The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Frederick Dunn, Rancy McCaffrey (DirtRooster), and Mr Ed (Jeff Horchoff) Talk about cut-outs and beekeeping practices.

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

March 10th of 2025 This is a casual conversation where we discuss keeping bees in a variety of climates, and what bees do when they are not attended to by a keeper. Treatment, or Treatment Free practices all in the same conversation. Do bees to better in horizontal or vertical cavities? Well, these individuals represent thousands of bee removals and offer their unique insider wisdom. This is the audio track from today's YouTube:  https://youtu.be/h2SnRykwtq4 Beekeeping is Regional, Jeff is in Louisiana, Randy is in Mississippi, and Fred is in Pennsylvania. 

Well, it's March the 11th of 2025. And with the snow still melting and the bees only beginning to fly out of their hives, this is a great time to take a moment to invite a couple of friends to a Zoom session. So we can catch up and share some beekeeping practices and observations. I hope you'll enjoy listening to our conversation. Here's Jeff Orchhoff and Randy McCaffrey. I'm Frederick Dunn. And this is the way to be.

Oh, you know what? Annette messed it up. She was, I was supposed to have my Randy mug. Oh, what do you mean? She brought me. See, where's yours, Jeff? Where is it? Boy, this is something else. I know you've got one.

That does it. Hang on. We're, we got two minutes. I'm going to get my other mug. Look. Randy, you got your play button back there. He's got his play button. I ain't got squat.

I moved it just so it would be prominent. Let's hold our mugs up and then do this. And this is going to be the picture for the thumbnail. Mr. Ed, it'd be cool if you had like a t-shirt that would promote your company or something. Oh, wait, you do. Okay. I'm wearing the Frederick. Frederick's Classic.

Why is that called a? Frederick's classic. Because it was the classiest looking hat we had, and we had to name it after somebody. Is that real? That's not true. Hey, look at our website. Really? That's not true.

That's true. 100%. If that's true, as soon as we get off, I'm ordering one. Go check it. It's on there. So here we are at our first annual, unplanned gathering of amazing beekeepers and me. And so I'm going to ask you guys to introduce yourselves in the off chance that there's one person out there who doesn't know who you are. And I'll start off. We'll do alphabetical order.

So I'm Fred. You know that already because you're watching this YouTube channel. But we have Mr. Ed and we have Randy. So Jeff, tell us who you are, where you are, what you do. Okay, well, my name, my real name is Jeff Porchoff. Right. But nobody knows who I am by Jeff Orchoff if you watch YouTube. it's always Mr. Ed. And I will have to say this, Fred, that the question, that's probably one of the most asked questions I get

is why do you call yourself Mr. Ed? What's the answer there? Do you know why I'm calling Mr. Red? The theme song. Well, when I got a job at the post office, there was a fine tradition of, as new employees come into the office, they get a name. And as soon as you walk in the door, you get a name.

Well, they already knew my name was, my last name was Horchoff. And so you can see Horchoff horses. You can extrapolate that through there. And so the connection of a horse, right? And so then when you put these fine snugs into the picture, you know, it's just a natural. Then the laughing, you know, it's Mr. Ed. And so I was called Mr. Ed when I first started working, the post office. And when

I love the name so much that when I started my YouTube channel, that's what I called myself Mr. Ed. And I keep bees for a group of Benedict and monks in Covington, Louisiana. We run about 150 hives. And I'm happily married to my sweet, beautiful wife, Mona. That's everything. That's the whole list right there?

Yeah, that ought to be enough. They should know that. All right. So the next is, Randy. Happy Friday. The way to be, way to be mug. The way to be. My name is Randy McCaffrey. Go by a 628 dirt rooster or rooster or whatever on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all those others. Primarily do bee removals, but I do a lot of beekeeping as well. And that's that's about how you really need to know about me is I'm a beekeeper that does be. I'm a contractor that does be removals. So you're just made 33 years married. That's impressive.

That's impressive. Okay, so what people really should understand is we're completely unplanned here. We're flying by the seat of her pants, but I have, Jeff asked me if I had any pre-organized questions ready to go. And I said, no, we're just going to fly by the seat of her pants. So this is my list. Did you just make those questions up right before we went on? I did.

Yeah. For my water to heat up in my support your local beekeepers cup, which is from Dirt Rooster, Randy McCaffrey. You guys got the perch. Got to plug right there. Well, in two of us have play buttons in the background. Jeff forgot his. I think he keeps it on the dash of his car so people can. Well, you know, Fred, I really feel like I should have just stayed at the office today and

gone live, but I had to come home and do some work, so I came home. You know, Jeff told me he wasn't going to have his, so mine was on the wall over there. I moved it into a prominent position right below my Neil Diamond album. Below your Neil Diamond up. Wow, you do have a Neil Diamond album. There's a few of them up there. That's cool. what is your favorite song by Neil Diamond?

Oh, I like them all. You like them all. I haven't heard of that one yet, but I'll bet. Elizabeth doesn't like him. I like them all. Okay, so we know each other because of Kamen Reynolds. So we should probably thank Kamen Reynolds. That's not, no, no, no.

That's not sure. No. Fred, I watched your videos way before I met you at, at, I've lived. I know, but he brought us together. I was a subscriber way before, Havillac. We weren't talking to each other. Well, no, because I even, even back in those days prior to Hivelight, when you would, when you would respond, comment on my videos,

in fact, I know it. I called Randy once or twice, said, Fred Dunn responded on my videos. And you look like you were like this safari guy, you know, it's like, And it's like, you're so impressive, man. And like, man, I can't believe Red Dunn responded to a comment, made a comment. Yeah, I know. It's like looking through the fence. Yeah.

Okay. Perfect. Well, I don't think, I'm pretty sure nobody watching is interested in those stories. So the cool thing, though, is when we did get put on stage, again, unplanned, unscheduled, we just find out cutouts and cut-ups and they put us on stage and it was like we had been friends forever and that's kind of the way it's been ever since. This tonight's conversation is not going to be just a bunch of fun because you guys are a wealth of knowledge. I mean, it's, you do things I don't do. So we're complimenting each other. I'm kind of scientific,

nitty-gritty tiny stuff where I can carry my cup of coffee and sit in the comfort of a shed and look at bees. You guys are out engaging bees in a way very few people do. I know your friends also with JP the B-man. Is he still creating content? He's not really. He says he is and he says he's going to start back. But every time I ask him, is he going to put out another video? He says, I've got to go to the hunting camp. So. And that's a thing because he had a huge following, right? Yeah, really successful. So it's no secret. We're all three YouTubers and influencers,

but at the core of it all, we're really trying to teach people about bees and the things that we find. And what I'm really curious about and always searching for is the information regarding what bees do when they're on their own. So you guys are in that all the time.

And in preparation for today, of course, I looked at a couple of your videos. I made my list of questions and criticisms. Very good. So we're just going to go down the line a little bit, and it's not to pick on you, of course. Asking questions is the only way we're going to learn. And the other thing that's cool about us, and I want people to know, because it's about accepting or understanding or being open to a lot of different ways of doing the same thing. So at the core of it's keeping bees. And I think Randy is he treats as bees. Is that right? If they have issues, varomites,

You don't treat? What? And Jeff does not treat. And I'm the only, I'm the only one that's going to get spitballs shot at this. Okay. Fred, Fred, you, and I understand it. You know, we, I always say that here in the southern, southeastern part of the United States, for some reason, I'm not saying we don't have mites, but our mic load is not as big as in other areas of

of the United States. It just isn't. I mean, we have mites, but they're not as problematic as particularly on the East Coast, you know, out there. We have mites, but not to the degree of where it is, and whether that's our climate, the humidity. I don't know what the thing is, but it is not as bad. And that may be why we have such an explosion of, you know, bees that don't live in boxes but in people's houses. And you know what? There could be a lot to that.

In other words, you know, up here, just like the chickens and other stuff, they're locked in together for an extended period of time. They're in the hives. We, you know, we went from Thanksgiving to last week, snow covered. Right. So they are under different stresses. as far as inside the box. The question is, you know, man, you blew my point

because I was about to say that we're kind of mixed together here, but I'm the only one, and I use oxalic acid vaporization when I need to. And before that, I didn't do anything. And you said something, Jeff, a while ago, where the people in your area that practice miticides and treatments and IPM and all this other stuff have pretty much the similar losses to you.

So treatment, not treatment, you kind of, kind of ended up with the same at the end. The only difference is someone else risk having something in their colony that probably shouldn't be their chemical-wise if they went on with the more advanced or even synthetic chemicals, right? I would always stand by that if someone chooses the option of treating their bees, well, they should. You know, they should have that right to do it because they feel they are doing the right

thing for their bees. Well, that's how I feel. I feel I'm doing the right thing. for our B. Well, and if you suffered big losses, you'd start to take another look at it. Exactly. Right.

And I can't honestly say if that would be true, Fred, because I'm not, I always figure I can make up. You know, that what we lose, I can make up because we do cutouts and catch small ones. Do you guys actually belong to B clubs down there? Yeah. What's the feedback?

this year on survival you guys would know that are ready down there right there's more you have survival rates high down here yeah the what is it's it's high there's not a lot of loss down here not a lot of loss are we talking about small-scale sideline commercial about everything from two halves to 20,000 colonies and of course those those larger breeders that are those larger keepers that are that are not, I mean, they're not down here, but they come down here to raise queens. And their losses this year were last year, the biggest one that I hang out with, his losses last year was in the 70% range.

And this year, more in the 35%. Okay. So you know what the state, you're in Gulfport, Mississippi. What's the Mississippi average loss rate statewide? I couldn't tell you. You don't know? I don't know. Jeff, Louisiana.

I don't know that either. In the two clubs that I'm in, nobody is seeing the losses that are everybody else is that 70, 80%. I'm not hearing that. We have some particular losses right now due to that Carolina Jasmine that because that's the only thing that was blooming.

The bees were feeding on it. And so we had some die-offs from that. But it doesn't. Oh, is that what Mike Barry was recently talked? Exactly. Okay. So that's a toxic plant. Yes.

Yeah. And do you have that where you are, Randy? Yeah. Yeah. So how prevalent is the plant? Like, are you really worried about it? It's, it's all over the place. It's an early bloomer and it's all over fence roads and stuff.

And it's a, I don't know if it's a non-native species, but it's been around as long as I can remember. and I don't ever I don't think I've ever seen a bee on it Mike Mike Mike Barry actually showed a B in the Carolina yeah one B and he hit it with his camera which I thought was a little rude

I've tried I've tried to get him on video working Jasmine and I just I've never seen a bee on it never seen a honey bee on it Mike made the comment and I agree with it and Randy just said it the Jasmine is an early bloomer. So if it's the only flower that's blooming, they may work it. But right now, we have

an abundance of what I'm seeing right now of other sources of nectar for the bees. And the hives that I went through today, I've got, I've got nectar coming in and 40% of them. I've got nectar already in the boxes. So it's not, there's stuff. We really do live in an area. I know I do, Randy, too. But it's just a very good habitat for bees. It really is. Have you guys ever looked into beescape.org? Have you ever looked up your location?

No. I never heard of that. Me either. Bescape.org. What is that? Just for the listeners and those who might be unfamiliar, B-E-E-S-A-P-E-E-D-R-G. You put in your location,

you'll see what the habitat quality is for the bees and whether or not there's a dearth and what times of year it happens and what big agriculture is going on in your area and what kind of pesticides might be in use. And so they have a grade scale for pesticide loading and things like that. It also identifies habitat for feral colonies. So in other words, if your bees flew away and we're not tended, how much habitat is suitable for a honeybee? Who gives them their data? Pardon? Who gives them their data? this is actually really interesting because it's a little creepy because they even know the plants that are growing on your property.

Satellite imagery shows the kind of foliage and terrain that there is. It shows waterways. They also tie that in with climate. So how much rainfall you get, how cold it gets. And the pesticide loading is reported by farmers because they have to. When they're going to use it, they have to register it and they have to identify what they're using. So that ends up impacting pollinators also. So they have that scale. So like where I am, I'm at about a 41 as far as the pesticide use goes and just go 15 minutes north and that are 241. And that's where I have a test hive sitting in my son's yard and they're dead this year.

So he lost 100% of his piece. Who did your son? Yeah, which is one hive. so and we were hoping they wouldn't make it. They were stinging everybody and I said, you know what? Let's just out here and see what they do. I'm always curious when somebody starts giving numbers on feral colonies. And I know that the numbers probably came from some university study and they don't deal with feral colonies.

So I'm just curious where they get that information. It's feral colony habitat. So in other words, how much standing timber is there? What kind of timber is it? And is it all growth? You know, things like that. that. That's the kind of thing that I wonder about because in our experience, and I know Jeff

would probably agree with me on this, the habitat is heavily reliant on urban development and not old growth because bee trees are compared to houses. Yeah. It's super rare. Yeah, they don't count the houses in there. Now, where you are? Now, that's also interesting, because we are going to get into that, by the way, because I watched that, but

bees moving in houses is more rare here than there. And a lot of it, I look at the construction of the places that you guys are getting into. I watched that video where you were in a house that was constructed in the 20s, and you guys were pulling out lapboard inside instead of doing the stucco on the outside. This is really interesting because I also noticed when you cut open that wall, there was no insulation in there. So there are some structures down there that you wouldn't find here at all. They just couldn't handle the severe climate.

So the homes are built a little different. But what I want to do is I want to jump into Jeff's video here real quick because it had a lot of interesting things for me. I'm starting this year. I'm going to test out a top bar hive. And that's because I met with one of the top bar people and Natalie V. from Be Mindful, and she's big on treatment-free beekeeping. It goes all over the world and helps people in Africa and everything. But Jeff happened on a hive I want to talk about that had been in place for 14 years untouched,

and it's a top bar hive that was kind of just kind of crumbling away. And what's really cool about that from my perspective is we've got an untouched colony, and I wanted to see if any of the things that we think happens in a colony that's on its own, were occurring in that one, and actually it didn't. Because one of the things we think in a bee tree, for example, up here, if the bees left or died or whatever happened to them, we would have wax moth larvae in there, so the wax worms would chew up and cycle out the old comb.

So that's why when a new colony moves in in spring when there's a swarm, we get a bunch of new comb, and so all that dark brute comb has been cycled out. But that particular top bar hive, it looked like it was never totally cleaned out. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? It was because I did find evidence of the wax moth in there. Oh, good.

You didn't talk about it in your video. No, I know I saw some in there, but there was a lot of that comb that could have easily been five, six, seven years old. Okay. It's iron rock hard. So did you get, how old did you think? I know they told you, you kind of almost dismissed the idea that they had been in there for 14 years. I don't believe that. You don't think so?

No, no. Okay, go ahead. Nobody had tended that hive. But it's so rare for a hive to last five years down here. It just cycles through and another one's going to move in. I mean, I've seen that too many times. I think five years, and Randy, you probably agree with me on that. Five years is a long time for the same colony of bees, whether they sworn or whatever,

to still maintain one spot. Do you think it actually needs to be unoccupied for a spell so that can be cleaned up, and then they can cycle in a new colony with new comb? I don't know that it needs to be. I don't, I'm not on board with the whole, the sales get too small. for them to work. I don't think, I don't think there is a too small in the time, time frame that we're seeing and probably the longest I've ever seen, a colony in a space that I know didn't die out and,

and get chewed out and start over again was the one, actually, Fred, you called me on it, and I sent you a picture of a tape measure on the bottom of it, that I've had been in there since Hurricane Katrina. And it could have had a die out, but the college, The comb never got chewed out. So it was instantly repopulated if it died out. But that one was, what, 18 years old or something at that point? And I've seen two or three like that, but it's pretty rare.

They usually do die out, die out and get chewed out and start over. And you can see the divvets in the wood or waxed Montresales or frass in the bottom board or something. I say bottom board. It's their bottom board. Right. And those bottom spaces usually, correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff, the bottom was pretty clean, right? They keep that pretty clean. You know, a typical of top bar hive that the cone will just break off because of the excessive heat.

Yeah, you explain that and it'll fall in. So you did have that issue with that particular hive. But then you can tell that really, really old comb when it's like thin, like about a quarter. of an inch where like the drawn part is gone and all that's left is like the foundation part and that stuff it's like oh my gosh it's so hard you may as well just throw it away because you're not going to get anything out of it and and that is i saw that in that in that hive and you did see that then wax worms had carved into the wood and stuff in that also you know they leave those little etching into the sides of the wood

Did you see any doubt? I don't remember. I still have the bars from that hub. I saw them today. And I don't remember seeing any wax moth digouts in it. I just don't remember. What made you think waxworms had been in it? Because I saw something in it.

I remember. And that's one of the things I look for is because whenever people say, these bees have been in there for 10 years. The first thing I think of, well, there's bees been here, but not these bees. And like Randy said, you're going to see evidence of that. Even in fact, when Randy and I did that removal in Mississippi together a few weeks back,

that's the first thing. When Randy pulled that insulation back, that's the first thing he saw was evidence of an old hive right there. And they just... Oh, yeah, yeah. That had, yeah. but nobody had cut out the old one this one you were the first ones in that wall yeah so it at some point was just vacant from bees right yeah that was the that was that elevated house so it was three hives and three big hives in the floor of an elevated house wow and i got the easiest one

that's a lot far are you talking about the one where you were both working on it yeah he got there early and picked out one and and that's not true that's not true that's big the All right. Well, so, well, there are more things I want to ask because this is what I want, why I want to talk about this stuff is because people that don't want to do anything with their bees, they just want to set them up, put them in their yard, not touch them, and expect them to pollinate their vegetables and things like that. They want to just have bees out there.

And they'll see a story like that where here's a top bar hive that's been here untouched. Look out. healthy the bees are look how great everything is and if it had been built better uh they would still be just fine right so we kind of don't want people to think that way right we don't want to just park some bees somewhere and leave them to themselves or do we either one of you can answer that you're you're a good friend fritz i'm just going to keep a mess no i mean i there's no there's no wrong answer no we're here i'm just saying that People, as soon as they hear that story, they use that story and spread it everywhere.

Yeah, yeah. And as an example. And so the other question I had, too, Jeff, is were there any other hives that were also left unattended for that period of time? Or was it just one hive there? That was the only hive there. That's the only hive. Okay. They had other hives there, but they were all gone already.

No bees in them. Okay. But no, Randy, I want you to disagree. If you've got a different opinion, that's what, I mean, seriously, that's why we're here. to demonstrate, by the way, that people can talk about things and not even be in the same lane as far as practices go. That doesn't mean that you have to find a different beat club. So down here, down here you can run completely chemically treatment-free or any other method treatment-free. You don't have to go on brew breaks, anything like that that anybody else is doing.

You can run completely treatment-free down here. And I, you know, I know enough people that do kind of nationwide that I think there's other areas. I couldn't say you could do it everywhere. You know, I'm treatment free, but I've played with treatments before with my dad and my brother both treated the entire time they've been beekeeping. And so I know all about the treatments, but their success rate with keeping bees is not any better than mine. and so I just see what I see what's possible treatment free it's cheaper it's less time consuming on me and time is the biggest thing because I just don't have time to be tending a bunch of stuff or doing a bunch of extra tasks that I don't have to do well the other thing that comes to mind too

is both you have access to an easy replenishment stock if you're doing a bunch of cutouts and things like that you can kind of cherry pick those you see a colony that looks really good and it feels right to you. I'm sure doesn't that find its way into your own apiary? It does. We pick and choose our genetics based on trait.

Just like if I was breeding dogs or chickens or anything else, I'm going to pick what I like and keep it. And so I do the same thing with bees. I would say this, Fred, that I have a, because we have several outyards outside of the abbey,

I have the luxury, I would say, of picking and choosing where I put these cutouts that I do. And for the most part, I allow the bees at the abbey. They're all dog bees, mongrel bees. I don't have any problem bringing in a cutout hive in there and introducing that genetics into the field. that's fine with me. But as far as my out yards go, I don't do that. I keep those because they, I have like the one that we work today, that yard has not had any other bees in it for seven years.

So that and we've grown, well, we had 50 hives in that thing just three weeks ago. And now we're going through splitting them now. I sold a bunch of those bees because it's too many in that yard. But I really feel that in a sense when you get those number of bees and in this area, it's an isolated, it's 500 acres, isolated, it's all wooded, all around it. So you almost create their own eco environment in that thing where you have your own drones. You know, it's almost genetic line in there. And so now after seven years, at least in my little way of thinking, I really have something of value in there.

And it's taken that long for that yard to turn around because it stumbled and stumbled and stumbled. And then it started catching three years ago. And then last year it actually was my best-producing yard, most honey, the most prolific bees. and today we split in that yard today we have 30 there's 30 hives in it now and out of those 30 I split up

well I put boards in 22 of them that's how strong these hives are with the number of bees and the genetics of gentleness I mean I wasn't even smoking them to once the cold wore off this morning I was just working the bees yeah I mean I still got stung

but they're not aggressive and they're very, very they've adapted to their environment. That's what I would say. And I leave the loan. Okay, so now are you selling nukes or anything? Not anymore. I just sold bees to get my number

because we were at 180 and I want to get down to about 140. So I sold 40 hives so that once I do my splits then I'll be over 200. That's really where I want to be about 200. So what's your insurance policy against losses? Like, in other words, do you keep some nukes around?

Do you have, like, resource hives? What do you do? Splits. That's it. That's it. Randy, how about you? Same time. Splits or splits?

And are you keeping any of the bees that you're finding out there? Do you pick the ones that you like or that? What's your scoring card for how you look at a feral colony that you're, whether or not you're bringing it home or just give it away to somebody else. Go ahead, Randy. Oh, I just look at how they're, how they act when we're pulling them out and how, how strong the hive is,

how much honey they've stored up, how big the cones are, or how big the hive is. If it's a big, strong colony and they're super gentle, I want them. Okay. Well, that's the same for me, too.

The first thing I go by is size. and you can tell the growth of a hive how much is grown in it. You know, short, you can pretty much guess about the time frame one, two, three years. You can tell by the size. I look for the presence of high beetles. I look for the brood, the amount of brood.

I look like Randy says, the honey, and then the temperament of the bees. But the first thing that I always go by is size. I always go by size. That's the first thing. Because if it's size, then the numbers are going to be there. And the numbers correlate to genetics of that queen. Yeah.

So the last one that I got that I was proud of was, it was a massive colony and they've just completely unsuited. We did the whole removal with no suit, no smoke. I think I might have got stung a couple times just by grabbing bees while I was pulling cones out. But I took those homes, set them up, and I ran them for a season and a half maybe. And just was, I set them in a box.

It was actually on the ground. I had an old pallet from a commercial bee yard on the ground. These boxes were on the ground on top of that palette. And grass was grown up around them. And I ran my weed eater around the outside of that box. And the weed eater actually slapped up in the entrance of the box a little bit. And the bees, a couple of them walked out. and looked around like, oh, what was that?

And that was the only reaction that I got out of them for running a weed eater around them. And so when Darren up at Wonderful, I asked me if I had any genetics, I could, their yard was getting hot. And they've been using Italian breeder queens and probably the same line year over year. And I said, shoot, man, I got a, I got a jam up queen for you. So they took her and made 13,000. He said, he said they thought it was about. 13,000 graft shop over before somebody rolled her.

And they- Somebody rolled her. Yeah, yeah. So they had her on the shelf for a little while sitting up on top of their grafting station. So they let Jeff come in to help out? What? I mean. Yeah. Well, Randy still has a little bit trouble identifying Queens, but so it wasn't him. It wasn't me.

I thought it was a drone. I'm sorry. Now, what about environment-wise? So you have an area, Randy, where your bees are somewhat isolated so you can control your genetics a little bit, or are you mixed up with nearby keepers? There's beekeepers within a mile, mile and a half me in every direction. Is that the closest about a mile out? Yeah. Oh, you guys are lucky. I've got one a thousand yards, right? Now, Fred, I will say this, the reason why We have so many outyards, and we have nine of them. And the reason for that is because in 2016, when the flood hit the abbey,

and it washed all of our bees away. So from that experience, I said, I will never, ever, ever again put all of our bees at the abbey. So that's why we spread out all over. And we're about, it's almost a 40-mile rate. from the abbey. So we have 40 miles from the abbey in any direction, we have bees. Well, you miss a chance to start up a whole new Noah's Ark apiary. You could add, it's too late now. Well, well, Fred, you know, you bring it up, so I'm going to ask you, do you know where Noah kept the bees? Oh, I know this is going to be a joke, but let me

know. Okay, where did Noah keep the bees? In the archives. I knew it. Okay, okay. I got one for you. I got one for you. Okay. So Noah ran them all out, you know, at the end.

They were on ground and they were sending all the animals out. And he gets in a corner and there were a couple of remnants in there. And there were a couple of snakes. And he was telling everything to get out, go forth and multiply. And he says, why aren't you going anywhere? We can't, Noah. We're adders. All right.

You told me that one. I already heard that one from you. Did you tell him the one about Bruce Lee? Don't make him. He did that. He's just cycling his same jokes over and over. All right. Yes,

I've heard the Bruce Lee. So I was going to say that all these beekeepers that I said, they're around me. They're all running the same line as me because they're most of, most of them, most of my customers. Okay. See,

now that's good. If you can influence, that's, I'm lucky enough because I did treatment free for 10 years. and everyone around me had my bees. That was sweet. In fact, my inspection from the state inspector, he found one mite.

Yeah. Okay, so it was working. But we got a commercial group that came in here. I'd like to, I mean, I'd like to put the blame on them because they don't talk to me. So it's easy to say they're the reason. But that's when, and also it just happened to coincide with

when exhalic acid was finally approved. That was considered a very soft thing. It's something you can find in carrots. I figured how bad can it be? And that was the year I got 100% through. So that's what kind of hybridized me into that. So now, you know, some of my colonies don't get treatments and some do. And because I can see the benefit.

But this is something that people really push me on. That's why I like to keep the conversation going because I don't want to tell someone to just not understand what's going on with your bees and quit everything that you're doing. the line that you're working with may not handle that. Right. So we actually need to, the stock is the long game. And we've tried everything. We've tried, we've done everything from way back in the day when Fat B man was doing the mineral oil fogging.

We did that. We did about Don the fat B man. Yeah, yeah. We did that. We did, we did the Randy Oliver paper towels. We've done, you know, foggers, we've done might-of-way quick strips. for any any uh by the way the foggers were never approved if anybody's listening don't run out and grab an insect fogger and put mineral on jeff what were you about to say uh i forgot what it was

friend sorry that's all right i might remember later but but i will say i will add to that that most people probably 90% of the people that treat around here only treat because they're told to they don't know their numbers they don't do washes to check. And so I highly encourage people to know their numbers before they treat or if they treat. Yeah, I have that. Know why you're treating. Yeah, within our own club, I have that. How many of you are counting mites almost, you know, maybe 3% raises their hands? How many of you are treating your bees? More than 50% raises their hands. So how do you know that what you're doing, first of all, was required in number two, how effective it was, unless you're counting before

and after because they'll again you hear it in one place and they just treat prophylactically because it's you know it's what you're supposed to do and not only that and here's here's a message that I'm trying to communicate that failed earlier was that people can have different disciplines and philosophies about keeping bees it doesn't mean you don't talk to each other yeah we really need that conversation to stay open and we need it not to be where somebody slams the door and storms out or crosses their arms and talks over their shoulder you know that when i'm giving a presentation and somebody's in the back going like this and they're going like this talking to somebody next to them just ask me i'm right here if if i if if people if what you practice and what you think is working

doesn't hold up under challenges that are respectful then you should readdress what you're doing it's not we shouldn't have the pride gets in the way and because i've told people people, this is how you do it. Somebody comes along and says, now we really don't need to do it that way anymore. Then you shouldn't be locked in, right? Jeff and I have both talked about this at length before, and he and I are both on the same page with, we don't really care. It's your bees.

You treat them how you want to treat them. Yeah. I'm not treating mine. It's just the way I do. But if you feel like you need to treat, go ahead. I'm not going to say anything bad about it. I mean, I might judge you under my breath, but I'm not going to talk bad. I'll be nice to you and judge you later. But in the end, I don't really care.

If it's working for you, go for it. Yeah. I mean, it's really, it's the, it's right that the individual beekeeper, it's their choice. You know, if they think that they are doing the right thing for their bees and follow what you think. But like you said, Fred, you know, if you're going to treat, well, why wouldn't you do washes to see if you know. Yeah. Yeah. there's an investment there yeah yeah so as you're probably aware for it i do washes on a lot of these cutouts that we're doing a lot of the swarm catches that we do and consistently across the board

it's one to two mites it's maybe three per wash sometimes nothing in multiple washes on the same colony so if they can do that on their own i don't i don't need to help absolutely absolutely i want to say this breb we we went through 30 hives today and I'm scraping all the drone brewed off the bridge comb. I saw one mite today, one out of 30 hives. I mean, it's like... So your glasses don't work? What is the problem?

Well, I'm looking. I'm looking for them. I really am, because it's really, that's the only way I'm going to be able to look is when I'm looking at those drones. And it's not that hard to, you know, pick around the drone to look. And I said, Charlie, look, there's a mite today. That was the first one and only one we saw.

Yeah. At a time when they're, because you're brooding up, so you would expect the mite numbers to be picking up. Yeah. Right. So I don't want to talk just about mites all this time. We have other stuff to talk about. So this is another thing.

I want to know your opinion on this. We have a guy that just lives a few miles from here in his house. is from like 1890 and he was upset because they're redoing the roof on his house and the construction guys wouldn't work the roof so long as he has bees there so his bees have been in his wall since his kids were little you know so there's always been a resident colony in these walls and he likes it there he thinks it's great he loves it because they come out it's a three story and they're coming out under the Victorian gabled ends and stuff. So what do you think about bees just staying in a house?

Like, do they do long-term damage to the structure? So with, you know, Randy's experience and your experience, Jeff, cutting out things, what kind of damage are they really causing by occupying a wall that otherwise really has little or no insulation? Go ahead, Randy. I know we both have our opinions on that way. I want to hear it. Good stuff.

Aside from a dead out. running down through the walls they don't do any damage and the the damage is done if there's a dead out and it's on drywall typically that seeps into the drywall roaches chew through that and then the bees eventually can come through the paper and get into the house if there's another you know if it's rehabited or whatever but in an old structure that has nothing but wood they're not going to do any damage and a matter of fact I did a I went to look to the house this past year that It was built in the 20s or 30s. I don't know.

It belonged to some gangster back in the day. So some historic value there, and it's an Airbnb, so you get to stay in a special, you know, I don't know. Who's a famous gangster? Pretty boy Floyd or something, whatever. You get to stay in his famous gangster's house, but it's got bees in a lot, have bees in two areas.

And I went in and looked at the house and got with the lady, and she's, I said, you really your options here are expensive any way you look at it and and she she said well they've been here for 10 years and I so leave them they're not hurting anybody there their their entrances 20 something feet off the ground out back they're not going to bother your yard man even and I said it's just something extra special about this house and she's part of the she's the president of the Sierra Club down here and she's we talked for a little while and she had me come speak at their club about bees and she found it super interesting but i don't see that they do uh any

the bees themselves don't do any damage structurally uh outside of chewing insulation out right if there's if these old places plaster or late on the inside and there's no insulation and um i would think that that would be actually the most insulated wall in that part of the house is because it very and if anything else there's there's They're contributing warmth and winter, and it's sound dampening. But you can't call them managed bees because now you have to have access, they have to be inspected, you have to have removable comb, which is what I'm going to hit Jeff up about. I want to comment on. I know.

I want to hear what you have to say. Go. So the other thing that the question is, do they cause damage? Absolutely no. They do not cause it. If anything, because of the fact that they propolize. is the entire interior of the space, they, in essence, seal it off.

They seal it off so well, and Randy will testify this, they will actually close in the termites that are in the wall. They'll close the termites so the termites can't go out. So in a way, we've both seen it dozens of times where the propolis is actually the only thing,

thing holding the wood together at that point. There's a construction I was talking about that you only find in the south. It's this construction adhesive holding that house together. That's right. And the R value. Yeah. And the R value. Yeah, I mean, I hadn't thought about it until this guy was so concerned.

And I told them that just leave the, don't let them do any repairs on that molding, leave the entrance there. And your chances of getting reoccupied once these guys. are done and out of there pretty high, and they did. So he's got bees back. But he was the first time I ran into anyone who even made me think about that is because he wanted them there. And the way they enter and leave, they're in no one's walkway.

They're not going to bother anybody. And very interesting way to think of it. That is one of the things like Randy. You suggested people, why take the bees out if their flight way is ten, 15 feet in the air, they're not going to be any problem. They're not going to hurt your house. Right. They're not, they're not termite.

You're actually helping the plants and stuff in your neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Yeah, that needs to be a campaign. The only exception, again, like I say, is if they're in a ceiling, but if they're in between floors over sheet rock, if they die out, they're going to cause some damage to the sheet rock, but it's not structural.

And it's going to be years before they get through. yeah yeah i like it okay so that's interesting it oh yeah so keeping our bees now i've had this talk with jeff before bees that have a roof over them what's that bees that have a roof over them like a lean to or they're in some kind of partial shed or structure, Jeff thinks they're doing a lot better than those that are just out in the open. What do you think, Randy? Absolutely.

You have to give longer answers than that. We have to explain why that would be a good idea for the bees. Okay. I thought that was a yes or no question. We're sharing the why and how and everything for the people that are listening. Okay. So part of one of my talks that I give a lot is that bees don't. generally have it in structures where the sun is hitting on it.

They're generally on the north side of structure, or they're under some kind of full shade, big oak trees behind a chimney, some overhang or something. Even the entrance to the hive doesn't usually get full sun on it. It happens sometimes, but most of the time they're in a spot where there's not, their temperature is completely soft,

you know, through the day and through the night. And so, yeah, I like shade. I don't like my... I have some hives out in the full sun, but I like them in the shade if I can get them in a shady spot.

Well, and let's add to that, where you're located, what does full sun mean? If you're in late July and early August, what kind of temperatures are we talking about? As soon as the temperatures get to where an attic space, you can get 110, 120, something like that. Right.

You'll see, and I've got pictures of it, you'll see where the sun starts is where the hive stops. So if they're growing out of Safeit space and the sun is coming across the roof to here, that's where that hive stops. They don't go any further than that. Same thing on walls. And you would think they could build behind brick veneer or something like that. But on the south facing wall, you'd be amazed at how hot brick veneer gets during the day.

And then it holds that heat for a long time. It's like a potato. Yeah. And so. The same reason when you run out after sunset, and the pavement's still hot when you're a little kid and you sit on it. Well, I don't know if you guys did that. You may not have had pavement where you live.

I don't know, Jeff. We had dirt roads. I don't know. Fred, you know what I did today? I took my long hive that used to be on the back porch here at the house, and I brought it up to the abbey. And today, Charlie and I moved the long hive inside of the peacock pin today. So the – and I told this to Randiq.

Andy just a little bit earlier. Today I caught my first swarm in one of my traps. And so that swarm will be moved into our long hive, which is now inside of the peacock pin. Now what's your long hive, long langstroth? It's a long langstrap, correct. Is that also where you have that oversized observation hive? It's right. It's in the same peacock bill and but in the next pin over. I don't think it was a swarm. I think it was an abscond, that observation. I knew that Randy, so this is a competition you guys are having. Is that the first one for the year? Yeah, that's it. That's it.

That's it. That's it. So does he call you up, Randy, and show you pictures just to run? Yeah. Yeah, he always beats me to the first one of the year because they're a week ahead of us every year. So he usually beats me to it. But that's part of our criteria. If you're going to catch a swarm, you have to be in the picture.

So because a lot of people share their pictures with us. and I don't want him sending me pictures of all his members of his B-Clubs swarms it got. Yeah, the stolen valor. We don't want that. I didn't send me the picture to you, but it will be this Friday's video. It'll be at the end of this Friday's video. Okay. While we're talking about that, did you make a video of today's work there, Jeff?

I sure did. I sure did. And when does that come out? It'll be posted this Friday. So it's on the use of, of, um, double screen dividing boards doing splits. Now, do you have to be a member to see it Friday? Oh, no, I know.

Everybody. People have to wait. Fred, and I'll say this too, Fred, that I actually mentioned you at the very beginning of the video. Not only do I mention you, but I mentioned this very Zoom thing, presentation. Okay. We are doing it this evening, and you will be posting it sometime this week. Okay. And for people that are watching and listening, if it's on the podcast or if it's

on YouTube, look at the links down the video description, you can go to both of their YouTube channels and see what happens for people that really work for a living. Don't just sit at a table like I do and cycle information around. But you do that so well, Fred.

Yeah. Sit around and do nothing? What are you saying? Cycle info. Well, you offer so much more valuable information than we do. We're a yuck fest. I was just, you know. No, let me tell you. I want to be serious.

I come here and listen to some real talk. Yeah, that's right. Because what you're doing, we've talked about this before, but so much information can be gathered. I mean, and you can't pretend I didn't have some influence on Jeff because he's paying attention to stuff now that he didn't use to care about. I particularly I make notes of things, Fred, that you, like the entrance, the size of entrance,

the location of like Randy North-South, that kind of stuff. And I say that. I observe it, but I don't talk about it because it just, I use it as a reference for myself. And you made me start talking about it. Well, because the thing is,

look at all the ripouts you've done. Look at all the bees you've seen. No, this is old hat to you guys. So the things that are so everyday for you are not, for the person that's watching this for the first, time. So taking a minute to explain what we're looking at and why, and you did it very good, both of you did a very good job of that. When you took apart that top art hive, you explained frame by frame what we're looking at. Randy did it when they're cutting out the old,

the new comb that was full of honey. They were all cutting that out piece by piece. And by the way, Randy, that was some good editing where you cut in there and they cut away to all the signs, cosines, tangents, and you got the blackboard and you cut that music in there. And he was like, figured out all that. the English. That was perfect. Everything was good. So that's it's fun to do that, but also to give people real explanations about what we're looking at and why it's like that. There is a tremendous difference between working bees in a box and working bees in a house. It is worlds apart. there's so much similarity, but you're not restricted to that 16 by 20 by 9.

And so it's different. It really is. So in my opinion, it's a lot easier to observe B behavior in a removal than it is in a restricted B box. because you can actually see, and Randy will testify this, you can actually see the movement of bees, how bees move in a cutout. In a hive, they just run to the sides and run up and down.

You don't, that's what you see. But in a removal, you can actually see how the bees move for one comb, move to the side. It's amazing how bees actually work differently than in a hive. And it's that what I have learned over there. That's how I control the way I want these bees to go.

And Randy does the exact same thing. We want the bees to go a certain way. So we do things to get them to go how we want to do them. Now, this is interesting. Randy mentioned that he had a call from someone that was having a problem locating the swarm in or the colony inside the wall. And they were just kind of cutting everything off the walls to locate it. And it was good on you that she didn't mention the name of the person out of respect for his integrity and his personal well-being.

I found the picture. Should I show it here? Well, one of the things that occurs to me is instead of cutting away these big panels and everything, does no one just cut a quarter-inch hole and put an endoscope in there and see if the bees are occupying where they are? that's the step that people seem to skip the most is just drill a probe hole. Yeah. It's a size of a pencil. You get an endoscope or a fiberglass rod or a coat hanger or anything you want. Go up in there and see if you hit comb. Yep.

Because I have that. It's 200,000. So the diameter of it is less than a quarter of an inch. And it has two. So you can shift 90 degrees once you're in and look up and scan all over. So I'm just curious why that doesn't happen more before people. I think Jeff had a story years ago of chasing a, I think you found some hot water pipes or something. And he just took a little house apart and then gave up and went home or something.

And I left a lot of comb in the wall. The maggots coming out. I think we've all done it. I think we've all done it. Oh, that's a good question. Have you gotten started and just really wanted to go? Just once you realize how much work it was going to be, did you really want to just kind of high five? somebody else and let him take it and leave not randy randy likes them hard ones not me i don't

i walked off a job one time did you tell us about that what was what was going on and i was given a lot of bad information by the homeowner who was being slick and um you know so we we priced the jobs before we go out and this is a good distance from me it's hour and a half from me new construction but but it'd been going on for a while it's one of these builds that's It was a huge build, but they'd been working on it for a good long while. And so it had a fairly defensive colony in it that had been there for at least a year or two. But he called me to remove a swarm. And he said, they've only been in there a couple weeks.

You know, we're up there every day. I know how long they've been there. And, you know, we're working in this area. And so I give them price. We get up there and I find out what it is and how bad they are. and it's the only one I've ever walked off of. It just made me mad. I left, and he called me back and said, are you coming back?

I said, no, I'm not going back. So I said for triple the price. And so after a little back and forth, he said, okay. And so I went back up and me and Pete did the removal. And it was a big high. See, that backfires. You tell somebody, you don't want to do something. So you raise the price.

And with that higher price comes higher expectation. And so. Hey, Randy, and because you, I know have experienced it yourself, the ones that that aggravate me the most is when you go out there. Because based on what they've told you, and you go out there and you open up and you have dead bees because they sprayed. Sure. For some reason, they failed to tell you, oh, yeah, we sprayed. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that's part of your job check is to ask them if any exterminators have been out there and try to do something with them, right?

Yeah. We do. I do now. Have you sprayed these bees? Yeah, so. No, we wouldn't do that. We would never do anything like that. Well, and that's why Randy's justified.

When you realize the person that hired you lied to you, that's your ticket out right there because that's justification. On the flip side of that, you guys often meet people when you do a cutout where you leave them with an. unbelievable impression about what bees are, what the honey is that they're making, and they're just completely surprised by it. I want to hear a story from each of you about someone that just, you just changed their world when they learned what bees were like and what they were doing in that cavity. You can go first, Jeff. I've got one that we did just a couple of weeks ago.

And it's actually, the story actually takes. almost a year that happens because this was a house about three miles from the abbey that it was one of those swarm magnet houses the bees are go i pulled um probably four hives out of this house house it's a cedar sided house and they just love that stuff there's so many ways to get in it um and the owner that house sold it right after I removed two of the colonies, the last two colonies in there. He sold the house. So the new people that came in, I talked to those new people. I said, look, I pulled bees out of this house four times already. There's no way you can make it bee proof. It's just too old. When a house, too much work would be necessary. When the bees come and they will come, call me and I'll come right away.

we can get rid of them at that point. It's going to cost you way less. So two years went by, no bees. Then last year, the swarm moved in, and she called me. And I went over and I said, look, they just moved in. I said, I can take care of these bees. $60.

I'll remove them right now. You know? And she said, okay, well, I'll call you back. Well, didn't call me back until about three. three weeks ago. She called me, goes, I can't take it no more. You got to come get these bees. So I went over there and I removed the colony. And when I removed the boards and I exposed the comb, I said, come here, come see. And I said, here's the bees. And she goes, oh, my God. She says, oh, and she leaves. What?

And she says, I'm never going to do that again. As soon as they see them, I'm calling you. And then I showed her that all the cone that we pulled out of it and the bee and the queen and all that stuff. So it made a very good impression on the woman. She will call me. I guarantee she will call me when the bees come during this warm season. And that's your most memorable home?

Oh, well, that's the one. It just happened recently, so I remember that one. All right. Okay. Randy. So I've got one that I tell quite often. Mr. Tom down on the beach has a house built in 1899. It's a big old huge house, and he's a contractor, and he contacted me to take some bees off the second floor behind the chimney. There's a chimney, and then there's a window almost immediately starts on one side of it,

and the bees are on this side, on the window side. They're coming in between the window and the chimney, in. So I get up there and look at it and, you know, Fleer read it. There's a heat signature from floor to ceiling and a nine foot ceiling room. And we discuss it how I've got to get into it. You know, we can't go through the outside. You know, they're trying to figure out every way I can do to not cut up this hundred and something year old house. Can you get it through the attic? Can you get it any of them? Nope, the wall's got to come open. So he gives me the green light and I start cutting and I realize this gypsom board on top.

top of beautiful shiplap tongue and groove one by six with a light green paint. It's real pretty. So I had just cut an entrance opening just to see where the bees were or see how far down the hive came and had peeled off some of the gypsum board. And his wife comes upstairs in the middle of this and sees what's behind that sheetrock and just absolutely loses her mind. she's ready to kill him and me both for cutting a hole in that wall that she didn't realize it's back there.

Now she's picturing this whole room, you know, stripping the sheetrock off of it and she's back down to this beautiful finish, which is, it's already in the middle bedroom. And so, heated discussion and I had dulled some blades cutting in. It was some of those old hand-forged nails,

you know, so I said, I've got to run to Lowe's and get some blood. blades. If my tools are on the porch when I get back, I'll know what's up. So I left and give them time to discuss it. And I come back and they had talked it out and said, let's go ahead with it. So we cut the wall open and it's absolutely packed. It's 24 inch centers on the wall stud. So it's a huge wide hive. And it's also almost the full height of the wall. Plus it's old balloon framing. So there's no top plate that goes up into the attic, which was spray foam.

insulated but had the bees had chewed their way up into that and built another few feet up into the attic. And so I worked on this hive for a better part of six or seven hours probably in their house. But when we first got into it, they wanted to taste the honey. So I had the wife and the kids up there tasting honey and, and oh, this is great stuff. And can we have it? Yeah, absolutely. You can have it. Let me show you how to process it. So we get downstairs in the kitchen and set up a little station. I've got them crushing and straining honey, and I'm cutting it.

The kids are bringing it down and back up. These kids are teenagers. They're older. So they had the neighbors over helping so the neighbors could get some honey. And by the time we get close to the ceiling, they send the kids back up to say, we're done. That's it. Everybody's forearms are burning.

We've got all the honey we want. We don't want anymore. I'm like, you can't quit now. We've got another foot to go. So cut all the way to the ceiling. and up in as far as I could get. And I actually had to come back the next day with Pete to get what was in the attic because I wouldn't fit over there where it was.

And Pete had to go over, crawl over there and get the rest of it. But they ended up with, I can't remember exactly, but it was six or seven gallons of honey. And I got a giant hive out of it and a good queen. But they contacted me the following year and bought some nukes. and now they're beekeepers. They've been beekeepers for about three years now, I guess. That story is way better than mine.

Well, it is good. And when you get to give people their first taste of comb honey and see what the response is, some people have never seen it, let alone taste it. Yeah. Yeah. And what was that? You had a thumbnail on one of your videos, Randy, that said,

and you say, what about honey or something like that? there was something about honey. What's that story? What was the thing about the honey? That was, she asked, she had heard that raw honey had an effect in the love life, you know, of a man. Oh, that's what it is. Yeah. I thought it was something to do about like sugar diabetes or something.

No, no, it was, it made the man. more effective, you know what I mean. Okay, well, that did not. I've heard about them, the Revolutionary War Heroes. They were called the Minutemen. Hey, Brett, can I remember here? Because I really, you're talking about that thumbnail. And earlier we were talking about a picture.

I got a picture here. I'm at to show it up there that I don't know if many people had seen this, but let me see. Can you all? Oh, no. Here it is. Yeah.

What did they actually call that thing? What was the name of it? Now, just for those who can't see it and are only listening, Jeff just held up a thing that looks like Mount Rushmore, but it's four of the most famous beekeepers to ever walk the northern atmosphere. The issue is, Randy's missing from it. That's why Jeff, likes to bring it up.

Bob Benny came back. Actually, Fred, the really reason I like bringing that up is because my image is next to you. That's why I really am thrilled about it. Whatever.

It's pretty funny. Bob Benny, in fact, Bob Benny's wife is the one that took that picture and sent it to me and I sent it to you. I didn't even see it. And Randy didn't even see it. No, I don't even it.

It's a big piece. Like I said, I don't know how I missed it. Yeah. That's how much fun we were having. That was just. It was over by the Hives for Heroes booth, although it wasn't theirs. It was right. It was adjacent to that.

Well, they were pretty close to us, and I never saw it. Now, I have a question. All right. Let's talk, because I'm going to fool around with top artists this year, and I'm hearing all these stories about them. Someone said that small high beetles don't make it in a top bar high because there's nowhere to hide. What are your thoughts on that?

Bologna. Oh, Mr. Ed says bologna, based on what? Oh, because I've had top bar hives. They have beetles in them. You have small high beetles in them? Oh, yeah. I had... Where do you find them?

Where do they show up the most when you're getting into your... The majority of them will always be in the rear of the hive. Okay. That's where you're going to find. You'll see them scattered, you know, in the hive. But when you get to the end, that last two or three frames of the back, I mean, I can remember seeing literally hundreds of them back there. And that's because the bees haven't sort of work in that part of the hive yet.

Exactly. And then what also happens is that because the bees push them that way, then they get behind the following board and go into the cavity, the open space. that's not true my personal experience with the top bar I would I would definitely prefer

a horizontal langstraw long langstroth yes most definitely the problem also with top bar with our heat those comb get so heavy

and they collapse they they warm up and boom they fall. I had even tried to stabilize and put sidebars on it and even with that they still fell. The only I guess would you go as far as to say if somebody were insistent that you use a top bar hive you'd want to put that where it's got some shade and you're not going to see it hit those. I was in the shade and it's still. But then shaded hives do they get more small high beetles than those that are in the sun? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think

Randy, do you agree with everything Jeff just said? Yeah, I do. Have you got top bar hives too? Yeah, a little bit. I will say, and my dad's got two, he's got the ones that Ricky Rourke built. Okay. I didn't know Ricky did top bar hives. Yeah, well, where they're long lengths, troth.

Long lines, okay. Horizontalbees.com, but I have worked with, I have had a, had a top bar and helped a couple other people populate top bars. And so the way I got around the comb collapsing was I just cut, they were all built similar dimensions to Langstroth. And so I left the foundation in and cut the foundation at a V. So their foundation top bars. Yeah. That would help stabilize the cone. Yeah. So the first one I ever did like that was a guy that bought a nuke from me, which are their five frame Langstroth nukes. And he wanted me. to populate his top bar with this nuke and that's why you know i don't really know how i'm

populate this thing because it's on langstroth frame and all the broods on the frame and he says well that's only how i've got and so i said well i can cut it up but you're going to lose a little bit of comb and a little bit of brood he said that's fine so i took some uh i think i think i took a oh i took a trim saw one of those little japanese trimsaws and cut the bar the sidebars to where they would fit and then I took some sheet metal shears and cut the foundation to the contour of the box. And that's how I populated his box. And I kept it on my yard for a week or week and a half until it looked like it was established and going to survive. But you're not, you'd say you're not a fan of that overall.

Top bars, nah. You prefer the long laying stroth, you're saying, Jeff? I prefer long langstroth or long layings. long layans. Yeah. Even those big frames, man. I thought my layens hive was dead. I was ready to clean them out.

And I mean, I was really sad about it. I didn't want to move them out of there with their incompatible frames with all my other hives and everything. Then Annette runs out there this afternoon and goes, boy, are those happy bees in that layens hive? And I just saw it.

My layans, it succumbed during the, a couple of months ago, and I cleaned it. I did a video on it. And so I'll repopulate that box again. And with that one, I actually put bars in there to help stabilize the comb. But even then I still had trust. I like what Randy says using, and I'm going to modify my frames just like that,

I'm going to put plastic foundation inside of the comb because it just gets too hot. It just, that comb just will. collapse. Now, if you do that, are you going to punch holes in that foundation so they can migrate through the middle of it, or are you going to leave it? No. No. There's a three-eighths

gap on each side. They can get around that. Jeff doesn't like to give his bees in the up. They can walk around. Okay, so given that you're in a damp, high humidity area, what is your favorite finish for your hives for the outside?

Go ahead, Randy, you go. Any kind of cheap outdoor paint. What is it? Oops paint. Any kind of oops paint. Any kind of oops paint. So that's paint that people turn back into the store? Okay. I love wax dip boxes.

I swear by those things for now. I don't want to paint ever again. So where do you get your hives wax dipped? Well, one of the guys, I know he's, he's going to. going to be doing it, but he's going to do that 100% microchristoline stuff instead of no paraffin is just 100%. It's what Greg Burns had done. And then on top of that, now Greg does that copper, capo stuff. Greg, he's got his Endura Hives. So he's got some kind of copper mix on that new finish. Is he using copper nettonite? I don't. Sounds right. I don't know. Why is that something?

good to use, Randy? Yeah, that's been used for a long time. I've heard people use a mix of copper naptonate and diesel. Diesel? Yeah. Are we talking fence post, ground contact lumber? Is that what that? That sounds what that's for.

I don't think that's necessarily insect. So it is if you leave them out to off gas for months. But if you're going to have equipment, it's going to last you 20 years, if you have to leave it sitting out for four, five, six months, who cares? You know, if it's going to last you forever. I am not suggesting that people dip their hides in diesel fuel. That came from R. McCaffrey, so. Put it in a smoker, Fred.

Yeah. I just became a smoker. All right. Did you guys get any of those endura hives? Do you have any? No. He didn't give you it like with your name on it? Yeah.

Yeah. So you've got those, right? I have that one. A single date, yeah. Did you get your one from Premier that was at the Expo? Yeah. Did you get one? Two years ago was at Expo, but last year was that Greg did him at his booth.

He did him at his booth, but Premier had boxes that were unfinished, and they collected them all, so we didn't get them at the end, and they said they were going to get them finished, and they were going to send them to us. Did you get yours? Oh, I didn't get mine yet. Randy, you get yours? I didn't. I didn't get mine either.

I just want to, I just want to put the work out. This video gets posted, Fred, and they hear that. They're probably special order to us. You are seeing through my ulterior motives. Okay, so now I did not receive my onesie. So now when you're hunting queens at the end of a cutout, you always have that clip, the hair clip style. Is that your favorite queen clip?

Well, I don't, I just use that to put it in it because for me, it's so much easy just to drop her into that thing. I know there's a lot of beekeepers. I don't know, Randy, I don't know. I know Sha We likes to use those, and you use them too, Randy, where you actually feed the queen. The Jayzee BZ cage? Yeah, yes, those. And I just All those are the Jayzee Beez are those are the 3D printed ones?

No, those are the Commercial guys use them. Yeah, yeah. It's this. You don't use this? Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's called a JZBZ?

Yeah. All right. So that's your favorite then, Randy? That's just what I have. You know, I've usually got 20 of them in the door of the truck, and so they're smaller and easier to keep up with. and they're cheaper if I drop them than a queen clip. And they fit in your pocket in those queen clips.

I've put them in a queen clip before and had them walk right out of it. I have to. And they don't fit in your pocket well. You have to put a rubber band around that clip. Well, I was watching this cutout master named Mr. Ed, and he didn't show the rubber band part. Clift it, down and let all the other. bees clamor all over it. So now this is where you thought that was common knowledge. We need to tell

people. I do. I do say it. I always, in fact, even on that last video with Randy, I said, Charlie, you're going to put a rubber band on that for us. Very good advice. You did let me hold her, though. Can I hold her? Oh, I want to know Jeff on your observation hive. How's it going? Oh, it's not looking good. They're just dropping. They're just not doing anything. I've got the sugar water on them. They've eaten it, and the bees are still,

they haven't given up the ghost, but when I get my first swarm, it's going in there. They'll work it out, but I'll put that first warm in there. Because the first one is going to be a big one. I mean, the first one that I catch in a bucket. So you say.

Yeah, right. I'll show you the picture. And that, and, you know, Brad, the picture has to have you in it. Yeah, your face has to be in the newspaper. And the newspaper. Yeah, there you go. But the, um, a copy of your driver's license. And birth certificate and social security.

But last year, they came out with, um, uh, this guy. Actually, it was two years ago. I saw the first time video of it. But it's a guy using a waste paper basket that he gets off of Amazon, a metal one. That is, it's metal, but it's perforated. Well, it's woven, really, metal in there. And for whatever reason, and I don't understand it, but when you take a swarm that's hanging in a tree and you get a plastic bucket

and you bounce those bees into that plastic bucket, the first thing those bees do, once they hit the bottom is they start, pouring out of it. It is run out of it. Well, with this basket, when you get the bees in it, they don't only just stay in it, but the other bees go in it.

It's amazing. With that? Because all the holes in the basket? Yeah. It has to be. I think so. It has to be. But it's the, Joey Rouse made a video of it,

world famous Mike video, Barry did it a video, I did a video on it. I mean, it's like unbelievable how this basket, once you shake those bees into the first time, you just keep that bucket up there. The rest of them are going to get into it. And I've never seen that before, before two years ago.

And so now with that little tool of mine, I'm just going to whip up on Randy on some swarms. This basket, who was the first one that you know of that used it if we could credit them. It was a guy on YouTube, and I can't remember his name, Fred. But I saw that video like two years ago, and I saw him catching that swarm with that. And when I first saw, I said,

I'm going to have to get me one of them things. So what's the name of the basket? What's it called? It's just a basket you get off of Amazon. It's a waste paper basket. It's like a perforated waste paper basket. It's the same. It's the same one.

on that last video that I just put out where me and him did the cut out together and I unboxed that BVAC. He used that same, he used that same one as part of that BVAC. You shoot me a link to that because you know, somebody's going to say, I want to know where to get one of those baskets. Oh, man, I'm telling you,

send me the link. I'll find you. I'll find it. I can look up my Amazon past orders and I'll find it. All right. That's a good, good way. So Randy, you agree that they do everything. as Jeff described it.

Yeah, from what I've seen. Okay. I haven't experimented with it myself, so I don't know if he was doing some, some, uh, hoodoo on a little bit. You know, I put mine on an extension pole.

Randy is the extension pole. He just stands over his hiptoes and there you go. You go. Okay. So while you're doing cutouts, I need to know if there was a time when you uncovered an animal you did not expect, and it was a problem. Do you have any stories like that?

Did you find a snake or something, scorpions or something that made you back out for a minute and have to regroup? Well, snake hides or snake sheds rather are not uncommon to find in spaces. So I was up under a church shed. They had a portable building on the back of the church that they used for their clothing giveaways and things like that. hive moves under it. I'm barely fitting under this thing and I remove plywood off the bottom of it. And when I dropped that plywood down, a big snake shed fell out on my leg. And I don't know if there's a snake in there or not, but Pete says something about it. And I nearly tore the building down getting out from under it. But so there's that. And then also Pete is hilarious because he is terrified of any rodent. And so it's fairly common. to find propylized squirrel carcasses or rat carcasses in feral colonies. And anytime we pull something like that down, he just goes into vibration mode.

Really? Yeah, he's out. He's gone. I like when I find the rat or the squirrel in there, I always say, look, Pete, this is for you. Yeah. The last time Jeff did that, I told Pete, I said, you have to watch the very end of the video because that's where he put it. And he caused him back, he says, I didn't appreciate that at all. Yeah. I had one experience that it still put shivers up my bones.

And for Randy, it's no big deal for him. But for me, it is. I was doing a swarm removal underneath the trail. And you have to understand, like Randy was saying, when you're working in those confined spaces, there is absolutely zero space to, to get away. You're basically trapped in there. You can't, you're stuck. That's all there is to it. Other than as fast as you can back out, that's, that's, that's what you're limited to. So I'm

underneath this trailer and, and just like Randy does such a great job about removing that insulation. He puts his hand up there and he real slow. He's real methodical about moving it. And, you know, gets that exposure. I never remember to be real slow. I just kind of reach up there and pull back. And I did that on this one. And when I reached up there and pull the insulation back, a hive of bumblebees fell right on my chest. And I didn't have a suit on or anything because it's a swarm. When it's a swarm, I don't gear up like I usually would. And it thinks, landed right on my chest and I'm underneath the trailer and I'm just like freaking out and it's not this not like one or two bumblebees I'm talking about 15 20 30 is a bunch of them they're right on

my chest and I don't I just got out of there real fast but for some reason they they weren't aggressive I guess it must have been cool or something but I didn't get stung or anything but then things landed right there It's a bad one. And Randy's got a good story about the bumble bees with the guy with the, he went his mother and him with the flip-flop. Yes. That's a good one.

Well, now that you mentioned it, you have to tell it. Yeah, you got to say it. Flip-flops and they just got targeted by the bees. Yeah, I was, I was, I just finished up a cutout. And this guy calls me about some, some bees. And he was kind of in the area that I was in. in and I said, well, I'll stop by and take a look, but I'm, you know, it's late in the evening and I can't really do anything with them today. I thought it was, he thought it was honeybees and I thought,

that's what he was called about. But the thing he's, the thing that threw it off was he said they were in a birdhouse on his back porch. And I was like, I don't think they're honey. He said, yeah, they're honeybees. And so I said, well, I'll come by and look. So I go by and look. And his, his mom likes to sit out there and read. And she's in her, she's up, up there in age and, and not in great health and and he's probably my age lives with her. So I go, I go around there just to look at it and see what it is and it's bumblebees and just looking at it,

I got stung twice. I was like, holy smokes. I say, and I had an extra BVAC catch bucket with me and I said, well, I'll take these things now. And so he says,

wow, I'll video for you if you want. I said, all right, that's great. So I had some pet screen, some real thick window screen. should not be laughing at this.

I'm just, Jeff should not celebrate the demise of someone else that was an innocent bystander. Okay, go ahead. So, so this is, this was, I think this was my first dealing with bumblebees and I didn't realize how defensive they are. So I had some real thick pit screen and I thought,

well, I just wrap it around this hive and just bunch it up at the top like a pillowcase and carry this birdhouse around to the truck. And so I went around there and vacuumed up a few bees and they, you know, they weren't really coming out like that. So I get this, I think I did some vacuum work. I'm pretty sure it did.

Anyway, get this pet screen, no gloves. I've got a bee jacket on, but no gloves. And this guy has said, I'll video for you if I'm into. I said, oh, that'd be great. So he's standing like 20 feet, 15 feet away from me. His mom's right there with him. We're in the backyard on the back porch. And I wrapped this pet screen up around this birdhouse.

And as soon as I tried to clamp it down, This pet screen is so thick that it's not really clamping down real easy. And they start boiling out the top of it. And because I don't have gloves on, they're just ripping my hands apart. And so I can't let it go because I said, I said, y'all get away or something. You know, I told them to move. I'm taking this thing down and carried it to the backyard because they're destroyed my hands. But I'm like, if I dropped this thing, this old lady's going to die.

And so I get the hive to the backyard to the back fence. and I set it down and go back around front. And I'm checking on them, checking on my camera. And I'm like, I hope you get that on video. And he did. He had his recording the whole time. And all you see is him pointed at the ground. You see his flip-plops, pop, plop, pop, pop, pop, plop, plop, go around the house.

And then you hear him and his mom around there arguing about, did you shut the gate? Like the gate's going to stop them. But I kept those bees. I took it home and set it up in my shed. And they stayed with me for the season. Man, and what a lot of people don't know is a bumblebee can sting you over and over. It's not like a honeybee where the bles are stinger, and they seem to carry quite a bit around with them. You know, there's an interesting fact about bumblebee spread.

I'm sure you are aware of it, but the male bumblebee is the one that stings in this case, and the female doesn't sting. And you can distinguish the female bumblebee because she's got a little dot right on her fore. forehead. So when and if you start paying attention to him, you, and if you see the bee with the dot, the bumble bee with a dot as a female and she does not sting. When, when I was a male man, back in my mailman, we, we back in FaceTime, what? I'm telling you. So we would, we would, we would, we would, we would, we would, we had a big mysterious bush out in the front. And at Easter time, the, the, the, the bumblebees would just go crazy.

over this wisteria bush we would catch the bumblebees with the dots in your hand you just catch them in your hand and then you let them walk out your thumb and and when they walk out you take a piece of thread and you put it around their head and then you can fly them on the string okay I got a video I actually have a video of that I took a bee to the post office and I flew it around the post office Okay, but before this gets quoted elsewhere, I want it understood. Let's take carpenter bees, for example, that yellow square on the head is the male. It's the drone. The females have the stingers because that's an ovipositor.

That's where it came from initially. And they're in the bumble. They're bombus, which is the bumblebee group. Yeah. Yellow marker on the head is the male. well how come when when i catch them and so you say the mail doesn't sting the male does not sting oh you see i i always said it was well i was wrong that i was really sorry that i had to point it out in front of at least five that's okay that's okay well like you said we can disagree and still be

friends what like you say we can disagree and still be friends yeah we're still friends i'm glad you cleared that up on me professor because i just all these years I thought it was the female bee was stings, bumblebee. No. Same thing with Southern Yellow Jackets. The male is no stinger. Oh, man. See, that's where knowledge is power.

That's why I like to go up to, I'll even do it with European Hornets. I'll just reach up and grab one of them. And if it's the male, because you can tell by their antennae, the way they're arched way out, then I'll just pick them up. Same thing with yellow jackets. You pick up the males, just reach right into the group and pick them up. People freak out because their tail comes right up like they're pretending to sting you. And I also like to go up to the carpenter, the carpenter bees, the male guards, you know, he gets right in your face.

He's got that nice yellow marking on his head that you described. And you can slap him right out of the air and catch them and do all kinds of things. Or early in the morning when they're cold and they're on the side of him, go pick them up. And it freaks people out. But then it's a teaching tool because it's memorable because it can't. sting but that at the very fundamental end of it that stinger has to do its origins are in reproduction so it is the female that's why so i just yeah we just can't we can't have anybody quoting us incorrectly no i don't want no i don't want any bad information going out no

I forgot what else did I have to ask. Was that glass on that hive or plexiglass on that top bar that you had the window on the side of it? Was that glass or plexy? I think it was plexiglass. Because it didn't shatter. It could have been plate class or something. Yeah, because it was sure clear looking still. I just don't remember, Fred.

I don't remember. Well, I gave that hive to Randy because I put it on his house at Christmas because we did that removal right at Christmas. He dropped off that top our hive at your house? That is excellent equipment for Randy. Well, you actually said that in the, you said that in the video. I said that in the video, yeah. I didn't know that, but I said that. Okay.

I was going to say, you were asking about Waxmoth earlier. I was curious how he knew so much about Waxmoth. because if he finds one, he just gives up the whole hive. And I've got all of his old equipment. He's just like, hey, this one's got two wax muffed on it. Can you come get it? Randy, bring the 18 wheel and it take all my stuff away. There are some things, because this is a serious end of it.

I think you guys get stung constantly, like, especially like Randy, you were underneath that. I don't know if it was an airstream trail. or what, but you were just getting stung constantly. Yeah. Has there been a point where you took some of these things that you did have a reaction to where even after all of these years of working with them, has there been a time when you were concerned maybe about the health risk of being stung so many times by something you were

dealing with? No, the only thing that's ever caused me to react that gave me any kind of concern was this was yellow jackets. I've been stung about 150 times in a day with Southern Yellow Jackets. that had a pretty hard effect on me. But with honeybees, I've probably been stung maybe 90 or 100 times in a day. And the worst that happens is next morning my eyes are a little crusty. And that's that's the, that's funny, but that's the biggest other than, you know, if you get,

if you get stung anywhere around here, you're going to have a little puffiness around the eyes. But aside from that, I've never had any kind of reaction. Okay. Well, that's good news. Jeff, have you had an issue where you have a suit? I wear a suit almost all the time. And I notice the suit you were wearing with the top of our hive. It was Guardian B Apparel.

Oh, yeah. I want to give a shout out to Terry at Guardian B apparel for his vented suits. Oh, they're awesome. He's not doing anything we're doing here, but that's a good company and a good suit. And I was glad to see you wearing it. And Randy, you've got one, right? You just don't wear it. I've got probably four or five guardian suits.

Okay. Yeah, I keep them in the truck. Did you see that they came out with a new clear view, veils on those? He showed it to me at Nabi. Did you try one out? No. Yeah. But I've got the easy C.

Yeah. But I haven't tried either one, really. Did you install the easy C in one of your vows? Yeah, I told her, would do a video on it. I haven't done it yet, but I will. I will be done a video on it. As bad as me because I have the same thing. It's been on my shelf for almost two years, I think.

And we need to get those out. We need to put them in your favorite. Because the problem with me is, I think, is this going to be my favorite veil? Because you install it and it's done. It's in. Yeah. So I can't decide which veil to put it on. Do you have one, Jeff? No. I saw

a world famous Mike Barry was sporting it the other evening on his cutout. And what, do you like it? It was raining, so I think he had issues with fog. Fogging, okay. I don't know. I have an easy sea laying right here somewhere,

but for those people who don't know what we're talking about, it's just a glass or a plexiglass window on the front of the veil, so you're not looking through screen. It's actually a really hard looseite that doesn't scratch very easy, so it's supposed to hold up for a long time, but it has a frame and everything, and well, I'm going to get the let out. I'm going to do it for the supervisor.

I'm going to make him an easy C. I think we'll do a little tutorial on that. We're all in for it, by the way, in January, because he's 10. He'll be 10, which he knows already that he's allowed to go. And I'm running out of reasons to keep him home. But, Jeff, you've never been in trouble with the number of things you've gotten. No, I don't get stung anywhere as much as Randy does.

I mean, he does get stung though. Oh, yeah. He gets stung enough to build a resistance to him. Okay. He doesn't swell up like a first year beekeeper. No, I don't swell up and I don't itch or it doesn't bother me at all. I just don't like getting stung, you know, on my ears or my nose. Oh, I hate that.

Inside the nostril, yeah. Oh, it's right there. Right there. Okay. so we're fast forwarding it's 15 years from now what does your beekeeping look like 15 years from now what are you doing what kind of hive do you want to use and what does your practice look like either one of you go ahead randy uh go ahead jiff well i know i know i already know freder because i've already thought of it i i am going to have me maybe four long horizontal

That's it. I'm a big fan. And it's not just going to be a horizontal. I'm going to have an insulated horizontal. I'm a big believer in insulating your hives. I know it makes all the difference in the world. And then to keep them undercover, whether it just be a roof, a shed. But I'm not going to be lifting up B-boxes. Long highs are ideal for old people. And you know, you can work them. There's no problem you've worked single frames. They're just beautiful. And bees do well in them. That it's, it was my, from my observations of watching bees in joy space that convinced me of that configuration. It was good configuration.

And so that's what sold me on it from what I saw. in in houses and then yeah just so people are clear what you're describing when you say joyce we're talking to horizontal floor joyce cavity and the bees are in there and they have a tiny single entrance and they fanned out right into that structure so i like that answer randy what do you have i'm very similar in that i have a design on paper that uh that i'm going to build and it's I don't know. It's top bar-ish, but there's no bars. Give away your secret. I don't want to give away my secret. Top bar-ish with no bars.

Yeah, it's going to be something that nobody else is doing. It'd be a super simple bill, but nobody else is doing it. I'm just going to leave everybody hanging on this. But it's going to be the same configuration as a floor joy space. It's going to be deep and long. And same reason Jeff said, that's what we see all the time. That's where we see our biggest hives is in a, a horizontal configuration.

And they're not necessarily long tunnels. They're, especially in trust type construction where they can expand wide. Yeah. Those get so stinking big. So in a ladder trust or any kind of trust configuration where there's no limitation anyway except for the depth, they're normally about 20 inches deep max.

Those get massive. So I don't really, I haven't figured out if I want to go. long and narrow just because that's going to be more manageable. Part of it's just making it manageable for me, but part of it is also I want to build what I see out there in feral colonies that have no need for any type of intervention as far as expansion of space or treatment or anything else.

And so they can run without me fooling with them, except for if I want to extract any honey off of them, I can. And other than that, it would be almost hands off. And I can end it because there will be foundationless. I can do cut comb for queens. I can do all kind of different queen rear and methods. It's harder to do on plastic foundation.

And would both of you say, is there much of a difference in honey production with a vertical space as compared to a horizontal space? I don't know if there's any difference. This is a big debate among beekeepers. I don't. there's necessarily. Of observations,

cutouts. I don't know that they're in feral colonies. I don't know if there's any difference, but it's easier to harvest in a horizontal as opposed to a vertical. Okay. My opinion, I love a horizontal, but if I'm going to do honey production,

I want a Langstroth. Yeah. A vertical Langstroth. Yeah. And why do you say that? the long hives will give you honey but I think a blankstrough you can get more honey especially if you're keeping with the flow

if you're keeping up with the flow and giving them frames to fill, instead of drawn out, just fill up. Mike Barry is a really good example of how a guy that's really good at it, you can really get a lot of honey out of it. and I've seen it. And so, and I say this.

I say this all the time, that I love the, the way a long hive you can work it, but if I'm going to go honey, I'm going to go Langstroth. Vertical Langstroth. Vertical, yes. Okay, final question of the day. Then you guys can all go home. I'll add to that just a little bit. And if you consider in all configurations, the Langstroth,

horizontal or vertical is really the only way to go because everything is built to accommodate that frame. Extractors, uncappers, everything. So it's hard to kind of look at anything else if you're doing it out of scale other than one or two hives. Okay. And then you made me forget what my last question of the day was going to be. Last question. Are we having dessert? No.

Terry cobbler. Man, I forgot what my final thing. Oh, is there ever a time when you, yeah, that's Easy Ox. Randy's holding up. Good company for your Exhalic Acid. That's interesting that you have that. Why, as a treatment-free beekeeper, do you have EasyOx? And why are you promoting it?

I'm a hypocrite. Okay. Great. For people that don't know, acolyc acid, they come in tablets, and they come in powder from EasyOx, veteran-owned company, and good prices. They're easy, as the name implies, they're an easy way to use oxalic acid.

Okay, final question of the night. Do you ever feed your bees? And if you do, why and what do you feed? Go ahead, Jeff. No, you first. My bees get fed all the time. Anytime I come home with cutout comb, they're open fed to cutout comb.

and it freaks a lot of people out. They're like, you're bringing home disease. Well, if they weren't disease when I cut them out, but they cut out comb by the tons and. But it's usually out of the back of your pickup truck. Yeah, or I throw the bags out near our rendering station where we're going to render the wax now. But if I, in the early spring, if I look at them and they look like they need to be fed,

I'll feed them a light sugar water mix. usually by the time I'm looking at them the spring tie tie is already blooming and the red maples are starting up and so we generally don't have a need to feed yeah so when you do the light sugar you're saying one-to-one sugar syrup you go lighter than that or lighter or lighter okay Jeff so I I do not feed that being said that I do not feed when I do a removal in like the dearth times. I feed the bees, honey. I give them honey.

And that, it's only to nurse them along. Once we get through any kind of dirt, they're on their own. So I do help a little bit initially, but it's not long term because my days of feeding bees of mixing sugar. That's always. I'm not doing that. And, you know, I made the point this morning, Fred, in the video, here we are March 9th. And of course, I'm talking about our area right here. And where I'm doing these boards, putting these boards

in, and the top box, you know, a 60-pound top box and the bottom box, 20 pounds. So we have this big weight difference, right? Well, you know, and I know there's beekeepers that say, well, you need to put honey in that box. Well, I firmly believe, I mean, and this is my belief. You have to consider the time of where you're at right now. So like right now, I've got that big differential between weights into top box and the bottom box. Well, my bottom box is going to be generally my queenless box. So all of my workforce is going to be centered into this box right here. Whereas my queen who's in the top box, she's got all this honey. She's going to lose her field bees. They're going to be going to the bottom. Well, if they're going in the bottom, they got all this

space for now then we got we got stuff out there. So these bees that really don't have a lot of brood to feed, they'll be able to gather this nectar that's getting ready to come in and everything's going to be fun. I think people jump the gun. They get too anxious to want to help the bees instead of like the same thing with the might wash. Well, why are you going to feed your bees? Look at where we are. You know, yeah, you might be a little bit slow right now, but you're going to catch up. It's going to catch up.

So I didn't worry about that 40 pound difference because I'm going to have the workforce in there and we got a flow coming. So it's going to work out. You know, yeah, there's a big difference. But look at what we're doing and look at what's going on around us and it'll put your mind to rest. Now, when you say you feed them honey, how are you delivering that to them? it's internal feeding when I do that and I just put that above them I just in that hole in the

inner cover I just put a a quart jar up there okay all right all right so any final words from either of you final advice anything you want to share I say Fred and I always say that the world needs as many beekeepers as it can get and I truly believe that because what be provide for humanity. So having beekeepers, it's very important. But the other part about being a beekeeper is the sustainability of being a beekeeper. You know, the challenges that beekeeper, as a beekeeper, what you face, how you endure those challenges. It's very likened to life itself, you know, how you face life's challenges, you know, and you do it with a firm belief and hope because it's really farming. And farmers have great reliance. They have faith.

They believe that it's going to work out. And beekeeping is no different. You really have to believe in it. And then the other part of that formula is you have to maintain that fun aspect of being a beekeeper. Beekeeping should be fun. That's why you got into it in beginning and 50 years down the line, that's why you still should be continued because it's fun, it's intriguing

that you always find the newness of bees and they offer that newness if we are open to receive it. Good job, Randy. That was amazing. I just had a stupid story, but that was so good. I'm just going to keep my mouth shut.

Pretend you every set of a thing. Just go ahead. I was just going to say it's swarm season. And if you're in the mindset of trapping or catching swarms, you get out there and try it. You never know until you try. And I have a story about when we took my sister fishing, my little sister went fishing with us when we were kids.

She's seven or eight years younger than me. She's four or five years old. We're out there fishing a little brimpawn. And we're, you know, telling her how to do it. And so we've got all these rules for swarm catching. Well, we're telling her how to catch these fish. You got to hold a hold the pole still. You know, a five-year-old is not going to listen.

She's over there whipping the water, hanging up in the weeds, and we're just trying to stay away from her. So we're all catching a few fish here and there. We know she's not going to catch anything, but eventually she pulls something up, and she squeals, she's excited, and I'm, and I look over there, and there's a little brim hanging on her, hook. It's a little brim hook and he had anything on it in an hour.

And I go over there and look and she's, she's surprised. I'm surprised and she had caught this little brim right in the in the honey hole. And so, you know, we're all surprised in the fish. I'm sure it was super surprised. But my point to that is no matter how wrong you're doing it, there's always a chance. That's a good story. All right. Well, I always. want to thank you both for giving us two hours, by the way. Oh, my goodness. Really good conversation and information. And I enjoy both of your channels.

The stuff that you're doing is really informative and entertaining at the same time. So, well, it's a better way to deliver your wrangling of bees. And I know Jeff is beating you out right now, Randy, for Swarm Collection. But I won. By one. I don't have an opportunity. On the way. Now it's a numbers game.

Now it's a numbers game. first one. So we look forward to seeing those through the year. So thanks a lot, you guys. It's been a really good conversation. Thank you, Fred. Thanks for having us. Yeah. We really enjoyed it. Great evening. Good seeing it again, Randy. And I'll see you on the battlefield, dude. Yes, sir.