harvested honey was a little three frame crank extractor. Right. And everything went smoothly. And when I was done, I knew, oh, put the extractor outside,
let the bees come clean it out. Oh, what a wonderful idea. I'm going to do that. And we have a large front porch and I and it was, you know, end of a long day after extracting and stuff. So I I carry this out with the lid off and I take it out the front door and just set it right there on the front porch. And like tomorrow. You know, I'll come move it someplace, but didn't think anything of it. Well, tomorrow, yes, nobody could get near the front of our house at all. It was
hilarious. I'm thinking, I've always wanted to keep the neighbors away. Anyway, so yes, in the middle of the night, the next night, I then took it out to the middle of the front lawn where it was just fine. And we learned from those little lessons and everything's fine and it's okay. So for new beekeepers... Don't feel bad when you make a mistake. And sometimes we kill our bees and that feels horrible. Just make sure you learn something from it to help you be a
better beekeeper in the future. Last question I have for you. You seem like someone that loves bees. I don't love bees. Tell me why. You know, I love bees. their democracy. I love Tom Seeley's book, Honey Bee Democracy. I love it so much. I love the biology. They're endlessly fascinating to watch. And then of course, you know, they're beautiful, especially when they have pollen pants. Pollen's so beautiful. And then we eat because
of them. Yeah, I love them. And speaking of Tom Seeley, he's been on the show a couple of times I love that book and I love him. He is just the sweetest gentleman Yeah, for those that have had a chance to know him. You're you're lucky. It's not just his knowledge He's just really a good person. Yeah, I've enjoyed getting to know him anything else you want to share with us before I let you go This is probably just
a broken record. I would say though. I talked about a lot about I mean, I have a lot of failures. I could talk about a lot more failures. But I have had really good overwintering success. Like last year and this year both, I had 100 % survival. I treat for mites. I am on top of the mites. And I think that often beekeepers will... Like, they don't know that they should go to bee school. They see, like, the Flow Hive commercials and think, oh, I just put this box in my yard. That's
all there is to it. And then their bees die and they're sad and they find bee school. I don't know, my number one piece of advice is just you have to treat for mites. I mean, if you're living in a place where your bees aren't going to interact with other bees and so you think you want to sort of get the evolution of... you know, you'll have a lot of die off and then they'll be more mite resistant. But if you're living in a place like Connecticut, it's not just your decision.
There's everybody else's bees they're going to interact with. So treat the mites. So you don't do anything special as far as wrapping your hive or insulating? I do. Yeah, what else do you do? I use, so Bill Hesbeck published a number of years ago in American Bee Journal, condensing hives. I never have upper ventilation. All year round, my inner cover doesn't have a notch. And I have a piece of faux insulation and then the
outer cover. So I have that all year round. In the winter, I have that condensing hive that Bill Hesbeck published about. Also includes, it's like a sleeve. It's a box that's basically four sides of insulation that sits. right over the hive, and then the outer cover is much bigger and insulated. So I have a number of those, but I don't have enough for all of them, and really I've had the same survival with the sleeve and without the sleeve. I put the sleeve on my row
that doesn't get as much morning sun. There's another row that gets more sun, so they're the ones that don't get the sleeve. But I think not having ventilation. Bees in a bee tree don't make an upper entrance, right? You know, if you ask five beekeepers you get six different opinions, but no ventilation on the top ever for me. That
is such a crazy thing. I've talked to so many experts on both sides of the equation on that one, so my recommendation is for people try it one way, try it another way, see what works for you, because what works for you may not work for me and And I know, I totally get it, but making sure you don't have a bad mite load going into fall, that is a universal principle. Yep. Now what you use to take care of that, we're not going to tell you what to do. There's a lot
of different things. And I'm just going to add to that. Don't wait till Halloween to say, oh, I'm too late. I'm going to test for mites and I'll throw a treatment in there if it needs it. What did you just say? Too late. Too late. When do you need to be on top of them? I mean, all year. You need to be on top of them all year. But August, that's when you're really starting to think about the winter bees. But all year. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure Bill would like to talk
to you about the condensing hive. Should look at his article. I'll talk to Bill. Lauren, you've been awesome. Thank you for joining me today. And please keep in touch. Thank you so much. It was really a pleasure talking with you. Thanks again for joining us on Be Love, Be Keeping presented by Man Lake. Another big thank you goes to Vita B Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control Ranger products includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acids Trips.
Hey thanks a lot guys. And if you haven't yet, please subscribe to and follow the show, tell your friends about it, and click on over to BeLoveBeKeeping .com to sign up for our free newsletter. If you have a guest suggestion, or topic you'd like discussed on the show, shoot me an email, eric at be love beekeeping dot com. 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.