The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Dalan Animal Health honey Bee Vaccine UPDATE Interview

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

This is the audio track from today's YouTube Interview with Experts from Dalan Animal Health:  https://youtu.be/6VWwvqy576s?si=bd4WJx0tWdlUpFb0

So hello and welcome to another episode of interviews with experts. Today I'm doing a follow-up interview with Amy Floyd and Everett Hendrickson from Dallin Animal Health. You've likely already heard about the groundbreaking honeybee vaccine for American falbrood, but there are also some other surprising benefits that we'll discuss in today's interview. I hope you'll listen to the entire thing. You just may be pleasantly surprised. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this is The Way to Be. Here's Amy and Everett.

Okay, you guys, I want to welcome me a lot for today's conversation about something a lot of people have predisposed opinions about, and I just want to welcome me to the way to be, and I would like you to each introduce yourselves who you are, where you're located right now, and what you do with Thalen. And we'll start with Amy. Might as well. My name is Amy Floyd. I am currently in Flagstaff, Arizona, and I am the head of beekeeper relations for Dallon Animal Health. Okay. Everett?

I am Everett Hendrickson. I'm currently located in Greenville, South Carolina. And I've run the national, sorry, North American sales manager for Dallon. North American sales. Greenville, is that where Bob Jones University is? It is. Yep. All my aunts and uncles had to go to Bob Jones University. Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about, but Greenville just struck a chord with me there.

They did not enjoy it, by the way. Just want to point that out, lots of demerits and problems. Okay, so I want to thank you both for being here. I did speak with Amy a year ago when we first started talking about, you know, the vaccine of honeybees and what the benefits could be. We've had a year now, and I did see a recent video. where Amy at least was there was that you with Bob Benny down in Georgia? Yes, both of us me and ever.

Both you were there. Okay. So and the people should know also that this vaccine was actually developed here in the United States at the University of Georgia. Is that correct? It was developed in Austria. And but it is a U.S. company, base company, and it's made in the U.S. It's made in the U.S. and in Georgia? Yeah.

That's where our headquarters are, yeah. Okay. And is there an affiliation with the University of Georgia at all? We just, they helped us run some of our early trials and kind of get, got situated in the South. But mostly, most of the research to get all of it going and the efficacy trials were done with Dalia Free Tech in Austin. And our lab is currently on campus there at UGA. Our offices are part of the Innovation Hub that is part of UGA. So there's a symbiotic relationship there.

Okay. And so Bob Benny's always been great at offering up some of his hives for research and assessments and things like that. And I'm going to guess that that's what you were doing when you were down there. Yeah, we were taking some samples to look at disease load. He vaccinated some hives last fall, and so we're looking at disease load between vaccinated and control hives at his operation. And if we could, let's talk a little bit about that. We also did, I'm going to put a link down in the video description, the last conversation where we really delved into what the vaccine is and is not how it's delivered, how it is not delivered, no needles. And it's actually fed to the queen, and the queen's offspring, therefore, are vaccinated.

vaccinated. How did you select colonies or did Bob select colonies for these field trials? I am not sure how Bob selected them. We let him, a lot of these trials we like to be hands off. We'll train them how to vaccinate. But otherwise, we want them to have the experience. We want them to treat them as they normally would so that we can see how this product works in the field with normal management. So we helped and trained Bob on how to vaccinate and then he did the rest. So I'm not sure exactly how he selected, but they are dispersed within yards. So each yard has some vaccinated and some control hives, and we visited five yards while I was there. So kind of lots of different scenarios to really look at it in different conditions.

And so let's address back yard beekeepers, which is the bulk of my audience. It doesn't mean they're beginners. They just have small scale operations, probably 40 hives or smaller. And so if we're giving them, you know, the elevator pitch of how they would end up vaccinating their own stock, their own queens, what's involved step by step? We're vaccinating at a smaller scale. Everett you look like you suck. You've got colonies in an apiary. They just got on Facebook and found out, oh, man, American Foulbrewd is 100 miles east of me. I need to get a hold of some of that vaccine for Queens against American Fowlbrood. How is it implemented? How does that person end up doing that? Yeah.

So depending on the season, I usually recommend re-queaning with a vaccinated queen if you're at that small of a scale. because right now the vaccine's only available in a 50-dose vial. So in order to cost-effectively, if you don't have 50 hives, it makes more sense to buy a vaccinated queen. We've had a number of groups now buy a vial and split it amongst themselves, and they share the doses. They've all come up with their own strategies of how to do that, whether it be sharing the candy once it's mixed in or sharing doses.

or waiting until they have a collective 50 queens to vaccinate. So at that smaller scale, it sort of depends on your situation and in the time of year. But that's something we offer at Dallin is they call me and I help them figure it out because it's very kind of scenario depends on this scenario. There's not kind of a blanket. This is how you do it. And so people that are curious that comment. contact information will also be down in the video description.

So like bee clubs, bee associations could feasibly do this and buy a 50 dose file. And then the question I have too is once it's mixed with sugar or however the delivery is set up because we need the bees to consume and I'm guessing the nurse bees feed the queen. So how, you know, maybe that's better for a queen breeder to do because in the They have these finishing colonies and things like that that are small. Because what happens when you feed that, let's say you're raising virgin queens or recently mated queens, you have a full-sized colony? Are we saying that that's not a good way or a good system for delivering that feed and therefore a vaccine to the queen?

Yeah. So the vaccine, the vaccination process is best done outside of the hive. We want the queen to only have access to vaccinated candy during that seven-day period. Otherwise, she could be being fed by workers who aren't consuming vaccinated candy. We can't really guarantee she's vaccinated at the end of that period. So the vaccination happens outside of the hive, which is why it is easier to introduce a vaccinated queen when you're re-queening anyway. We do have some people this year experimenting with double-screened cake,

and they're going to vaccinate within the hive and see how that goes. But making sure that there's no trophylaxing happening through the screen part of the cage. But I can't remember the end of your question. But you look excited about something. You've had a fight. I'm thinking about it while all my stuff falls apart. It's not a queen isolation cage. No.

This is a queen introduction cage. Have you seen them before? I have seen something similar if it's what I think it is. Okay, so. A frame fits in there. Well, a deep frame would fit. They make them for mediums also, so there is a smaller version, but you could, of course, keep nurse bees in here that can't get out with the queen, and then you could feasibly

provide that resource to vaccinate the queen then because those nurse bees have to consume it. The queen's not going to consume it correctly, correct? Right. The nurse bees are and then they have feed the queen. But would we not then have a locked in kind of a control group that would reduce or keep other bees in the same colony from actually spreading out that vaccinated candy? Yeah. That hypothetically could work. I would be worried about them tropheluxing through the the cage still with other workers within the hive. And also each queen, the dosage right now is six grams of vaccinated candy per queen. And so that six grams in that scenario might go very quickly. And that seven days of exposure for the queen is pretty important. We need her to have time to

build up those vaccine particles in her fat bodies so that she can be protecting her larva for a longer period of time. So in that scenario, they might burn through that six grams of candy pretty fast. So usually this happens outside of the hive with queens isolated with attendance, with six grams of candy in a cage over seven days. And they're held in kind of a dark 68 to 75 degrees space. We've had people use cabinets or drawers or storage closets for that seven-day period and then we know she was isolated to that candy that vaccinated candy and that she had that enough exposure to store it before she's introduced back into the hive so we're working on figuring out an a caged an isolated caged in hive method because there are a lot of people especially

at the smaller scale who really like their queens and they got a queen from their queen breeder right down the street and they like that survival stock survivor's stock from that area and that queen can last three or five years, three to five years and they don't want to get rid of her. So we're, we're sort of starting to experiment with that option so that people can cage the queen that they already have, vaccinate her and reintroduce her to the hive without chaos happening in the hive during that seven days. Now what happens if other birds, bees through trophlaxis, as you described, did get that

vaccine? they're not queens, they're just workers. Other than losing or reducing the dose amount, are there any negative impacts on the other bees in the colony? Or let's say later they became laying workers, then they would be vaccinated against the little drones they're going to make, right? How do we know that the queen gets a full dose, I guess? I will say if a worker is exposed to vaccinated candy,

it is very similar to her just coming across those bacterial spores in the hive naturally. There's nothing else in the vaccine. So there's nothing harmful for her to interact with or be spreading. It would just be as if she came across dead AFB spores naturally. So that would be fine. The queen, that's the other part of that isolated aspect. of the vaccination process is making sure that she's fully vaccinated. So as long as she's consumed at least 50%, or the workers have consumed at least 50% of that vaccinated candy by day eight,

then the queen is considered vaccinated. Okay. And I'm sure people already know this, but it's only as good as the queen lives. So once she's done, of course, her, you know, her offspring are protected, but when the queen's done, we're into requeenning with another vaccinated queen. Right. Yeah, we're not genetically modifying anything. So unfortunately, daughter queens from a queen, they would be protected as they are developing, but they are not going to pass it on to their offspring, nor would the drones from a vaccinated

queen be able to pass it on. Okay. And just looking back, one of the number one frustrations for people that watched our last discussion, they wanted to know the costs, and it hadn't been really dialed in. So we're going to jump on Everett over here. The 50-dose vial, if a club were to want to buy that, do we have to call you and talk to you and work a deal, or is there a known set price? So there's a little bit of both. There is a known set price.

But, you know, in the past year, we've had several different programs for our clean breeders, early order programs, which is standard in industrial agriculture. we've had some viral testing programs where especially when we saw losses out west this season we offered some viral sampling you know at no charge depending on the operation and the volume of purchase kind of depends on the price and again we're an international company and so the pricing that we talk about could be different from one country to the next because of different tariffs and different as we well know and the environment we live in now that that's very that's moving target we do have set pricing we do have some set programming even now we have the colony loss relief program you know in response to what we did see out west

and to kind of provoke more innovators that are willing to experiment with this proven and safe product. So to that end, to get the vaccine itself, yes, you need to talk to us. First and foremost, because we really want to make sure it fits the program that you have or your apiary. We talk to a lot of people every day, and once we go through the entire process, as Amy's already done most of it, this might not be right for me. Okay, well, let's put you in touch with a queen producer in your area or a package producer or a new producer in your area. It's all about customer service, Fred. And so to that end, we really want to have that personal conversation to really understand

so we know that you know what you're getting into and what to expect from us. Secondly, though, there are vaccinated queens, as Amy alluded to earlier, that are on the market. Packages and nukes, those are online. And so that price increase over a typical queen and a conventional queen kind of ranges between 12 and $18. Oh, that's actually lower. I was just told 20. Thanks for letting me know.

They should only charge 12. Good. Okay. Well, if they don't charge 12, you can go to the guy who is charging 12. It all depends on what you want. And everyone like Amy mentioned as well, I have my favorite queen producer. I always use this guy or this gal because I know the quality of what I'm getting. I know the genetic line I'm getting.

I've had success with delivery, whatever the case is. And if I'm willing to pay a little bit more of a premium for that and they vaccinate, well, then great. So, you know, there's a broad reasoning for why people charge what they do. And we don't get into their business. That is their business. We can't dictate what they charge for it for their vaccination fee. But, you know, commercially we have some apiaries that raise the queens and they'll get to, three, four hundred or more and just charge a flat fee. And so that doesn't go into the per queen price, right, that you see.

So there is a little bit of nuance to pricing, which is why we don't publish. And, you know, people can sometimes see the price, not understand the product, and they'll either order it and get something they didn't expect, or they won't order it based on, you know, slow information. So let's talk about the actual vaccine. how delicate is it? In other words, a lot of vaccines require refrigeration, special handling. What are the control requirements once that vaccine is prepared? So once it's in candy, if it's properly stored, refrigerated, it lasts for about a month.

Once you receive it, the label is refrigeration. We know that freezing is out of the question. Don't put it in a freezer. So keep it refrigerated, just in a normal refrigeration. There's no specific temperature range on that refrigeration, just a typical refrigerator, you know, temperature setting. And that's all it takes to keep it. So let's talk about the interest level over the past year. Amy, you've been out in the field a lot and worked with some people and spoken with different big commercial beekeepers.

Is interest growing? Is it waning? Are people more excited now than the initially were? What's the trend? Yeah, I will speak to this a little bit, and then I think Everett also has some good input on this topic. But yeah, it's been, I have been working with a lot of queen producers. Over the last year, we've had to run trials to keep up with our conditional license,

prove field safety, do lots of those kinds of things, and we've been monitoring lots of things in these hives. And in some of these trials, we were just looking at disease panels. We were looking at everything. And we were seeing a reduction in deformed wing virus in one of our studies. So we started really paying attention to that in the next trials we ran throughout the year. And that has definitely piqued a lot of interest. obviously viruses and coming from mites is a huge concern for every, every beekeeper.

That affects everyone no matter what your scale. So that interest definitely peaked with that. And in Canada, they deal with American foulbrood a little bit more than we do. So their interest, once they were informed, it was available to them and understood kind of how they can get it. That interest has also increased this year. But that deforming virus data, watching that occurrence repeat itself throughout the season

and across the country really has piqued interest. And that is really what we see from my angle, talking to hundreds of clients. Amy has the ability to dive deep on certain, AP areas with certain clients and customers and that's obviously her strong suit. I get to talk to everybody else. It's the side effects of the vaccination that people are excited about. The AFB, the DWV, and whatever else it's doing is leading to healthier and more robust

highs, right? They're calmer. In general, they're healthier. 45 days in, the brood is stronger, is moving, moving. at a good pace. Because of that, we have a little bit of increased honey. Pollinators can make more splits based upon more brood. So there's, you know, and again, whether you're a pollinator or a honey producer or a hobbyist, prosumer, what matters to me may differentiate quite a bit. However, what we see across the board are enough positive side effects to say, hey, this has

real value. And my return investment is coming in at three or four full. And especially in our northern, you know, in Canada, we have some really astute beekeepers that keep very good data on spreadsheets and what have you. And they come back with some amazing, some amazing information. It is theirs. It is their apiary. But based on, you know, lower mites, not that we make that claim at all, but the fact that the viral suppression is there means that the margins on mite control might be affected a little bit. So we continue to look at that as well. And so we've seen with most of our clientele really robust numbers coming out of winter

that the survival rates with our customers overall have been great. With vaccination, it's been better than the controls. But it's just that ability to pay more attention to our hives and have a better routine on how we take care of hive health and what that initiates is quite significant. in an operation. So that's actually really interesting because a lot of viewers will say that we don't have very much American foulbrew going around. We know that if you get it, it's devastating.

There's no treatment. We have to destroy our stock and equipment. So that scares people, but very few people these days are encountering it. So it's actually a huge bonus that there are effects that are untargeted that are benefiting the bees. And I'm wondering, are there studies ongoing? Is there going to be a published study of some of these even secondary benefits that were not necessarily planned when the vaccine was developed? So what's going on?

Study published next week? We are still working on getting some of that formally published. We did publish a public access paper about the deformed wing virus. we can send you that link. I can't remember where exactly it's posted, but that's public access. It's not necessarily peer reviewed, but we wanted that information to be able to be out there

so that beekeepers can see our data from at least that first study in Georgia where we first saw that 83% reduction. I don't know, Everett, do you want to... Yeah, that said, there is data in the pipeline, and there are papers in the pipeline. We also have label extension applications in the pipeline. So all that goes through a scientific and or regulatory process that, you know, with the big mouth that I have, I'm only told what I'm allowed to repeat. I am assured that things are going to be, you know, there is going to be some releases.

When those releases happen, I have yet to know. So other comments that I see frequently circulated around is the level of efficacy against even the targeted American Fowlbrew. Have we locked that down? I think initially it was maybe around 50%. Is it higher now? So I can comment on Prannell's study and Amy can correct me where I'm going wrong. In the lab challenge, you had the 30 or 50% number.

That's where that's coming from, from the lab challenges that were done in some of the initial studies that were used for safety and efficacy to get approval through regulatory agencies. in that effort, you're challenging the larvae at like 2,000 times the infection rate of typical AFB to get the threshold of 50 or 30% or what have you. And so the fact that those numbers were that robust was surprising to some regulators and really helped solidify ourselves as effective. In the field, you know, especially in the U.S., doing challenges in the field with active AFB

is a big no-no. You want it to all sorts of legal challenges. However, in Canada, Dr. Pranel does have limited authorization to do some in-field challenges. He's running those challenges in three different groups that mimic what we did in the lab. He's coming back at least initially with the same type of numbers, in the same range.

And so that study is an 18-month study. it won't be completed until, you know, the end of 2025 and then all that data has to get crunched and released. And so, you know, we're months, if not longer away from knowing what that data is going to look like. But the first type of release that was made at a public meeting in BC was that it's mimicking the challenge that was done in the lab. So that was very encouraging, at least to people like me, that see a field trial. come off just as successful. Anything to add to Amy or you're good? No, I think that that pretty much covers it.

So the other thing about prevalence I was talking with Dr. Spivak from the Spivak lab at University of Minnesota that there is a lot of foul fruit, apparently kind of there's a level that exists in a broad spectrum, right? In other words, it's not a symptom that we can see. We all know about the rope tests and, like I say, we all know. People that understand how to evaluate a hive that may have foul-brewd, EFB or A-FB, understands how to diagnose that, but apparently it's present at levels that don't have symptoms.

So what's the effect on that? Like, in other words, if we're doing it as a preventative, because it doesn't help you once they're already showing these symptoms, What happens when you have a load on a hive that is sub-symptomatic? I don't even know the terms to use. Amy would know. So we call it asymptomatic when that bacteria is present but not causing symptoms. I guess I don't have an exact answer about the vaccine's efficacy on asymptomatic larva.

But the whole point is that. we're reducing that stress and that underlying stress. And if it's in there, then we're, you know, we're not killing bacteria. It's not an antibiotic. But it is preventing it from reproducing. And so, you know, an infected larva starts with 10 American fowbird spores. And then by the time it dies, has turned into 2 billion spores. And if they're not dying from it, we're, they're not getting that too.

billion more spores exposed to their hive it's staying at that lower level and um but it is true a lot of i think in canada they've done a lot more studies looking at honey and they find american foul brood spores in honey producers honey all the time um it's not that they have symptomatic hives but those spores are present um and usually at a low risk level sometimes they test the honey and they go back to the beekeeper and say you're at high risk of an outbreak because you have so many spores just in your honey. And I did my master's thesis work on European file brood. And we found the same thing. Melissa Caucasus plutonius is everywhere.

It is in every single hive you look at even the healthiest looking hive that bacteria is there at a low level. And so if we can provide the hive a tool to keep it low and keep it reduced at those asymptomatic levels where they're not going to get out of control, I think that's a great tool for beekeepers. We haven't quite seen consistent efficacy with European foul brood, but with American foulbrood, that's definitely the case. I'll just go ahead. Just to add into that, that's really where we see some of these ancillary benefits, you know, theoretically coming from. if I have if I'm a if I'm an organism and I'm not dealing with AFB I'm a B and I don't have to deal with DWV as much I can keep out chalkroot I can keep out sac root I can keep out sac

root there's less stress on me and so I'm able to do my job better and so in that scenarios I think we're seeing these these side of these positive side effects really come to fruition because we are you know suppressing those things below subclimilar levels. Now could we be also somewhat protecting our native pollinators as well because there have been studies where honeybees, if it's going to impact in a positive way to form wing virus, there is evidence that our honeybees are spreading that through flower contact and everything else and that bumblebees are getting it native bees. I even found it in yellow jacket wasps. So, and I videoed all of that too because it was really interesting to me.

because we didn't realize that it could jump ship and go onto another species, I guess. So that's actually a positive benefit if we're looking at the optics of these beekeepers and their adjacent natural environments and the impact on species. If we're getting the deformed wing virus under control, that's improving our relationship with the stock that we have that's not, we have our not native and then the native interactions. Do you know anything about that? Yeah, we haven't been able to do a formal study.

I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out how we do that without impacting native pollinators. And my bachelor's degree is in wildlife conservation and management, and so I have a strong foundation of wanting to protect those native pollinators. So I think we're working on it, but theoretically, it's completely possible that if we're reducing those levels in managed hives that the native bees will be less impacted by those at least by deformed wing virus so hopefully we can get around to mixing that into one of our other trials but we haven't done any formal studies for that yet okay so is there any kind of warranty for the people that get a vaccinated queen that they will not have American falbury.

Closest I can tell you is it hasn't happened yet. There's no formal guarantee warranty program available. Obviously, if you were to attain AFB, we want to know about it, and then we'll be involved with any remediation efforts, therefore, but there's no formal, you know, certificate that you get when you purchase the vaccine. Okay, so there's no.

Right. So is AFB changing? Is it the same AFB 20 years ago as today? Is it, I don't know if it mutates. I don't know what bacteria does. Is it, is it the same exact bacteria that we've been working with all along? Or does it undergo change? And therefore, would the vaccine also have to be updated and changed in some way? They have done more studies about American foulbrood in Canada than they have in the U.S. But those studies, show that there are different strains of American foul brood in different areas. It's a little bit less diverse of a bacterial species than European foul brood, which I think makes it a little bit easier to treat in this way. There are different variants, but they're more closely related than the different versions of European foul brood. So when the vaccine was tested,

initially it was tested in different geographic areas and with different strains and it held its efficacy in those different variations so as of now it is efficacious in different areas and with different strains I'm sure if that bacteria were to drastically change maybe things would be different. The cool thing about insect immune systems is that they're more generalized. And so as long as it still sort of looks like that their immune system more recognizes the shape of something and it triggers one very wide pathway that can that a lot of things fall into, which is partially why we think deformed wing virus, we're seeing these deformed wing virus reductions because that pathway that's opened by the type of bacteria that American foul brood is

is also a pathway that will attack the type, the shape of virus, that deforming virus is. And so it's a much different than our bodies that create a very specific antibody for a very specific species of something. And there's don't do that. It's more of just this pathway is now open in anything that falls in this pathway. that it recognizes as something bad, it will defend against. So unless there was a huge heavy mutation in the shape of pain of bacillus larvae, I don't think we will see too much of a shift in the efficacy of the vaccine.

That is my personal belief. Yeah, so you make reference to the shape of it. So this is like a jakesaw puzzle. It has to fit exactly what that little gap is designed to accommodate. And then if it doesn't recognize that shape, that puzzle piece gets rejected and not interacted with at all? It's more of the type of bacteria that it is. There's gram positive.

There's gram positive. There's gram negative. There's conical shapes. There's different. Chronical shapes? There's lots of different shapes of bacteria. And viruses all have different outer casings that have different attachment points for proteins. And that is a big science lesson that is definitely more suited for Dali than for me.

that's interesting I'm just trying to visualize what are these shapes what does it look like okay the other thing we can safely say is it's not designed to control

European foul rate so far we haven't seen consistency in that efficacy like I said there's Melissa caucus plutonius is a very diverse bacteria there's atypical strains

there's typical strains and then within those there's very big regional differences and those might look different enough from each other that it's just not consistent. So we've seen cool things happen in some areas and nothing in other areas. So I don't want to put a lot of weight on that one. Now, is this the only thing that the Dallon organization produces is just the insect vaccine? So for currently, it's the only licensed product on the market.

So, you know, Dallin Animal Health was founded by three researchers, and they formed it out of invertebrate health. We are the very first company that is pioneering solutions for invertebrate health. And so you may look, you can go online and you can look and see that we do have a shrimp solution that is in the pipeline and will be released, we hope, you know, soon, relatively soon. and it's in the regulatory process, efficacy process now. There's other invertebrates we're looking at. There's also different pipelines within the bees that we're looking at. We do have, you know, even published on our website, different tracks for different vaccines that we're looking at,

assuming that this current vaccine, that pathway, isn't accessing it already. And so all of that still has to kind of flush out and come out. but we're working on more. This is just our first release. And the company is only six years old, eight years old. Amy is going to correct me here. We were founded in December of 2018.

Yeah. So that's when Annette Kaiser, Annette or Annette, how does she say her first name? Annette. Annetta. Aneta Kaiser or Kleiser. Kleiser. Kleister. In Austria.

Yeah, so her, it was her and Dahlia and Francie, were the co-founders who they had been doing a lot of research prior to. And then the company Dallin was formally formed in December of 2018. Okay. I'm 95% on that one. On that date. 95%? I know it was in December. I'm...

Okay. Okay, so let's just rehash this from late people's vantage point. That would be me. Once they get it, it's too late. This isn't like you can have a car accident and call your insurance company and get coverage. Correct. Correct. We definitely still recommend normal management strategies and to take care of things the way you would.

If you have an American foul-brewed outbreak, take care of it properly. Don't try to place a vaccinated queen in to resolve the issue. Yeah, don't get sneaky about it. All right, because there's no cure. There is a vaccination, but no cure. Right. It is meant to be a preventative option. I would recommend then placing vaccinated queens in your nearby hives or in nearby

apiaries to reduce the spread of that break. Right. But I would not use it to treat a sick hive. And I have to say the best thing I've gotten out of this conversation today is it actually proves itself just with these secondary benefits, which would more than offset the cause of the vaccinated queen, just based on what you've said, more productive bees, healthier bees overall, you know, it's, it still has a positive impact on the colonies and overall production throughout the life of the queen, even if they never encountered American foul brute. Is that correct to think that way? That's very, yes, very much so. Okay. All right. I'm kind of out of

things to say. I had a whole bunch of stuff. I did want to mention this documentary. Have you seen it? more than honey I have not is that a Hoverfly on the cover listening this is called more than honey it's a documentary that came out it's one of my favorites

for 2013 it was the best foreign film category the reason I bring it up is there's a German beekeeper in this who ends up losing his genetics that his family has developed through generations the German black bee

and they got American foul brood when somebody brought in other genetics to the mountainous region where he lived and he lost his entire, that's a spoiler, because at the end of it, he loses everything. Wow. If he only had the AFB vaccine. If I can clarify, did he lose it from to the disease or did he lose it because the regulators made him burn his apiary down?

They made him burn his apiary down because that's their only control measure. in fact, he was really good friends with the inspector that came and she was as upset as he was. And he was too late in life. A lot of beekeepers, unbelievable but true are not youngsters. And they don't start over very well in your 70s. You know, if you lost everything, a lot of people lost everything this year. Now, you've been doing some of the sampling out of some of these big losses, these commercial people. Have you determined anything?

Did you know anything that you can share with us about what's happened with this 1.6 million die offs? Yeah. Our sample set is not huge. What we're seeing is a trend that is there's no common denominator. Yes, some people have a lot of deformed wing virus in the dead bees. We also see no sema. We see some one of the paralysis viruses. I forget which one right now. We've seen different levels. of different viruses. Deformed wing virus is a little elevated across the board, but not like, oh, it's staring us right in the face that it's all this one virus. It is really a head scratcher when you look at the fact that these losses are coming from coast to coast, Canada, we're hearing the same thing now that they're starting to come out of winter there. The losses are at the same

scale. Talk to one yesterday. It's a lost 85% of us. And he had sheds. And so this is the common theme throughout this season. And so we're still all looking for that one smoking gun. I don't think we're going to find one thing. I think it is going to be a complex scenario where all things just kind of aligned for this season. But mite loads were challenging this year. Viral loads were high. We do know that much.

But from the current sampling that we did, and that's cursory, it's not going to, It's not going to be as detailed as what the USDA did. You know, there's just not one thing we can say, hey, look, this is the problem right here. Now, were there any, if the viral loads were higher than usual, did we identify any treatments that weren't proving to be as effective as they once might have been, or are they all just using different things? Well, I mean, it's public knowledge that Apavar has some resistance that's in the cycle, and a lot of beekeepers are looking at that as.

saying, well, this is part of my problem. And you can rectify that. Frank Richtovich, I get his name wrong. I apologize, Frank. But he has a very nice presentation about how to short-circuit the resistance of that product. I give it a break. And then, you know, within a year or two, you can start using it again at efficacious levels. So that's one thing with mites.

Another thing is just the opportunity of what we have, in the weather. When we have us longer honey flow, we inherently want to take advantage of it. Well, that also means that we're not treating for mites effectively because we don't want to affect the honey. And that has

been kind of come to the surface as something that the industry is looking at is maybe that honey flow actually hurt us because we didn't treat mites as soon as we should have. And even though we knocked them back and got them under control before winter,

the damage had already been done, the viruses had already been introduced, and so then we saw the dial. Amy, do you have anything to add to that? No, I think that's, from what I've been hearing from the guys I've been talking to, they are concerned that they were maybe their own problem, and that they, they, because honey prices are, were not great last year, they wanted to take advantage of as much of that flow as they could have and they didn't treat when they normally treat. They waited another month and they came back around and the hives looked weak and then within a week they were dead. And so

they had a lot of die-off in the fall even before winter. But we went to Alberta in February and they had really cool, well, it's kind of cool. From a science point of view, it's very cool data that showed this sort of delayed effect of viruses with mite load. So they had this peak of mite levels in 2021, right? It was fall of 2021. They had these really high might levels. And that's where that peak was on that graph in the timeline. And then their virus levels were highest about four months later in the spring of 2022, because that's how long it takes for those viruses to, they're in there, but then they really take off. And there might levels at that peak of viruses were very low.

We're under their threshold, but those viruses just took off. And so it's not a like, I knocked my mites down. I knocked my viruses down. If your mites at any point get out of control, you're going to have a crash probably a few months later because your virus levels got really high. And so far, the industry hasn't had an option for virus. treatment, right? The option for managing viruses is to keep your mite levels down. And you have to, you don't have any margin of error now. You have to, that 3% threshold is now 1%. And so the margin of error

for beekeepers is so low that when you have a longer honey flow, it's, you're kind of betting, okay, do I get more honey or do I quit while I'm ahead and treat for mites and keep my bees alive? So, But now, hopefully, we can provide a tool that at least can knock down some of those viruses, but also just increase that buffer of time for beekeepers. That margin of error can be a little bit bigger and give them a little bit of breathing room to be able to take advantage of what they need to throughout the season. And, of course, a stronger, healthier bee would be more robust when faced with a virus environment, too. So that's a very interesting point that you made about a lot of people do wait and they're like they've got their big guns all lined up and they're just waiting to get the field full of the enemy before they let them fire, right?

When they really should be picking off the scouts early and making sure that the big mass never shows up. Is that a bad analogy? No, I think that's great. Thank you. That takes back to playing video games when I was a kid. You know, don't wait until it's falling poppy. You got to take them out before you, when you first see them. I only played one video game and it was called Age of Sale in the 90s.

Age of sale. It became an Admiral, Fleet Admiral, took out everything. I wiped out the Spanish Armada. I was... Anyway, so, yeah, that's all really good stuff. If you, Amy, do you keep your own bees? I do. What do you use to control varomites?

I use Formic Pro. Formic Pro, that's it? That is... Why did your tone go down when you say, I use formicro. Because I know people have their opinions, you know? But I like formic pro. Oxelic acid freaks me out. I don't have a great reason why.

I don't like the vaporization. Growing up in Arizona, I'm very cautious of fires, and it's always very hot during B season. So I just, oxalic acid freaks me out a little bit. Formic pro, it's an acid. They can't become resistant to it. I'm most familiar with it. And I will sometimes throw, like, rotate in some thymol, like the gel every once in a while. But four McPro has worked great for me.

This last season, I overwintered 100% of my hives. I did have vaccinated queens in them, and they did wonderful. I have to split them already, and usually by this time in Flagstaff, they're barely starting to get going. So it's worked for me. Formic pro can be challenging because of weather. But because most of my focus is also on honey production, I like formic because I can use it during honey flows too.

But there are temperature restrictions on that formic too can get too. That temperature restrictions are there. Sometimes if I'll use it right before I know I'm going to re-clean anyway. It's never not hot during my. bee season. So I sort of have to wing it. So I'll usually do that treatment right before I want to re-queen anyway, just in case any queens succumb to that treatment. So. All right? So I'm a landscaper that has no landscaping. Now, I do not currently keep bees. I've worked on thousands of hives prior to coming to Dallon. And I, you know, my travel,

between my travel schedule, I do have an 11-year-old who's showing interest. I need to see. commitment. If I can see commitment, we'll be beekeepers again, but not for now. I have a nine-year-old grandson that he's trying to take this place over. I have to hold them back. In fact, I have to make sure the doors are locked even while I'm doing this, or he'd be in here with his ideas. So it just happens. They just show up. We don't culture these kids. They just show up. There are beekeepers or they're not. And they just show up that way. He is. He really is. He goes to our, He'll go to some of our conferences. He was at the Bee Expo this year.

He interacts at the entomologist on the yellow-legged Hornet and small hive beetle. He's like, how can I help? What can I do? All this stuff. It's the execution that we've got to work on. And that's just an age factor, I think. So he's in the next-gen beekeeper program there? Not yet.

Oh, is he going to be here next January? At the Expo? I don't know. I hope so. I hope so, but that depends on how my wife feels about it again. Amy, will you be at the expo? Most likely. As long as there's no more of that crazy snowstorm things happening. I had to leave early so I didn't get trapped this year. So hopefully next year I can be around for a longer. Okay, because my supervisor is coming. I just aren't ready for him.

He's turning 10. He looked it up. He knows they accept 10-year-olds. He has to submit a video for the next gen. I think it's great. Okay, so any closing thoughts, information you'd like to share with viewers and listeners about the product where it's headed? Why are people resistant? I always have different soapboxes for it.

I'll try to keep this one brief. Okay. From an industry perspective. You know, a lot of the bees, So I've worked in different sectors of agriculture throughout most of my career. And every sector has its own nuance, right? With bees, especially from an industry standpoint commercially, it's common that we even use the phrase,

we're treated like the red-headed step children of agriculture. And that comes with some validity. We are for different reasons. But being that that's the case, that you don't see a lot of proven and effective solutions coming to market brand new. You have a lot of mechanics, you have a lot of different hives, hive tools, you know, so the advent of 3D printing made new hive gadgets really easy to prototype and put out into the market. But with something like what we're talking about

here with the vaccine, it's very unique. And what has been common in agriculture, in cattle and chickens and hogs and all the rest of it for many decades, now we're opening up that possibility in the market for bees. And because we're not a huge sector within industrial agriculture, there's companies that have pipelines with products in them, or at least thought processes for prototypes of products that could be effective per se mites or anything else. And they look at little companies like ours and they say, what are they doing? And, And how is the industry reacting? And so are there enough beekeepers, whether it's a backyard beekeeper or a commercial

beekeeper, that's experimenting with innovative products? We're not talking about snake oils that have been promoted since the beginning of time. We're talking about these things that have been proven safe and effective through regulatory processes and other things. And if there's support for it, then I think we're going to be going to be able to. to see a lot more innovation in our beekeeping industry designed toward preventative care. And when we get to that state, we can have a really healthy, robust industry. And so that's just one plug, not only for Dallon, but for the industry at large, right?

We're not made up, but none of our founders were millionaires or billionaires. They came into this from a research background saying this is an innovative thing that we would like to see help the planet out to provide sustainable future. for agriculture. And so in that vein, give it a shot, give it a try, experiment with it, whether it's five hives or 500. On the scale of your apiary, take a portion, try new innovative products. Obviously, try Dallon, but if you're not going to try Dallon, try something.

Because we have to do a better job at, number one, coming together as an industry, and number two, really preparing our hives for what's to come in an uncertain environment. that's my soapbox for that okay Amy this is your chance win everybody over I don't know ever it stole my wind okay I think I just I have been very proud to be a part of Dallon

because we're very much trying to help the industry and that's always been the goal is to help the industry and when something doesn't work quite right we pivot we modify for the industry And we want to, we've always had a strong effort to understand what the industry wants and what the industry needs and really just wants to help provide support for the industry. And we're in a unique position where we can do that. And so we're doing, we have a lot of pathways right now that we're trying to push that through, not just through our product, but in other things that I'm not allowed to talk about yet, but I'm so excited about. So I just, I want people to understand that Dallon is, is here for the industry.

and it's not just a, we are not big pharma, we're not, Monsanto, there's none of that, we're not, nothing big and crazy. We're just a group of people who really want to support the industry. Okay. Well, I appreciate both of you, and it was great to see you again, Amy, and to meet you, Everett. And are you available if people are watching this saying, wow, I'd like to get a hold of them to come and talk to at our conference or, you know, something. Are you available to clubs and organizations to give presentations? Always. Okay.

Sounds good. All right. So tomorrow then, we'll see you. Okay. All right. Thanks again for your time. It's been great talking with you. Also, just in closing, don't forget to look down in the video description.

There'll be further information, contact information for both of these great presenters. And, of course, when the studies publish, you'll find those links down there as well. Thanks a lot for watching. And that wraps up another episode of interviews. with experts. I hope you enjoyed today's discussion and hopefully learn something new. I invite you to subscribe so you won't miss a single episode in the future. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this has been The Way to Be.