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I'm gonna name them anymore. Home with Dean, same handle for all of them. And by the way, if your home is in some need of personal house Whisper attention, I mean personal like Dean and the t standing in your living room staring at the problem, talking just to you about what is possible. You can do that. You can book an in home design consult with me and
the tea you just go to house Whisper dot Design. Okay, So we are taking the morning, this lovely spring morning here in southern California, and we are talking about life, bringing life into your backyard, life onto your property and where you just finished up talking to Richard Armerding, my good friend from wild Birds Unlimited, and now I want to switch the conversation from the birds to the bees.
And to do that I've got now in studio my dear friend Nicole Palladino from bee catchers, Nicole, Good morning and welcome home.
Good morning. How are you.
I'm great, I'm so glad that you're here.
Me too.
I love our conversations, always, always, always, So you know, we've got a list of things that we've got to accomplish for everybody today because and gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna hold us to it. I'm gonna hold our feet to the fire. Here. There are four things I want to talk about with you today, okay, and if we've got time to talk about other things, that's great too.
Number one, first rule about bees. Bees are not pests. Okay. Second, I want to ask you whether b mcgeddon is really over, whether colony collapse disorder is done and finished, because nobody's talking about it anymore. And if that's the case, what is the state of bees right now? Especially in southern California. I want our listeners to understand what the spring swarms down. The weather's been funky, so we haven't had a lot. I haven't noticed any big swarms yet happening in our neighborhood.
But it's coming. It's going to come, as it always does. And as always, people completely must understand what a spring swarm is they think they're a hive has taken up, you know, a residence in their front of their home, in their front yard, in the tree or on the wall, or on the fence or wherever. So I want everybody to understand what spring swarms are so that they don't do the wrong thing with those bees. And then finally, I want to make sure you know, bookending this idea
that bees aren't pests, and they're not. But sometimes bees make their home in the wrong place, wrong for them, wrong for us. And when that happens, you guys, you specifically are uniquely qualified to tell us what should we do when it comes to that. So that's where I want to go. Okay, all right, So first of all, back to it with the couple of minutes we have left before we go to break here. Bees aren't pests, this is correct. Tell me this.
They are not.
They are a very critical part to our ecology, to our agriculture, and they are responsible for more than eighty percent of our food supply.
When we say more than eighty percent of our food supply, we're talking about the fact that they pollinate these critical crops that end up making it into the market with us. Is is it just that or is it more?
It's more.
It goes into grass fed meats and all the afalfa that you're eating with your meat supply. It has to do with the health of the soil, the health of the air, much more than just all the fruits and vegetables that they're pollinating and allowing us to you know, enjoy, because without them, we would have things like roots, root potatoes and rice and things that you would not be able to you know, sustain a population, to feed people with. Right, So it's much more. There's an entire circle that they
fall into as far as making this work. And without them we could have a huge.
Glass okay and now and and regionally, yeah, absolutely, regionally. This is not one of those things that we can think about in terms of Okay, well, yeah, out there in the agricultural we're out there in nature out there where it's It's something that I'm hoping that that I can really communicate to all of our listening to every homeowner. Yes, is that nature is not something that's out there right. Nature is something that we are all in right now. Now.
It may we may have paved streets and concrete curbs and driveways. But that's kind of it's really an illusion, the sense that somehow we have pushed nature elsewhere from where we are. And when it comes to bees and bee populations, now that cities are sprawling the way they are, the presence of bees in the urban environment is critical to bees everywhere period.
Correct.
Just like you have all of your birds that you love and have, the bees are the ones that are responsible to pollinate these wild plants that feed the birds exactly.
They're just part of that chain.
Small mammals, other insects. Of course, it's all kind of all right.
So when we come back, we're going to talk about I'm going to ask you about b mageddon and colony collapse and all of that stuff, and we're going to figure out where we're at, what's the state of bees this year, because it's a little weird right now because we're having some unusual weather, and we'll figure it all out, all right. I am sitting here with my special guest,
Nicole Palladino from Bee Catchers. We'll talk about that more as well more on bees in your yard when we return your home with Dean Sharp the house whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
We're talking all things spring and life in your garden. Yes, like I thought this was a show about how to fix my garage door. Well we have those moments too, we do. No. Our show is called Home, and the reason it is is because it follows my approach to home design and home construction, architecture and all of those things, which is, I would like to think, a very holistic approach and a very biophilic approach. You've never heard that
word before. It simply means a love of all things nature, and it is the direction of architecture and home design. I'm glad to say moving forward, we are every cutting edge architect I know is more and more concerned about bringing the outside in, bringing the inside out, and improving the way that we recover from the displacement of our homes. And when I say displacement, I simply mean this. This is a reality. Every creature in nature, when it builds
its home, displaces some other form of nature. When a gopher digs a tunnel under a yard and comes up and there's a little burrow, even if it's not somebody's yard, if it's out in the middle of a prairie. Soil is displaced, roots are displaced, plants are displaced. It is the nature of all living things to displace other living things. And human beings don't need to feel overwhelmingly guilty about the fact that we build shelters for ourselves and when
we do that, we displace nature. But unlike the other creatures on this planet, we are exceptionally good at displacing things, and we have an exceptional level of hubris when it comes to the fact that we just feel like, well, we're here and nature can just go over there, and
that's simply not the case. And so what I want from every home design that we work on, every project that we're a part of, I encourage homeowners, all, right, now that we have displaced some nature with your home, how do we bring it back into the yard, the surrounding property. How can we reintegrate all those elements? And our home stands as an example, our tiny little cottage out here in Thousand Oaks stands as an example of
just that. If you were to walk down our street, and I am not exaggerating when I tell you this, You're to walk down our street on any given day you will hear, you know, some bird song, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and when you get in front of our home, you will hear considerably more of it. And as you enter our backyard,
you'll hear even more than that. And that is because we haven't just done a backyard, we haven't just planted a garden, but we have intentionally created a habitat that is both beautiful and functional, habitat for birds, for bees, for all kinds of creatures back here. And as a result, they literally flock to our home and we gain all the benefits of that as well. So that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. And right now we need to talk about bees and displacement of bees and the
state of bees. And sitting across the table from me is my dear friend Nicole Palladino, the owner and operator of Bee Catchers, a live bee removal service that covers all of southern California that all of you need to know about. And we'll get to that in just a bit. But Nicole, give us the state of bees right now. This year. You know what's going on with them? We got weird weather and how are we doing?
So? I didn't think we would be coming back to talk about any collapse or issues with a decline in bees because we haven't really spoken about it in.
The last few years.
Nobody's talking about it right now.
It seems to be like things have recovered and we're doing better. But for twenty twenty five, there are some record breaking numbers of colony loss up to about sixty to seventy percent that beekeepers are reporting. That is more than the forty to fifty percent that is usually reported from issues of overwintering, you know, the stress on bees and populations dying. We never really see the numbers of what happened last year until the year you know that's coming in the future.
And now we're knowing that.
We are seeing some considerable losses and there are there are some reasons for it. You have asicidence, which are the neon nicod denies. You have bra mites and diseases, habitat loss, yes, change of weather and weather extremes, and some you know, industrial agricultural practices that could be much better. And so we have a variety of mixture of things that are causing this right.
And a lot of it honestly, honestly is you know, this is not to lay this burden on everybody's shoulders. A lot of this is just outside of the control of like the typical homeowner, right, and so this is not like we're not trying to guilt anybody or lay So here's my here's my goal. Yeah, is to let everybody know how critical the bee is to our lives.
Number one. Number two, to understand that there are still a lot of forces working against bees in urban areas all across the United States, including here in southern California. So if you understand those two things, then we've come
a long way. And Third, now, based on that, based on this understanding, not that everybody has to go out and start picketing or this or that, but based on that understanding, individual homeowners to understand when they encounter bees on their property that they have the right responds and an informed response. So can we do this, Nicole when
we come back, I want to talk about the spring swarm. Okay, B colonies rece themselves every spring, there's a surgeon B populations and colonies split and they divide and other certain groups of bees from the original colony go looking for a new home. Yes, and when that happens. Most people I've ever met completely misunderstand that cloud of bees that
is flying overhead. They completely misunderstand that beard of bees, that clump of bees that suddenly just out of nowhere showed up in the elm tree out in their front yard or on the side of the palm tree, or hanging off the fence or wherever that was. Completely must understand it, and as a result, at this critical moment, they end up calling an extermination company and those bees are destroyed. Right at the moment when a bees are trying to grow and.
Reproduce one hundred percent, and they are the most vulnerable at that time because people don't understand that they have eaten their last meal, they have branched off, they have a queen with them with maybe five to ten thousand workers, They have no shelter. They are extremely vulnerable, and this is the time that we should protect them the most.
So, yeah, we can find and they are not dangerous at that moment.
They are not dangerous, and generally bees aren't really dangerous in general, but this is the time that we could really protect them and make a difference in the numbers going forward.
All right, if you have never fully understood what one of those clumps of bees or clouds of bees flying overhead, what that really means. Go nowhere, because when we come back, we're going to explain it to you and give you, hopefully open your eyes to what's happening around you at that very critical juncture. All Right, you guys, hang with us your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI Am six forty.
We're talking all things home like we do every weekend, every Sunday morning from nine to noon. And yes, I spend most of my time talking to you about construction issues, design issues, architectural issues. But every spring I set time aside so that we can talk about even more important things that are happening around us. Because our homes exist here on this planet, and they exist in the middle
of nature. It may not be your definition of nature, but it is nature nonetheless, and around us things are happening. Important things are happening every year this time of year, springtime. Now, normally, by the time I take this show and we're talking about bees, swarms are already occurring, and things are already happening. But this time around, because the weather's been cold, a little damp, a little rainy, a little this, a little that the swarms have not stopped. It started popping out
at the with the same frequency. I'm not saying there aren't any out there, but there aren't as many right now. It is going to happen. And if you don't understand the difference between a swarm of bees and a hot then I need you to listen up very carefully to us. Right now, I'm sitting here in studio with my dear friend Nicole Palladino from the owner and operator of Bee Catchers,
a live bee removal service. I know no one who knows more about bees than Nicole and Nicole our goal right now for the next six minutes is to explain to people what is happening when they're standing outside and they see a cloud of bees move overhead. Are they
being attacked? Are they is there life at risk? Or let's say suddenly they look out the kitchen window and see there's a there's a gigantic clump of bees the size of a basketball hanging off the oak tree or the tree in the front yard or the fence, and they're freaking out and they're like, who do I call? Oh, my gosh, a hive of bees has made its home in my yard. Not true, Not true at all. Explain what is going on?
So we're having every spring, you're going to see where bees split. Another queen and a portion of the workers will migrate to propagate their numbers and start colonies in other places.
So a colony of bees, a colony, that's the proper term for them, a colony of bees. They multiply, and so they appoint another queen, and so now there are two queens, and one queen takes a portion of that high and they head off to form another independent colony.
Correct, And they need to do that by what we call a swarm. So they will leave the colony and generally go about three to five hundred feet from where they are branching off from. And at this critical time, and the queen has not flown in quite some time, so she's not as strong or doesn't have as much energy as she would because she hasn't taken a flight path in a while.
She's typically the old queen.
She's typically the older queen that will leave and her successor once she's been in the.
Hive for maybe years, laying the eggs, not flying.
And now she needs to slow down on her She's taken time to slow down and reduce the size of her ovaries so that she's not laying eggs right now and she's not as heavy in her ovaries aren't as big. So she needs to take this flight again. And she's protected by her family of daughters, her workers. And so what they will do is they will swarm out and find a place and it can be really anything.
They don't discriminate.
It could be your bicycle, your car, It could be you know, your umbrella, trees, bushes, all kinds of things. They are coming out just to take a resting spot while scalpies go out and look for areas with more shelter.
Okay, so we call this thing a beard because it's a clump of bees. It is not a hive. A hive actually has a physical structure to it. There's honeycomb they have found, and a hive never, no hive ever is built out in the open.
No, that's not true.
Okay, because you will have established colonies that maybe are high up in a tree somewhere that people don't notice, and they can be hanging from a branch. That's probably maybe five percent of all colonies.
Okay, but most hives are because they're trying to protect their home. Correct.
You would see that everywhere if that was true.
Right, they would just be you know, honeycomb just hanging off of trees everywhere. But they're trying to protect their home, not just from people, from birds and everything else that wants that honey.
Yeah, and the temperature because they need to regulate the tempt they have to regulate, so they.
Need to get inside somewhere in some shelters. So that clump of bees is not a high It is a colony in a very very vulnerable state. And in the middle of that pile of bees is the queen. She's in there being protected. Yes, and that. And they've taken a break and you said earlier, before the break, you said they've eaten their last meal. Yes, what does that mean? That sounds like a death SiGe.
I know they have actually filled their bellies with honey, and they have and left home, and they left with no shelter.
They don't get to go back.
Now they're on a house hunt, right, so now they have no they don't know where they're going to go yet, but the queen isn't going to be the one to go and do that because they need to preserve and conserve her energy. So scalpes go out and look for these areas.
So scalpees are heading out from there and they're looking for ideal, optimal conditions and if they find something they think is possible, they'll come back. They'll report back. Yep, they talk about it. They can, they really do. There's a full on dance and communication process. They are handing out samples and pheromoe.
All directions on where food and water is, how far it will be from where they decide to colonize, and so that's that you see that cloud in the sky. All the years I've been doing this, I've never seen a swarm attack anybody. And I've been caught in them in the middle of crossing a crosswalk. I've seen people I'm driving by and a swarm will come by, and somebody's in the street and a swarm will come through. And it's scary looking at the moment, yes, but it's
their way of communicating. If people can understand, it looks scary because it's meant to because they're trying to protect their queen because if she doesn't survive, they don't either. So they're communicating in this flight path. It can be very loud looking and you can hear the sound, and it's sporadic, but they are in a very controlled environment. They're protecting her like a little cyclone, keep her safe. So where they do land, they will all kind of
gather over her and protect her. So now they can just relax for a moment and get their bearings and start looking where they're going to go.
So now I've been stung by bees. I keep bees, yes, and I'm mildly allergic to beastings, so it's you know, the EpiPen, and my mother is is incredibly allergic. I mean it's like dangerously allergic. So I want everybody to know that. When they to understand that, and I keep bees, you know, we've got we have a new colony coming. We'll have thirty forty thousand little ladies just a few feet away from everything. It doesn't change the number of bees in my yard, by the way, because they're forging.
Radius is huge. But the point is, again, I just want to underscore this, that cloud of bees, that swarm of bees, the last thing on their mind is attacking anybody. They are searching for a new home. And that is very different. And people are like, well, but listen, I've been attacked by a swarm of bees. Like you haven't been attacked by a swarm. If you've disrupted an actual hive, you've If you've gotten too close and disturbed or threatened an actual hive, then a colony of bees will send
out a stinging party to like protect themselves. It's a like a like an air force base. You're launching a squadron of fighters in order to protect the base. Right. That is different than you know, fifteen thousand bees flying through the air all at one time. That is a swarm. They are going to gather somewhere. And here's the critical thing. Oh you know what, Okay, we're up against the break so cliffhanger literally a cliffhanger hanging on the tree. Yes,
you see them there they are. Don't answer right now? How long are they going to be there? And do I need to do anything about it? Well, we're going to answer that after.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty.
We're talking all things life and living in our yard today. That's our special spring program. We've talked about the birds. I'm sitting here talking with my good friend Nicole old Palladino, who is the owner and operator of Bee Catchers. We have just a few minutes left. I left you hanging because we're talking about spring swarms and they are not hives. They are not invading your home. They are not there
to hurt you in any way, shape or form. Now there's this clump of bees hanging off our tree or our fence or our umbrella in the backyard. The question, Nicole, And it's not that if you do the wrong thing, you go out there and hit them with a broom or spray them with the hose, you're gonna get them upset. But that is not where their heads are at at all. They are looking for a new home and that is all that is on their mind. There's a queen, an aged queen, in the center of that clump. There is
no structure. That's not a hive. They're not building honeycomb. It's it's not where there. There are scouts going out back and forth, desperately trying to make the decision about where they're going. To go to next, and so here we're telling everybody, chill out, chill out now. Critical question, how long is that clump of bees going to be hanging from my patio or umbrella.
So it depends.
They could literally be there an hour, and if they're lucky enough to find something that they all agree upon and the scouts were really on it and they were out working quickly, they could be gone very very soon, or it can take them a day or two or three.
It depends.
Sometimes you have some super warm weather and the weather can change become much more cold in a couple of days, and that might hinder their process of finding another place, you know, by a day or so. But generally swarms will land and rest maybe one to three days before they're completely gone. It's like an instantaneous they were there. I get calls all the time, this this is here, it's fully established.
How long has it been there? Well, it wasn't there yesterday.
They can as fast as they show up, are as fast as they take off, exactly just like that.
And I get the same calls because our friends know that we keep bees, and they're like, okay, Dan Dane, Dane, Dane, Dane, I know there's a hive in my front yard. I'm like, really on your tree? Yeah, in the in the tree. No, on the tree. I'm like, okay, in the tree. I could believe yes, you just noticed it. Okay, there's a hollowed out section of a tree. That's like that's kind of ideal, right, but no, no, no, there's I can see them all they're hanging. I'm like, okay, don't do anything.
Call me at this time tomorrow if they're still there. And now, personally I think I can. Maybe twice i've seen a swarm hang out for more than forty eight hours. Yeah, but that's in my experience, that's been super rare. And sometimes I'll get a text or a voicemail because I'm in a meeting and it'll be like dan bees bees in my yard, And then by the time I actually get back to them, they're like, okay, never mind, Yeah,
they're gone. So they really are not there to They're not going to be there long.
No, and they're not going to hurt you. They're not going to hurt your pets. Think just think for a moment when you're nervous about that. But you know in your lifetime there are hives all around us everywhere that are established. They don't bother us. They're just pollinating, they're forging. They're not here to attack your animals. If you get stung, it's mostly because people might walk in the flight path of a bee or step on a bee. Because bees can still sting you even after they die for a
certain amount of time. It's accidental, you know. But if you do something to provoke, of course, you know. But this is a critical time. So please leave them in their environment, feral, give them the opportunity, enjoy them while they're there, Take a few photos, videos, share them with your family and friends, you know, post on social media that, look, i was just a.
Lucky recipient of a beautiful swarm that.
Landed in my backyard, and I've learned that they're not harmful. I'm going to give them a little bit of time to rest and figure out where they need to go. And you can spread information this way and help people understand. Don't be nervous and always call and ask these questions and I will be more than happy to walk you through it. But by the time there's no reason to chase swarms, because by the time we get there, they're gone.
That's how quickly. And I'm honest with people, and I could come out and charge you to relocate them.
But why they're about to relocate them.
Yeah, they're going to go by themselves. They're already out the door.
So I'm just going to couch it. In these terms, if you see a swarm of bees hanging somewhere on your property, call everybody you know, take video and take photos, and stay back away from it and let it be there, because you're watching a birth take place. You are literally watching an amazing birth take place. A new colony of bees has temporarily stopped at your house to say, hey, guess what, We're about to go do amazing things for this town as soon as we find our new place.
And they felt they felt good enough to stop close to you.
Okay, so now we've got we've got just a few minutes left. I want to spend the rest of this time now talking about what you do, because you're not a sponsor of the show, but I talk about you every single chance I get, every ever call I ever get about bees. If there are situations where bees take up residents on our property in places like eves or in an attic space, or in a chimney or you know you places where they shouldn't be and places where
we don't want them to be. These are hives where structures are being built and a colony is going to live when that happens. If we see walk outside and we notice, oh my gosh, there are bees flying in and out of that little hole in the screen in my attic, now what do we do?
Okay, So if you see the bees are flying and out of your fence, eve of a roof, a hole in your wall, it could be the area smaller than the size of a dime that an entire colony can come into and establish in the soffitt of your roof wall voids. If that happens, then all a live be removal company. This is where we come out and do free inspections. Use some thermal imaging, see where the bees are. And that's where the bees that you see flying on
the outside are just forging bees. It's less than one percent of the colony because all the other bees stay inside and they all have jobs based on their age. So inside the queen is laying eggs, They are tending to the to the babies, They are turning pollen and nectar into honey. They got a whole thing going on in there. But you if you leave them, they will
continue to grow and grow and grow in there. So you don't want to leave them in structures like that one because it can attract other things that are attracted to that honey as a food source. You sometimes honey can attract moisture, so it can ferment at times and cause mold issues, especially when people are killing the bees and leaving an entire colony to rot. Those are the times where you can have a lot of issues with honey and mold issues.
Okay, so that's critical. Let me just underscore that real quick. Be removed. When you guys come out, you do live be removal. You don't kill the bees, you rehome them. Yes, an the entire car, and you remove all of the structure, all the honey, all of the comb everything. Because if you just kill bees, if you call a pest control company and they come out and they're like, all right, we're going to kill the bees, you just killed the bees.
Number one, we've destroyed a colony unnecessarily. Number two, it's not going to cost you less than you guys coming out and now We've got all this stuff that's unregulated now by bee activity, unmaintained honey moisture, wax, all of this stuff melting inside, all of that's there's no bees to feed the baby, there's no there's no bees to take care of it all. There's no bees to maintain it, and now it causes a structural issue with the house.
So you want everything removed correct, Everything is removed, properly cleaned. Uh, it's treated. We use eco friendly treatments that are chrysanthemum based to neutralize the smell of pheromone which is very strong. Because we don't want to try bees back to that location. We don't want another colony saying hey, hi, hey, this place smells great.
Yeah you're listing.
We found.
Exactly the bls.
So yes, we want to get it all cleaned out and we take care of everything from start to finish for you, one stop shop. The bees are saved, relocated. We uh take great pride in what we do. This is, you know, our life's work. And then we get everything repaired for you too, so you don't have to call somebody else to come in to repair your roof, your wall. You're stucco you're sighting, you're fencing. All work is guaranteed, so we try to make it as easy as possible
and affordable. You know, help the bees, and also when you kill them, you're spreading super toxic pesticide that is airborne, you know, to you and your family. So it's another thing that.
That's a whole other thing. I wish we had time to talk about the big I know, all right, you serve us all of southern California except San Diego, Okay, So how do people get.
A hold of You can visit us on our web site at bcatcherssocol dot com. So you can also call toll free eight sixty six five four four zero zero seven four and locally. I can always be sent a text, a video. It's super easy, always reachable at eight one eight four four eight two one four nine. You call, ask questions, you just need some advice, whatever it is. I'm always here to help. We're available twenty four hours
a day. And yeah about it. Social media, Facebook, B Catcher, Zing, TikTok, Instagram.
You're all over the place. Yeah, be Catchers socol dot com, Becatchers soo cal dot com. Nicole, thank you so much for being here.
I really appreciate it. Always such a pleasure to see you and them you again.
All right, all right, y'all, when we return, we're gonna go. We talked to birds bees. Now we're kind of talk trees with a certified arborist, Bob Loft. We will do that right after we get some news. You are listening to Home with Dean Sharp on KFI. This has been
Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI Am six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.