Interview with Paul & Kyle from Texas Bee Supply

Katie r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip rictor It's sho Crazy Trip. Just watch him as the septazy gas not a Simon credits. Well, Hello, and welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening today. And as I've been telling you this morning, we have some folks from the b Supply here today and we're gonna be talking about bees

for the next hour. So if you have questions, anything you want to know about bees or be keeping, we're going to be giving you a lot of information. And in fact, if you are not even a beekeeper or thinking about being one, you're going to want to hear about this. The wonderful world of bees is something that every time I learn more about it, it just fascinates me. It's it is amazing with those little creatures, what they can do. I want to welcome Paul to the show. Paul from

the Supply in Data and Texas. Tell us about the be supply. Okay, we basically we supply bees. We have lots lots of bees. We sell beekeeping products to beekeepers. We really focus mostly on the hobby beekeepers right at the store, and so we we the thing that we really pride ourselves on is all of our education that we do. We have lots of classes we have you know, anytime someone wants to come in and talk about bees, we're there. We're happy to do that, answer questions and and it's

it's really our goal to have everybody be successful. Well, I I picked that up the first time I was out there. I just got the sense of it's not like a shop. We're here, go buy some stuff and I go leave us alone. You welcome people coming back and asking you eight hundred questions. I know that must get old at times, but you understand what it's like being a new bee keeper and it's like I need help here,

I need more information than you guys. Just provide that service after the sale and on and on, because you know, if they're successful, then everybody's happy. Right, Yeah, that's our goal. We'll do a good job of that. We'll think. I like the classroom you guys have set up in there. That's kind of nice where people can come in and do some in the store education. And then you got bees outside where I guess

you take them. Tell us a little bit about like if I were interested in becoming a be keeper, would what would it mean to go to a class there? Well, you can. We have classes. We'll have classes at least once a month from January through November during and then during b season from I guess February through June, will have two classes a month, and it's a it's a pretty much an all day class on a Saturday, but

we do spend time. It's it's the beginning beekeeping class, and that's what we'd really recommend because we do cover all the basics and really help set a good foundation for beekeeping. And then in the afternoon we will put on our beekeeping suits and go out into the b yard and let the participants actually do high inspections for themselves and see what they need to look for. And while we're out there helping answer questions and guide them as they do that. And

it's been a it's been a really good class. Kyle and I both teach the class, and we've had we've had a lot of good reviews from from the class, and so we're we're we love teaching that class and seeing the success that people have. Well, you know, I kept bees for a while back in Willis, Texas up North Conroy area. I had bee hives and took care of him. And when I went into the store, I

visited with you guys. I don't know, it's probably an hour or more, and I learned so much more about bees just in talking to you. It's like it's an unending topic of information and fascination. I just I just think it's great. Yeah, there's there's there's always something to learn. Yeah. One of the things, and I probably have said this to you myself, but one of the things that amazes me is that when you think about what bees are able to do. We think of bees as well, they

make honey, But what's involved in that? And you open up a beehive and you have all these little six sided cells that are in perfect lines, straight lines across the combe, and they do all that in the dark. I couldn't draw that with a pen with light shining down on the paper, and yet these guys are working in the dark and they do all that perfectly. And the whole process of taking from an egg all the way to an

adult bee. Could you talk to us a little bit about how how that happens, Like an egg is laid, and what are the what are the workers and everybody do that makes that bee turn into what it's going to turn into. I'm kind of leading you into the okay. Well, whenever the queen lays the egg, the first thing is she can lay her body weight and a half every day in eggs, up to two thousand eggs a day.

And so the first three days of bee's existence, the older, the bees that are two weeks old ten to her, and then after that the younger bees take care of her. The reason why for the first three days they feed the egg roll jelly, which is again without going into a lot of bee biology, it's female hormone, okay, And so it turns the eggs fully into females. And then they continue growing up for twenty one days that they're in the egg in the cell, and then the day that they're

emerged. The thing that's so fascinating to me about bees is from that moment on they are working. They literally are cleaning the cells around them before they're even born. Wow. And then so they they come back into the cell that they were just hatched out of and they clean it some other bees come in and they reline it and within about three or four hours in the springtime, there'll be another egg in that safe. Right after they hatch out,

they have to clean their room. I mean that teenagers that are listening to this, it's not as tough as you think. You're saying how many times their weight. That'd be like a lady having what twelve to fifteen babies a day. Yeah, that's an accomplishment right there every day. Wow, that what a reproductive potential. That's amazing. Yeah. So basically what I always say is is bee lived six weeks. They the first week they clean and

ten for the for the young. The second week they ten for the young, The third week they make wax, the fourth week they learn how to fly, the fifth week they do fly, and the sixth week they die. Wow. That we're gonna I hate to stop it in the middle, but you talk about a teaser. We'll be right back. I've got to take a break for a commercial. But those six weeks is an amazing I want to come back to that right when we get back. Hey, you're

listening to garden line. I am visiting with folks from the bee supply today and we're gonna talk all about bees. If you got any questions, call us at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight to seventy four. If you've got a question about bees, be keeping, the world of bees, we're talking about all

that kinds of stuff. Uh, just before we went to break, we were talking about the steps of the bees, the stages of the bees life, like a week doing this. Would you repeat that and then let's continue a little bit with that. Okay. So one of the first things is in the springtime, about eighty five to ninety percent of the bees in a bee hive or female. Male bees really don't have any purpose other than being male bees. They can't they can't grow pollen, they can't make honey,

they don't have stingers, they can't defend the hive. So there's really no purpose other than reproduction. And so bees are so incredibly efficient that the queen literally won't make male bees. And she has that choice. She can decide before she lays the egg if that egg's going to be male or female. How does she decide that she turns her semen sacks on and off? Are you kidding me? Oh? Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. So the joke in the bee businesses is a male bee has a grandfather but has no

father. And the reason why is so because the queen has a father, but there's no semen in makeing a male bees, so it doesn't have a father. And so that sounds like a country song. Go ahead, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that. It's just the first thing that came to mind. Well, the old hill Billy and Me comes out right

there, but yeah, we'll leave that one on the table. So but anyway, so the as the the bees age, different metamorphosis happens in their bodies and they and they do different things, and so they can go backwards, but they can't go forwards. So like if if something happens in a beehive and you don't have one week two week o bees, a three week o bee can come back and feed the the eggs, but not as efficiently

as they can. And so that's the reason why different ways of getting easier because you have all six ages of bees, and so the first week of their life, they're able to they're not able to make royal jelly, so they feed the eggs that are older that don't need role jelly, and then the second week of their life, they can produce roll jelly, which comes from a secretion from behind their heads, and they feed the bees roll jelly. Now, to make a queen, they have to feed them that role

jelly the entire time that they're in the egg. And that's what makes the queen super female. So instead of it just being a worker female, they feed it that way, and suddenly it turns into a queen and they make the little cell bigger for that. They do make a special sale for her so that she can hold her whole reproductive organs because the rest of the of the bees. Again that's a forty five minute discussion, but a normal every

day can't lay a reproductive bag. She can never be a queen. And so then after the third week they start making wax and they and they produce all the wax that the hive needs, and they can't really control it, so they have to make wax. And so that's the reason why you'll see wax and a hive that's that's not really doesn't have a purpose because they're like kids. They're chewing bubble gum and they got to put it somewhere. They just stick it places, so generally they do put it where they need it

to be. And then the fourth week of their life they do their orientation flight and they start learning how to fly and where they live, and because where they live is critically important because they have to go back to their home. They're not they're not welcome back in any other hive around. And then the fifth week of their life they actually do go out and start forging, and they will everything the hive needs. They'll make honey, and they'll make

profl which is like bee calk and what keeps the eye sterile. They also gather water, and then, unfortunately, the sixth week of their life, generally the ones that do make it to be six weeks, which is probably about one percent of the bees. Oh wow, the birds get a lot of them, cars get them, pest aside and all the other things. They become guard bees and they also carry the dead bees out of the hive,

and that's really all they do. And then they die. So you ask while ago, which is quite kind of fascinating to me how honey is actually made. So the forger bees go out and they gather the little part of them drop of honey, and they bring it back to the hive, and they go mouth to mouth with another bee and they pass it mouth to mouth like a bucket brigade. Then that bee swallows it and puts the enzyme

of the age of bee that she has in that drop little honey. Okay, Then they bucket bagated over to another bee, and it continues bucket brigading up until it moves up to the honey cell. But each one of those bees is a different age, and each one of them swallows it, and

each one of them has a different set of enzymes in their mouth. And so generally anywhere from seven to eighteen bees will swallow that drop of honey before it makes it actually into that cell, and each one of them will add another little piece of that honey to change the flavor profile and add the microbials and all the other things that that honey actually needs. Wow, And I've never heard that one. I just assumed one bee brought it in. I

always think it's interesting. I've asked gardners before. I said, you know, bees get nectar and they make honey. But you've ever seen a bee

carrying a sack or a bottle? No, And there's only one way into an organism, and there's two ways out of an organism, and neither of them is a very pleasant thing to think about as to where you're a honey comes from that those bees are ingesting the nectar into a special stomach that they then regurgitate out and you're saying, pass it along through several bees before it ends up as honey. Honey is an amazing substance too. Maybe we can get to that in a minute. I want to talk a little bit about

some of the things you guys are going on. I know you have something called a concierge service, and I'd like to hear a little bit about that out at the bee supply well. So the concierge service is really going to be for people who like who would like to get and ag valuation or were commonly known as an aag exemption on their property, but they don't necessarily want to work bees or any livestock or anything like that. So what we would

do is we would come out and put the hives. The number of hives that the County requires on the property and maintain the boxes and just completely take care of them for the for the customer. Oh wow. And then we would give a detailed about what the hives produced, since that's a part of it. They do have to be able to produce things. We would give a detailed letter to the landowner about that so they could continue having that evaluation on their property. Wow. And so it's a it's it's a new thing

that we're that we're looking at doing. And Kyle would probably be the main one going out and working the hives and taking care of all that. But it's because we've had a lot of people ask over the years if we do that, and so I finally decided that, you know, hey, let's let's do it. So yeah, that's a great idea. That's amazing. Well, so if someone listening is interested in maybe becoming a beekeeper, what would you recommend? And I know they need to come and take a class

and things, but what are what's some of the basic set up? We've got about two and a half minutes here for the next break. What are some of the basic setup that they would need to come in and do? What would what would you say step one, two three. Whatever they need. Well, first thing is, of course, you know you need to

find out if you know that you need bees. And so what we would do is is different bees, have different species of bees that which all have different characteristics, and we'll just pick out a bee that works best for you for what you want it to do. So a honey bee is not a honey bee. There's a lot of there's some variations. So tell us just a little bit about what that means. Okay, So like different what the

analogy I use is just easier for people to understand. You can eat a whole steing cow and milk and angus, but you're not going to be very successful at it. Gotcha. Well, bees are the same way, good earth. There's some bees that are better at making honey, some bees are better suited for living in town. Some bees are better suited for living in the country because of their temperament and all the other things that they do. And so that's kind of the way that we do it now. I mean,

again, it's as easy as working with cows. There's all different types of bees, and all different bees have different characteristics, and so whatever characteristics you're looking for, we can make that bee do that. And so after you find the bees, we will get you protected. People ask me every day do you get stung? I do, But I'm not very smart. Whenever I teach a bee keeper, I teach them not to be stung.

But you know, I'm an ol'hill billy in so I get kicked by cows pretty often too, you know, but you don't have to, but I take unnecessary risk. And so but you know, that's the thing that people ask about getting stung. And really I'd rather be bit by bee than stung by a fire in any day of the week, because it's a whole lot less. You know, people think about, you know, when I'm gonna put bees in your backyard that I'm gonna put I'm gonna put sixty thousand wasp

in your backyard. A huge difference. I have battled a red wasp and I've been stung be honey bees more than one on and yeah, there's yeah, it's not in day difference, No, not day difference. Well, that is interesting. I want to come back to the circle though, so as people come in, you probably have a little we have about thirty seconds here about a little setup, right that like here, here's what you need. Here's your options. We can say some bees, we can say hive

and everything. When we come back from break, I'd like to talk a little bit about what are the basic options for getting started in that? Will you give the phone number for your store? Do you have that on top of your head? I kind of catch you, catch you off guard. If not, I here, I'll grab it. Yeah, it's uh it's eight hundred three five six four two two nine. And the Dayton store is Extension three. Eight hundred said again, eight hundred three five six four two

two nine, and the Dayton store is Extension three. All right, we want to take Nikki in the news and we'll be right back to talk more about bees. Our number if you'd like to call and ask about bees seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to garden Line. Boy Josh is doing a heck of a job playing bee music as we come in here. Listen. If you are looking for a quality nursery that has a lot of different kinds of things that you just can't live without,

that is buchanans native plants in the heights. If you can't specialize in native plants, but they got everything, I mean all kinds of things from house plants. By the way, they still have plenty of Christmas trees on the lot. Get you set up with that, as well as wreaths and other things. But you just need to check them out. And those native plants I got some cool stuff. Like next time you're by there, ask them

about their rough leaf dogwood. That's different than the East Texas dogwood. This is a very drought hardy Texas native that is just beautiful and by the way, it even has good fall color, the rough leaf dogwood. Now, Buchanans is on Eleventh Street in the Heights and their website is Buchanansplants dot com. You need to stop by there. They're open Today, be a good day to get out and do that. I think what we're going to do next here is go talk to Angel and Conro. Hello, Angel, are

you there? Yes, I'm here. How can we help today? I would like to know how many hives it would take to produce or how many how many how much honey would each hive? Does each hive produce? All right? Good question, le right. Well, one thing is we're lucky in this part of the of the state. This is what the beekeepers call the Golden Triangle of honey, and so we make more honey in this part

of the state than to do any other part of the state. Generally, what I would say is is a good strong bee hive is going to make you somewhere between forty and one hundred pounds of honey per year. And a pound is like a pint of honey. Or how does it? How does volume wise? Sixteen ounces? About sixteen ounces roughly? Okay, yeah, so that's about yeah, sixteen ounces. And that's an o hard translations for bees, because we bee keepers we sell pounds on hunting, right but be

but consumers buy ounces of honey. So that's that's always tricky for us. People ask while ago, how much honey will one bee make? Yes, and so in a bee's six weeks life span, they will make a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in the whole life of the worker, in their whole, entire life of the work. So how many did you were sand? That was? How many bees does it take to make a pound of

honey? So if if my math is correct on that, I think I figured up it's one fifty two bees to make one pound work work in their whole six week life. Yeah, make a pound makes you appreciate that pound of honey absolutely So you were saying that, But a typical hive here, assuming it's a decent year, is going to produce how many pounds between forty and one hundred pounds. It's a lot of honey. Angel, Can you eat that much? You have no idea. I go through one or two

pounds a week. I mean, I'm baked with it. I have it in my tea. I love it. Well. I think you need to slap a label on it. And you've got Angel's perfect Christmas gift for friends and family right there, the Angel Honey Company. Hey, thank you. I appreciate the call. I appreciate that very much. That is pretty amazing. So if someone is coming in and they're going, Okay, I want to get started, What do I need to buy? What kind of equipment

do I need? What's the starting I know there's you know a lot of answers to that, but basically, what do I need to get going? Actually there's really not. That's the funny thing about bees. The hive that ninety percent of people run was built by doctor Langford in the early eighteen hundreds, and we're still running that exact same bee hive every day, the same

box, the same box. Looking at some of my granddad and great granddad's equipment, I think we're still running some of that stuff in my face. But anyway, the same exact box. And it's American standard. And so if you decide to get a box and then you want to go to some of the other boxes that all the equipment still entered locks with each other. It all works. It's all standardized sizes. And so if you were to get computer manufacturers to do that, yeah, that wouldn't that be great.

So if you were going to get into bees, basically all that all that you do is is you just get a box of bees. And unfortunately it is extremely precise on because what we refer to as as bee travel is an eighth of an inch, and so it's pretty hard to make a box. But you can buy a box pretty easy, and so you really only have

a few options on the way that a box is configured. And so then you get your boss and then basic a couple of basic hand tools and some basic protection and all that's in different levels and how much protection and how much time you want to actually spend in your bees. And so in reality, it's actually a reasonably cheap hobby to get started in. There's not a cheap hobby out there, and so you can spend as much money or as little money as you want to and just depending on how much you know you want

to get into your bees. So it'd be easy to kind of start small and work work your way into it. We have a call from Mike. Let's go. I think Mike has a question about b B breeds. Hello, Mike, are you there, Mike? Hello, Yes, sir, Yes, sir, i do have a question about the best breed. I've my wife and I have tried Italian bees a few times and we've lost our hives either they've warmed or something else. But what we've lost those hides and we're trying to to set in. Part of the issue why we did Italian

was that that I have a moderate allergy to bees. My wife actually takes care of the bees for the most part. We'd heard that maybe re requeening with a Texas uh bee and making a hybrid would be good. What what would you suggest? The first thing is is the breed of bee probably wasn't your problem. That goes back to what we were talking about earlier with classes mentors. What probably happened was the bees probably got sick and left, or

I mean that's generally what happened is they got sick and left. But a Texas breed is better. One of the one of them that we run is called the Texas five thousand, and it's simply spectacular bee, but it's an Italian Carnolian cross. I would tell you that I would either run a probably a Carnolian bee. It's a little bit more docile than an Italian bee.

All right? Does that helped me? And and they're hardy there. They're gonna tolerate maybe some some disease or something a little bit better or mites or yeah, better than the Italian. I'm out the saying most all your commercially purchased bees are going to have the might resistance in them. But you're still going to have to address that in some way. All right, Mike, we're gonna have to run to a break if you want to hang on, if you got to follow up, you're welcome to do that. But thank

you, thank you very much for that call. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We are visiting with Paul and Kyle from the b Supply and we'll be right back. Well goo ahead after or good morning. Still you're listening to Guardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to answer your gardening questions. It is. Our

phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Right now we're talking about bees uh with Paul and with Kyle from the Bee's Supply company. Hey, someone called earlier about a tree problem and I was telling them about Martin spoon Moore, an affordable tree service. Now Martin has been doing this for a very long time. He He's got decades of experience taking care of Houston's tree So if you need something done, you need to call

Martin Spoon Moore. The number is seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Listening someone comes to trim your trees. If they don't know what they're doing, they have messed those trees up for a lifetime. I've seen botch jobs all the time. Trees look like hat racks. They weren't proune properly. And you can try to help the tree back, but it's never going to be the same. Don't do that. Just because they own a pickup truck and have a business card to sticking your door does not make

them a tree person. Call Martin seven to one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three, or go to the website aff Tree Service dot com. You need to call him soon though, telling me from the garden line. That puts you at the front of their line. And he's already booking things up for the wintertime. And so get on the schedule now, even if you're not going to get the work done until later, go ahead and get on the schedule. Because someone that does things right and treats their customers right,

they stay busy. That's how that's how life works. And that is certainly true of Martin an Affordable Tree. We're gonna go now back to Mike out here, and I think Mike you had a follow up question. Uh,

yes, sir. As far as trying to maintain the health of the bees, how often should you be getting into that hive to maintain God would say every two weeks or sos ok, yeah, daring be season now this time of year, most everybody's got their bees what we call lockdown, and so if it's about sixty five degrees, you can get into your bees, but if it starts getting below sixty five degrees, you really need to leave

a bee. I've closed and there's not really much happening there this time of year, but in April through June or July, you should be in it every couple of weeks at least, especially until you know really what you're looking at. Okay, I'm sorry, going to keep bugging you. One last thing. So different sources talk about feeding your bees versus not feeding your bees, and what's your take on that. My take on that is is it's livestock. And so if your bees are are healthy and wealthy and wise,

then you don't really have to feed them much. But if they have ran into some kind of problem or or human intervention has kept them from it, then you do need to feed them. I've spent in the last two months making a sugar brick that we feed through the winter that's got all types of nutrition and different things, and it's like a bee super feed and so we but if your bees are healthy, they should be able to be self sufficient. So if they're having to be fed. Don't just throw food on them.

You need to find out what's wrong with them and why they're not self sufficient. Well that's good, that's good, Mike, thank you. I appreciate that call very much. And along those lines, you guys, if someone didn't buy their bees from me, they didn't buy their highes from you, they can still come out to the store and ask you any question because you're not about just selling my product. You're about helping them. And so I just want to make that point, you know, for Mike or anyone

out there, that's what you're there for. I mean, if they got a hundred questions, just come on out and y'all will help them. Right. Oh. Absolutely. We are a family owned in Texas, own business, and the man that owns our company. The chances are really good that Blake's out somewhere to day talking about bees, and and I travel all around the state and the country talking about bees. And it's a pretty good drive

out to Dayton. But we made a really pretty store out there, So we're okay with you staying a couple of hours and and sitting and talking with us and and but that's what we do. Yeah, we talk about that store, and when we come back from the next braavey that that's true. Yeah, we're we're out there, just really wanting to talk about bees. I made the joke to Skip when I came in here. He said,

we're going to talk about bees. I said, that's reason when my wife won't go anywhere with me, because wherever I'm at, I'm going to talk about bees. There you hit me an opportunity. I'm going to talk about bees. All right. Well, we're going to run out now to Spicewood and we're going to talk to Clara. Clara, believe you have a question

this morning. Hello, Hello, we're here, Kay, Yes, I have a question on I'm new to bees, and they were just kind of dumped on us in a sense because we weren't used to doing it's never done bees. But the lady you brought him is not here, not with me anymore. I guess that might bees. Uh. All of these are on one on the upper on one side of the hives, there's the lower.

On the bottom four slats there's no bees and there's no no activity. And on the other five there might they might be working on four slats and those slats are covered with bees. Is that normal? Well, at the health of your bee houve is in Without actually looking at it, I got bad news for you. The bees are probably on their way out, so the bees are going to stay together. So yes, ma'am, that is normal for the amount of bees that's in that Beehi. The problem is is there's

probably not enough bees in there to make it out of winter. Oh really, yes, ma'am. I mean you may so, but without looking at it, I don't know. I we'll say this so while while we're here,

it's a good point to ask it. We do make house calls and if you have bees that are that are having problems or whatever, I'll travel out and we'll and we'll look at like a like a vet house call, and so we'll make the call out and then I can tell you how to how to work your bees and and actually teach you how to work them. But oh, that would be awesome, Yes, ma'am. Just call us there at the story and we'll set something up and see if we can't help

you out with that. Okay, okay, you have that number right? Yeah? Okay, Oh, that would be awesome. I certain got and I will have both of my helpers share with me, so we can you know, yes, ma'am. And like I said, we're all here for the craft and we're gonna we're gonna help take care of the bees. Okay. The end result of this is we don't have the bees, we don't have the human race. Keeping the bees alive is all of our responsibility,

right, And they helped us some. I mean, our production for the garden this year was so much better than what it's been in the past, and I attributed that to our bees. You know, yes, m that's true. Unfortunately they had to deal with an amateur. Uh. Well, we'll get You've called the right place and we're gonna get you fixed up. Thank you, Clara. And I just want to give that phone number out again. That is one eight hundred three five six four two two nine Extension

three. One eight hundred three five six four two two nine Extension three. And it's Texas B Supply, Texas B Supply out in Dayton. So you I did not know you did. House calls you you're going to wear your tires off. Kyle is our detective. He sounds like the bees. That's good, funny, that's excellent. Well, I tell you we've got good night. We're down to Oh my gosh, we're down to no time right now. We're going to take a break. We're at the top of an

hour's time for the news. You are listening to garden Line and I'm visiting with Kyle and Paul. We've got to get Paul back on here from THEB Supply out in Dayton, Texas. We're talking about everything bees. If you have all call Josh, it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let him get you on the board and you will be first. When we come back. We're going to go into a little bit more about bees, some of the information on the classes that they have on some of

the tours. We haven't talked about the tours, and that is something you have got to check out. And the observation hive indoors. I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember growing up and driving down the road and Nickerson Farns and stuckies in those kind of places, sometimes you'd see a bee hive in the wall where you could watch them work. And I grew up as a kid doing that. Uh, they got something much better than that at the B Supply and we're going to tell you about it when

we'll come back. Katie r h. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with Skip Richter. It's crazy trip. Just watch him as thanks to sept Crazy Jumped not a sadd Welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to talk about gardening. Right now, we're talking about one aspect of gardening, and that is

taking care of bees. Now, I realize you don't have to be a gardener to have bees, but those of us who grow vegetables and fruit know the value that bees bring and how that can increase our produce. So I think every garden should have a little set of bees in the back. By the way, there are laws in Texas regarding bee keeping and things, and

most people don't realize you can keep bees in the city of Houston. Absolutely tell us a little bit about like, if someone's interested in maybe keeping some bees, getting set up and doing that, what would you recommend that they do just to check into things, Well, you can come out and you know, just take a class or take one of our tours there at the store and find out if it's something that you're really interested in. And then

once you get there, then you know. There's two really nice bee clubs here in the city of Houston, and they're great programs, and go to one of their meetings and find out, you know, just what people are doing. Come out and actually come in a beehive. If you want to come out to the store and open a beehive and the weather's from itating, I'll surely dress you up and walk you out there and let you walk into

a set of bees. And I've literally never had anybody when I dressed them and got them in the bees come back and say, you know, I don't think that's what I want to do. It's an extremely calmon feature about bees, and so the apprehension of raising bees goes away almost immediately, right. That's something people just have the experience to be able to understand that.

So if anyone's interested, you were still taking orders now for bees. We talked about different strains of bees, and you guys can help match them to the strain that they need. But you're taking orders now out there and tell us a little bit about your classes too that you have going on. So our main class that we have is that beginning class that we talked about earlier, and that's the one we primarily have, but we've just added several new

classes that we're really excited about and looking forward to. That one that we've had for a while is a splits class, So it's kind of a second year beekeeping class when you make a split out of a hive, so basically make two hives out of one. Okay, we'll teach you how to do that. We also in the summer, we'll have a honey extraction class where we teach you how to extract honey and how to pull the high pull the boxes off, get the bees out of it, uncap the honey, put

it in an extractor, so we'll we'll teach you all that. We're also having some more artisan type classes where we'll have a meat making class. We're going to have a candle making class, wax wax class, wax rendering class is what we're having. And so so yeah, we're having lots of classes fun where we can teach you how to do some of those things and and

help help beekeepers like their hobby even more. Now now, you were doing the the beginner's classes about once a month, and is that going to continue at about a once a month schedule. It'll be, Yeah, it's on. It's at least once a month from January through November and then February through June. We have two classes a month. Yeah, and those are all on our website. People can sign up on the website and see all the different classes. And that website, folks, is thebesupply dot com. Thebesupply

dot com. You also have the honey tours. Tell us a little bit about the honey tour, and this would be somebody I don't care, I don't want to ever keep bees. I just want to learn about it and have fun. Tell me about a honey tour. How do we go about that? Well, you can also register for that online. We typically have those on the first Saturday of the month during be season. There may be a couple of saturdays where we can't do it, but typically it's the first

Saturday of the month. And it's just a very very basic introduction to bees. So we'll talk a little bit about what bees do. We'll let's taste different types of honey, and then we'll take you over to our observation hive and let you see the bees actually in action and try to explain a little bit about what's going on there. And the best part about the honey tours

is are absolutely free and so yeah, so yeah, bring brings. It's a good family thing or I mean if you have a garden club or a church group, or you know some kind of school group, boy scout troup, school group whatever. Yeah, so yeah, that's great. It's great science for kids too, because they're going to learn a lot about that world. We've been talking about that. Every time I talk to you guys, I learned something else about bees. So yeah, we had what four or

five hundred uh school kids come through tours last year. Those were all private and so but we but we still anytime we get an opportunity to talk to the community about bees and just anything we can do to help the community with bees, where we're always willing to and give us a shot and to someone has a group, well we'll do tours midweek. They don't have to be on a Saturday. We can do tours midweek as well. They just have to give you a call out there, get set up for it. Well,

that's fun. When I went out to the store, just seeing all the equipment number one was fascinating. But you guys have a lot of I don't know, bee bling if you will. I mean from T shirts to honey, to different kinds of cosmetics made from I bought a cream, kind of a facetop cream thing made out of bee products. And you guys just have a lot of fun stuff out there. It's not just a warehouse full

of bee stuff. And there's a lot more of that coming too. I know the company right now is actually working on a cosmetic line that's made out of our honey, a coffee line, a tea line, so it's always coming. The company is on the very cutting edge of the bee technology, and so we're always working towards new stuff. Well, we got about a minute and a half, but I want to go ahead and dive into tell us about this observation hive is people have got When you hear me say there's

an observation hive, you have no idea what we're talking about here. Tell us about what this thing is. So this is our second one. The first one that we made was what's called an open air concept, and it just simply didn't work. The second one that we're making that I made is a it's basically an entire bee high standing where you can look at it like in plexiglass, inside of plexiglass, where you can see it, open the doors and look in it. We haven't been recognized yet, but it looks

to be that it's going. When it's full that it'll be the second largest in the United States. Well, and this is in the store, So bees have to come in a tube to get there, right, Yes, they come in in a tube, which again is really interesting because it only takes three eighths of an inch for a bee to move into your wall, and so I've gave them plenty of room. They've got a one inch tube

that comes in. But you can actually see the bees come in the high You can see them bringing pollen in on their legs, and see them carrying dead bees out and everything else that they're doing. And so this tube comes from outside the store into this plexiglass hive where people can go around it, kids can see ye and watch bees work, and that right there is worth

the price of it. And it's really cool because you can see the queen and there were several times this past summer where we were able to show people what it looks like when the queen is laying eggs and you can actually see that process going on and see that as they're storing the honey and the pollen, you can see them filling the frames up. So it's really a neat hive to look at. I remember when I first learned to find the queen in a hive. You know, you see this larger bee and all the

other bees are facing it. You know, they're all gathered. No matter where she moves, they're all fate turned facing or that's amazing. Hey, I got to go to a break. It's time, but we will come right back. And we're talking here with the folks from VB Supply out in Dayton, Texas. So if you've got any bee questions, give us a call at seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I think we probably just played be related music to the Cows Come Home. There's so

many good songs out there. Hey, I'm your host, Skip Rich or you're listening to garden Line and we're talking to the folks from the bee Supply. We got Paul and we got Kyle here in the studio if you'd like to give us a call and ask a question about bees seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. We were just talking about the observation high that is so cool for people to be able to come out and to check it out. The fact that you can go out and do free b

tours honey tours actually to give you some things that I don't know. I just think it's an education that is just fascinating. I mentioned earlier some aspects of bees. We've been talking about different aspects of bees that are just wow. I did not know that. I did not know that happened. I

just find it interesting. I'm surprised we haven't had somebody call the show already and reinforce this fact that a bee colony is basically a bunch of women doing all the work and men land around doing nothing until they finally get kicked out. And so that, I mean, there's a lot of places we can go with that, guys, but that's basically what it is to Oh boy, I want to talk a little bit about gifts from the bee supply. I know you guys have the website where people can go they could order honey,

or they could order anything that you guys sell by gift. But maybe there's people listening who they are, their spouse or someone they know, maybe a dad or mom or a kid would like to get interested in beekeeping, and you guys can kind of get them set up with that. And of course there's the products that you could set them up with. They could call you and say, hey, here's the situation. I want to be able to give this. What would you suggest how do we put that package together?

But also they could just give a gift certificate where someone could then go out and I think Paul you mentioned even a class certificate, So you want to talk a little bit about kind of what that might look like from a gifting standpoint. Sure, yeah, I mean we've had people gift classes the beginning class for someone who they know that they're interested in bees, and that's that was there, that was their Christmas gift. And and so you can

just do just like you're signing it yourself up. Just sign up on the website and and well we'll have the record of it and they can they can come to the class. That'd be kind of fun. Yeah, I think it'd be a good gift. You know when you're trying to come up with gifts. It's kind of like, what do you get the person that has everything? I think I already got every kind of electronic that I want and some that I wish I didn't have, and you know that kind of thing.

But this is a it's an experience. It could even be something that you and some of your kids go and do together and learn together. It's just kind of back to the kind of gifts that seem to matter more than just you know, here's something I found because I need to get a gift. I like the products and things that you guys have, and I think that people will too. So let's talk a little bit more about bees though, the world of bees, and one of the challenges is be pests and

diseases. There's actually pests of bees and diseases of bees. And when I kept bees, we were always fighting trachomtes and vomites and some other things. Will you talk a little bit about what are some of the common challenges and what can people do. I know they can call you and say, hey, I got a problem here, help me, but what are the things they might need to be looking for, and what are the things we do

I know, acting soon rather than later is probably pretty important. Yes, well, the leading calls of bee death right now is an invasive species from China called the Veroo mite. It's basically a tick that grows on honey bees, but it's the most deadly tick that the world's ever seen. There are tests farm and that's pretty much what you have. The lady that called earlier and asked about the hive that only half the hib is alive. That's what's

probably wrong with that hib is it's got brower mince on it. And now, you know, back in my granddad's day, that was a hard challenge. Now it's pretty much as easy to take care of as taking care of fleas and ticks on your dog. And it's kind of the same way. You know, in the bee world. It was a big separation there for a lot of years between what we referred to as chemical and non chemical, and now what we found out is exactly what you just said. Skip.

You know, if you catch them early enough, everybody can go non chemical, but if you wait until they're infested, kind of like your dog. You know, you can start off your dog with brewers yeast or whatever, but if you let the dog get infested with tea, with fleas and ticks.

Yeah, and you got to take it to the bed and get that too and care of That's a good analogy too, because you know, bees are out and about, they're interacting with other bees, are going to flowers, and it's easy to pick up the mites as there interacting with other bees. Yeah. And the problem is again back to those old boy bees. The boy bees are what are the more social be of the of the world. And not only do they not work, but they bring diseases back home.

So you know, this is just a what's the opposite of misogynist? This is not don't guys, give you guys a break here, man, we're hammering on them too hard to Okay, So back in my day of beekeeping, people talked about like a winter green oil in there they we use the episcent strips, which is one of the chemical end What are we doing now, what's the technology? So now that well, we were never stopping

on that. Right now, The primary chemical is a chemical called abatraz on that in the industry it's abba bar, But there's abavar, there's alpagar, there's a silic acid, and all these different chemicals and and different ways to

do it. But like I said, we work with the bee itself making the bees more hygienic to it. And that's one of the reasons why commercial bees are working so much better than the wild caught bees is because they do have that genetic to be more hygienic and actually to groom themselves and keep the bees off of them, and I mean keep the mines off of them, and so that is helping with the bees. I'm one of the people who

will say the North American bee has actually went extinct. There's people out there that are still saying that they are self some North American honey bees out there. I haven't seen one in many, many years. So what do we have now? They're all European bees. Most all the bees now are being brought in from either most of them are Italian, some of them are Russian, but they're all European. They're just have a hired genetic line and to

defend themselves against the health problems that we have. Yeah, okay, well that's good. We're going to go now to a call from Ruben and Missouri City. Hello Ruben, and welcome to Garden Line. Good morning to both of y'all. Is BT powerful to the bees binkill gardens? No, it only the regular BT only kills caterpillars. It's got to be the larva of a moth or butterfly for BT to kill it. Okay, great, because I do use a lot of BT and I do have a lot of bees

around the garden area. So no, it's awesome. That's a good reason to use it. Yeah, thank you, Yes, sir, You're gonna be careful with those pesticides, for sure. Some of those persistent ones really can hammer bees. You know. One of the things I live up in the College stationary during the week now, and we have a researcher up there that years ago did a little study on pollen in the summer, and the majority already a pollen coming in, and the colostation area was coming from crape

myrtle trees. That was the number one plant source during the heat of the summer, because crapes are bloomin at that time, and we have a problem with scale on crape myrtles, and so there are systemic insecticides. You drench on the soil and it goes up in the crpe myrtle and kill scale. Well, they've found those up in the nectar, I don't know pollen or in nectar, but a nectar of the bees that the bees are accessed to, and they concerned about it being one of the contributions to be a declined

colony decline. And so that is something we need to be real extra careful about because when you spray a flower or you put it on the roots of a flower and it's taken up, that's potential for doing a whole lot of harm. In addition to what you were just talking about, the disease or the vroomites. Yeah, and you also have the thing that people don't think

about is that the city and the county is spraying for mosquitoes. There is a national database that you can rech to your beehives on and what they will do is they'll spray after dark, and so after dark the bees are back up. And so agricultural pesticides are not near as bad as the the other pesticides that we're putting out there. The stuff you're talking about is coming out of the ground that's actually been soaked into the plant, right, That's where

the problem actually comes into with the killing of the bees. Yeah, that is that is absolutely true. Well, we just want to be careful with that as gardeners because we do need those bees around. That is, that is for sure. While we're while we're here talking, I wanted to I talk about a product a lot. This had nothing to do with bees, but the tree hugger sprinklers. If you've heard me on the air before, you've heard me talk about them. Tree hugger is an ingenious little design.

It basically is a sprinkler with a hinge on it that you put around the base of your tree. Hook it up to a garden hose, and it's for watering your trees where the tree roots are. So maybe you put a new plant in this fall of antonia, you need to fall plant your woody ornamentals. You can turn it on just a little bit and it water's that little root zone that just went into the ground with the cylinder of soil. As that tree gets bigger and bigger, you turn it on higher. And

they're different sizes. There's a seven inch, eleven inch and a thirteen inch. I've got one of each. And maybe you got a tree seven years old. And we go into another summer, like this last one. You crank that sprinkler up and you're not having to turn on your whole lawn system

to water to save that tree. You're just watering around the tree. So tree hugger I consider one of the tools that we should be having in our garden supply a shelf, or in our garden barn if you will, like a hoe or a shovel or anything else, just have a tree hugger there, because if you plant anything like a rose bush even you're going to want to be able to water it to help it get established. And that's what those are for. We're talking this morning with folks from the Bee Supply.

We've got Kyle here, and we've got a pall here, and we're talking all kinds of thing bees. We're about to take a little break right here, but I just want to let you know if you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you live anywhere near the north central part of the Houston area, you probably already know about Quality Feed and Garden Supply. I used to go to Quality Feed when they were at

their previous location. Now they are on Luzon Street, which is near the intersection Equipment and Alesion. This place has been run since nineteen twenty eight. Ken and Chris have owned it for the last thirty two years. They in fact, they still have an antique seed rack from nineteen twenty eight. You got to go there just to see that. Of all things, every fertilizer, I talk about, every kind of pest disease, weed management thing.

They've got it there. They make their own kins, potting soil. They have chicken seeds and feed and all kinds of things. Qualityfeedco dot com, qualityfeedco dot com. That's what you're looking at for. Check them out and say hi to Ken and Chris when you're in there. We're going to go now to Nikky and the News. If you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Lines. I'm your host, skip Rickcher, and listen. If you

have not been to the arbor Gate lately, you need to go. They always have stuff going on at the arbor Gate. I know it's season for Christmas trees and for point settas and cyclomen and all kinds of beautiful, beautiful holiday plants. It's a season to go by their gift shop and find an outstanding array of gifts. But it's always a season to go by and pick up their one two three completely easy system. That's an organic food for anything

that has roots. It's a four four to three organic plus calcium. By the way, they're organic soil complete and they're organic composts complete. That's the one two three. Remember I always tell you spend money on the brown stuff before you spend money on the green stuff. What does that mean. Well, that means if you prepare there the soil, you're going to have success with plants. If you don't, you're gonna have problems with plants. And

Arburgate is set up to give you just that. So when you grab a plant there to go home, first take care of that soil, and when you put that plant in, it's going to be very very happy. They are located out to the west of Tomball on twenty nine to twenty about a mile and a half west of Highway two forty nine. Or you can go to their website arbrogate dot com and check out that new parking lot they got behind the store. Now, man, is that ever convenient on Trishel Road

right behind the store. Well, we're visiting with both the folks from the Bee Supplied this morning. We got both Josh here, excuse me, Paul here. I don't know why I said Josh because my producer's name is Josh. We got Paul and we got Kyle both here. We're going to talk all kinds of things bees here for the rest of this hour. First thing we're going to do, though, is go out to James and Spring.

I think James you had a question. My question is, and you all have a great program, how does the homeowners' association impact the bee keepers or dust it all? Right? What I found is is if you go to the homeowners association, they don't really bother you much. Sometimes you have to educate a few people. But your bees are will make all of the other flowers and gardens and all the things in your neighborhood. It's so much more

prolific. And there's natural bees anyway in your neighborhood, So bringing another beehive or five six bee hives into your neighborhood is not really going to affect the amount of bees that are in there. And the other thing is is that's kind of interesting fact about that is bees are so incredibly efficient that most hoa neighborhoods have privacy fences. Anyway, if you put a bee high bob the privacy fence, the bees learn pretty quickly to fly, to fly above the

privacy fence, which foots it above your neighbors' heads. And so generally your neighbors don't know the bees are back there. The bees aren't just buzzing around. They fly up, they fly on a straight line, then back down to the plants that they're going to pollinate, and so they're really not having any real effect. Yeah, I give hush money to my neighbors and there you go, and or hush honey in that honey, they're pretty happy. Great as a great ass. So thank you, Thank you, James.

I appreciate appreciate that call very much. You know that's really true. I mean people picture like there's swarms of bees coming out and it's not that. And also, honey, bees don't want to mess with you. I mean I work with flowers all the time, and the bees are right there. I wouldn't just grab one in my hand and try to squeeze it. But they're not like wasps that are you know, mean and and just looking for

something to sting. It seems like bees it cost them their life to sting you, right, And that is one of the things that's so critically important is as long as you're not actually over there messing with that box, they don't want to because again back to that, they have to have thirty to forty pounds a honey a year, and so it takes a lot of bees lives to make the honey that the hive needs to stay alive, so they're

not really out and looking to kill themselves. And the other thing is it goes back to the bee species is where that's one of the things that we're working with as bees is making them more and more docile. The comparison I use is again, you know, a wolf and a dog, it's not necessarily even though it's the same subspecies, it's not the same animal. And so the bees, we don't want them to be aggressive. Not only do we not want to work with aggressive bees, but also we don't want them

to kill each other. So we you know, we got to have a bee staleive so well managed time is actually a good thing to have her. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Well, i'll tell you what. We're gonna go out now to Katie and we got Tony with a question. Good morning, Tony. Welcome to garden Line. Tony you got Are you there all right? Josh, I'm gonna put Tony on hole. We'll see if we can get him back. I think we

lost him there for just a minute. Talking about bees, there's a lot of fascinating aspects of bees, and we've talked about some of them this morning, but I think you guys have a few of the bee fun facts that people are always interested in hearing about, and I just want to kind of open the open the floor to discussing some of those things that you have found

people especially interested in about bees. Well one of the things, I mean, there's fun facts about bees, and we're gonna talk about those two. But I want to talk about another thing that actually is important to us here at the b Supply, and that is bees for veterans with PSD. The government has known since the Civil War that the best treatment for military PSD is working honey bees, and the government has been actively giving veterans beehives since the

Civil War. I was talking to a gentleman this weekend. I was working a bee conference and he was and I made that statement. He said, you know, I never knew that. And in three years I've been keeping bees, my night tremors have went almost completely away. What they referred to as be air, the air that comes out of the beehive is therapeutic for

people who are having lung disorders. And now then they're starting the medical industry is looking into where those kind of things can be naturally healing for people. Another thing I'm really excited about is is everybody knows about Manuka honey out of Hawaii, and now then they have found a honey right outside of San Antonio that's twice a'sdicinal, internal and external. Is Manuka honey? We get We

got to come back and talk to that. Well, we're going to take a break here, but wow, I want to hear more about that. That is that is amazing stuff. You're listening to garden Line if you'd like to give us a call and talk to Kyle and Paul about bees. I got a question, well seven one, three, two, one, two, fifty eight and seventy four. We'll be right back. Welcome back to

Garden Line. We are glad you're listening today. Well, Ago, I was just talking about the arbigate and the soils and things that they have out there and how soil comes first. Well, I want to tell you something. Airdim Soils of Texas out Importer Texas has a deal going on right now on bulk soil that you don't want to miss out on. This is you know, if you need to build a bed, maybe you're wanting to put in a landscape bet or put in a garden bed, maybe buyable on them

Vego beds and fill it up with some good stuff they've got. The Veggie and Herb soil is on fall special for one hundred and nineteen bulk or one hundred and forty eight for the supersac. Now, the supersac is a cubic yard in a sack they bring and set on your driveway. Yeah, it's a big sack, a nice, neat and clean, easy way to get in and out of it. Rose soil seventy dollars bulk are ninety nine dollars for the supersac and both the Veggie and Herb mix and the rose soil.

Those two things will grow pretty much anything you want to grow. And when you get the soil right, your plants naturally do better. When you just get the best plant in the world and stick it down in unprepared soil around here, it's going to struggle. So start with the soil. Heirloom Soilsoftexas dot Com, Heirloomsoils of Texes dot Com. Give them a call. This isn't gonna last forever, so make a quick call there. Let's get that

ordered to your place. So when you go back to your gardening for this winter and spring, your plants are just going to hit the ground running. Well, we're talking today with Kyle and also with Paul from Texas Texas Bee Supply all kinds of things regarding bees. I want to go first to Gallison and we're going to talk to Michael. I believe Michael. You have a question, sure do kind of wondering if the Heidey comb itself is edible and if it is to you can you eat it raw? Do you have to

pasteurize it? Yes, sir, it's one edible, especially if it's natural bee comb. Now, one thing you do have to be mindful of when you're eating bee comb, is it needs to be inside of a beehive. You know, you see bee comb that's coming out of a house or whatever. Bees wax and bees comb and all that is extremely absorbent and it will absorb the chemicals that don't ever honey that comes out of a house, like when bees invade the wall. Yeah, and what they call it cutout that

honey will absorb asbestos and a lot of other things. But just natural bees wax. I chew it all the time out in the bee yard. Just cut off a piece and put it in my mouth and chew it up. It's wax, and so I don't normally swallow it, but sometimes I do, but you can, Yes, sir, Wow, thanks a bunch, Thank you, and have a good day. That's pretty yummy, I tell you. When you get out there and you're chomping on some bee comb that's got honey on it and stuff, that's about addictive right there. Yeah.

It's one of the main many benefits of being a beekeeper. You know, when you're out there eating honey or working your bees, is just stiff your your high tool in that warm honey and put it in your mouth. That's an experience you like you can't normally imagine, and an experience you can have out at the bee supply when you go out and visit and you learn about all the things you guys are going to teach about there. We're going to go now to Alvin and dock to Wayne. Hello Wayne, good morning,

Welcome to guarden Line. Good morning, Stiff. Hey, I got a quick question. Got above ground pool and the neighbors got a beehive, sir, will bee has two of them didn't make it. One of them has and it's real aggressive. But my issue is getting a lot of bees in the water of the pool. Is there some way that I can help them to where they can without covering the whole thing, because that's pretty much impossible. Is there some way I can put on the water to help them get

out? Well? One thing that you can do, you know, is just float a piece of plywood on it. I mean, not a full sheet. Just take a little small piece of plywood and float it out there, and the wood will absorb the water up and they'll drink it. That's one of those weird things about bees that we just can't help. Bees are extremely attracted to swimming pools the higher the chlorine level of the bees are. One of the weird things about bees is they won't hardly drink pure water.

Their first choice is high chlorine water. Then they're going to go to the sewer water and creek water and I mean literally fresh tap water is their last choice. And so whenever you do have a pool, the bees are going to be in it. But like I said, that's the best way to do is just float a little piece of wood arm. Give them something they can land on and they won't have to actually hover the water and they can

actually light and then they can take back off. That's a great idea, I know with beneficial some of the little tiny beneficial wasps that are helping us fight pasts in the garden. We talk about in a little bird bath, putting little pebbles in there so they can get right up to the edge of the water without falling in and drowning. And that's kind of what you're talking about there on. Yeah, that's what we do. And like we put pebbles in chicken water so that the bees have access to water or food,

same basic thing. And then you can do the same thing you bird bath fill, give the bees, rocks or something form the stand on. You can also put a secondary water source out for the bees and they'll leave it alone. Unfortunately, they your your bees are really want that water dirty, and so then you're starting talking about mosquitos and everything else before that water is dirty enough that the bees will actually drink it. Yeah. Sure, I'll

switched secondary out and they still. Uh I'm fishing out fifty sixty a day and it just kills me. Uh So be supply with you talking one by one two but two uh yeah, any of that, you know, just whatever you have laying around and just just float some out there, big enough car, just flip over in the water. But like you said, you don't need to You don't need out there anything only the edge of the plywood

that they need. Yeah right, yeah, so just anything that will float, Yes, sir, I've never seen them land upside down sunbathing on the dry part of the flywood. They might do that, Wayne, Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Well, I want to talk. We got just a couple of minutes left here. I want to talk about bees

and our health. I was telling you guys a story during break that one of my daughters works with folks that are, you know, economically very disadvantaged, and one of them had a dog that had gotten his neck really ripped up and they couldn't afford the vet, and the vet said, just put some honey on it and put a rag of gauze around there and wrap it up. And it was amazing how that heals up with just the honey. And would you talk a little bit about some of the beneficial aspects for our

health of honey. You mentioned the air coming out of a beehive, right, and so, I mean, you know, we're talking about since biblical times in the in the tombs of Egypt, they found honey and that was the medicine back then. Honey is absolutely full of microbe and enzymes and all the other things that your body needs. Naturally, I tell people when raising

bees, the more more probiotics you put in something less antibodies. You have to put in something that's a good way to put it and be you know, when you're talking about the natural superfood that is allergies, you know, and if you got allergies, eat natural bee honey. I mean, it'll take care of it. And now one thing about that is I won't get on that soup, off on that soapbox. Skip. But make sure that your honey is real honey. If you have honey and it won't crystallize,

it's not real honey. So make sure that you're buying real, legitimate, unfiltered, raw and unfiltered honey, and then your your microbial levels will be in there. Boy, I wish I had more time for this, but you were telling me about Texas honey, the microbial levels being so much higher, especially in parks of Texas like we live in and some that have been discovered over in Santoni area, and the benefits of that, and that's even

sought after by companies. That's amazing. That's just amazing. Wow, Paul Kyle, thank you so much for coming in today. We've been talking about to these folks about from the Texas B Supply. You know, Texas B Supply has all the things you need to get involved in the B industry and that includes when I say industry, I'm talking about raising your own bees at home if you'd like to give them a call. Eight hundred three five six four two two nine one eight hundred three five six four two to nine.

Hey, it's a good Christmas gift for folks. It's a good thing for you to get out and enjoy, so take advantage of it.