The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Interview with Stephen Repasky, Author of Swarm Essentials, Ecology, Management, and Sustainability.

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

This is the audio track from this YouTube Interview:  https://youtu.be/8UHv1rg9iaA

So hello and welcome to another episode of interviews with experts. I'm Frederick Donne, and this is The Way to Be. Today, my guest is Stephen Rapasky. Steve is a second-generation beekeeper, a nationally recognized speaker and consultant from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's an Eastern Apiculture Society certified master beekeeper and past president of the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association. Steve was previously on the board of director,

for the American Beekeeping Federation, and he's currently an active member of the Pennsylvania Queen Bee Improvement Project, as well as the Penn State Pollinator Research Advisory Board. He's the owner of Meadow Sweet Bees, where he raises and sells New World Carniolan and Purdue Leg Chewer Genetics, and he manages more than 200 colonies.

Steve and Loris John Connor authored and published the book, Swarm Essentials, Ecology, Management, and Sustainability. Here's Steve. Good to see you, Fred. How are you? Great. Thanks for agreeing to talk with me today because this is a very, very important and timely interview with experts, and you're the expert. In fact, you wrote the book on Swarm Essentials. So we've got a lot of cool stuff going on with Swarms. Everybody's interested in Swarms, but I'm going to talk about you overall. For the people that don't know you, you're in the state

of Pennsylvania, correct? Correct. Yep. Pituit. And just tell us a little bit, what is your current job title and what are you doing, where are you located? Yeah, so no secret. I actually own a pest control company called Bee Control. And we specialize in the control and management of all stinging insects. So wasp hornets, yellow jackets, honeybees, all that good stuff. It actually puts me in a unique position because of the beekeeping background. When we come across honey bees in people's homes and, of course, the wasp and hornets,

were able to kind of be a full service type of a company. So I've owned that business for one on 10, 11 years now, worked for them for a couple years before that. But in my prior lifetime, I was actually a wildlife biologist for the state of Pennsylvania for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. So my degree is from Penn State in wildlife management. I spent about 10 or 12 years with the Game Commission doing wildlife stuff, and life takes you down funny road sometimes.

And here we are. I've been a beekeeper since I was four, or at least I've been around bees. My dad, who is 82, still keeps bees on our family farm in Southern Armstrong County. And it's going strong. I want to know about that wildlife game commission stuff just for a minute. Give me one cool story of some encounter that you had or some unusually large specimen or some unique, little known animal that you might have dealt with. I think that one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the other. of the best memories I have, two best memories. One of the coolest things I've ever done was a

winter hibernaculous survey for bats in Huntington County where we were going into a cave crawling on our belly. The very tight space is, I don't know, half a mile or so deep into this cavern to count bats. And this was right before the white nose syndrome appeared and wiped out bats in Pennsylvania. So that was a cool thing I did. And probably the thing that I'm most known for during those years was the Game Commission did a fawn survival study in central Pennsylvania and I was the crew leader for the one up in the Quahanna Wild area where we captured and radio collared newborn whitetail deer fons and monitored them for survival over a period of three years. So I was in charge of the crew there where we had encounters with bears and elk

and rattlesnakes and got stuck in mud and all kind of fun stuff. So there's, Story after story after story as my time as a biologist, but some very good years there at the agency. That's, I did not know about your involvement with because I know about White Nose Syndrome. As photographer, we did photography of the decline of those bats. Yeah. A lot of people listening right now may have no clue what we're even talking about, but there's a profound impact on the bat population. And what was the species, a North American brown bat? It was a little brown bat was the biggest one.

I mean, all the species we had, the little brown, the big brown, the hoary, the red. There are a number of bats species. I mean, we lost literally 99% of our bat population in Pennsylvania. I mean, just whole colonies just wiped out. You could almost tie, well, not tie it to, but it's almost the equivalent of colony collapse in honeybees, you know, in the varroa mite. It's just massive collapse and a lot of issues and what causes it. We're not sure and why is it changing. Yeah.

Good news is here we are almost 25 years later and bats are slowly coming back, but they have such a low reproductive rate. It's just a slow comeback. But they are coming back and we still don't know what caused it. You know, we know it's a fungus and stuff like that. And for those who may be wondering, it caused the bats to come out of hibernation midwinter when there was no food, right? And they just died in the snow.

They never really went into a torpor or a state of hibernation. and they constantly fidgety and using up energy and just couldn't make it through the winter and just perished. Do you know this statistic? Is it I was told that we need 100 years of perfect, uninterrupted reproduction to get them back to the numbers that they were at? That's probably about right because each bat can only reproduce one pup per year.

So that takes a long time to reproduce unlike honeybees, which they could swarm two, three times a year. Yeah, yeah, honey bees. people like us end up with too many of them. That's my issue. That's where I was right before I came in to start this. We were out in the beard. So anyway, that's what we're here to talk about.

But the other stuff is super interesting too. So I don't mind sidelining to something that I'm personally curious about. And the fawn study, I know somebody heard you give that intro in there. So what was the finding? What was the survivability of a white-tailed deer fawn? Surprisingly, fairly good. But what they did find, we had two different studies. areas. One was in the mountains of central PA and one was in the farmlands. In the mountains, they found

that bears predated fawns much more than coyotes. And for the hunters out there, you know, a lot of hunters think that coyotes are the number one predators. And what we found were bears were actually higher than coyotes. Not by much, but they were there. But bears, coyotes and bobcats were the top three followed by poaching. And then in the farming areas, it was mostly coyotes and automobile getting hit by a car or getting caught up in farm machinery

making hang that thing so people are poaching you're doing well so they're poaching fons like they're having fawn burgers I think it's just well so when the the poaching incidents

that we came across were mostly of the old you know after they had their spots were gone and they were older in the fall and guys filling the freezer for whatever or just having fun, which isn't good either. So you're part with the Game Commission. Were you an actual officer that enforced regulations and took people down?

Nope. I was a wildlife biologist. I was not a game warden. No flying double grapevine take downs from you, eh? No, none of that. Okay. All right. So let's move on.

I'm sure people are listening. By the way, this is available as a podcast, the way to be podcast. So you can find it there. The entire series is available under interviews with experts. for those who are listening. And of course, this is the YouTube that most of you are watching. And that is Frederick Dunn. So there will also be information down in the video description.

Links to the book we're going to talk about and other information going to Steve's website so you can find out a little bit more after the fact. So the book is Swarm Essentials. I don't know how many people have it. I like this book. Now, here's the thing. When you look at this on Amazon, it's this little thin book. But I like to tell people that this is information.

Dents. You put a lot of stuff in here. So I'm going to let people check that out. And I highly recommend the book so we can say that ahead of time. And what inspires you to write a book about something as seemingly obvious as swarm collection management prevention and so on? Yeah. And that's just, you hit the nail right there, Fred. I mean, at the time when this all came about, I was talking with Dr. Larry Connor, who, you know, if you're in the beekeeping world, you know who Dr. Connor is longstanding, retired professor, author, lecturer, researcher, et cetera. And I, in my beekeeping happenings, you know, you start to research and you buy books and you're buying books and more books and you start to see that void. And something as simple as just swarming, the only time you ever found information was,

maybe a chapter or a few paragraphs in a book that says, oh, hey, by the way, honeybee swarm in the early spring and you might want to put supers on or you might want to make a split. And here's how you catch them and that's it. And it was, I think, spurred ultimately by the number of questions I would get from new beekeepers. You know, what is a swarm? How do I deal with it? I mean, I saw this chapter, but it doesn't tell me anything. And I would, every time I saw Dr. Connor, I would say to him, you need to write a book. Because at the time, I was not an author.

Never saw myself as an author. And he kept saying to me, you write it. You write it. You write it. And that went on for about three years. And finally, I can't remember where we were, maybe an EAS conference or something like that. And we sat down together and had a dinner and started talking. And he's writing down notes and writing down notes.

And at the end of the dinner, he slid the notepad over to me and goes, there's your outline. Now write it. So I looked at it. And it was funny. Just the more we talked about swarms and just like you and I are doing here, just a normal conversation and talking about swarming, we essentially wrote a book as it is. So what I ended up doing was sitting down from my computer and just started talking and typing as I talked. And lo and behold, I had a lot of the pictures I already needed. And we put it together. I like to say we threw it together. But we put it together and did some edits. And lo and behold, it still sells very strong today. 10 years. Yeah. 10 years. years old. It's a 10-year-old book. We're talking about doing a second edition, but it constantly gets sold. I mean, it's, I think we're in our third or fourth reprint, probably close to 10,000 copies or more sold, which for a niche topic in the beekeeping industry is huge. I mean, it's certainly not a New York Times bestseller. But my, I mean, I guess as a person, I'm one,

very realistic. I'm very to the point. And I'm also very practical. And I'm, I'm, Not a very, I do have that scientific background. I enjoy statistics and all that good stuff. But when you look at the material that's out there and that's available to beekeepers, it's either way over beekeepers heads, two scientific, too many statistics, too many, you know, P values and things along those lines. And the opposite is you get two chapters in a book or two paragraphs in a book about a topic that needs expanded on. So kind of hit the nail on the head with Swarm Essentials and much to my delight. And to this day, we get people buying them, say they've bought the book and they've bought it for other people. And it worked out very, very well. And the goal of that book was not really to go in depth, you know, super biology wise, which, as you know, as a beekeeper, biology is very important.

But more so talk about just what beekeepers are seeing. And as a master beekeeper myself, one of the things I've noticed over the years, whether I was testing other individuals or. teaching classes or just in discussion, we often as beekeepers kind of just look at the big picture, but not what's going on elsewhere. We kind of failed to manage our colonies. And swarms are easy, right? A swarm lands in a tree, you catch it, you put it in a box, and you go on. But through all the questions I was getting of, well, how do I know if my colony swarmed? What do I do with it. Swarm Essentials was developed, evolved, and was printed, and it takes a deep dive basically into the hive itself. And the topic of my talk that I give is Swarm Essentials, what's really happening in your hive? You know, what does the swarm cell look like? When do they emerge?

What does that mean in terms of how many virgins are in the hive and how they get reduced back to colony equilibrium and all this good stuff? So it was kind of a neat adventure. to go on and I thought it would be a one and done, but here we are. We're still printing copies and still signing copies and still mailing copies and teaching beekeepers at least to a certain extent how to understand that process and maybe make a better beekeeper out of themselves. Well, I think, first of all, everything you just listed there is well covered in the book, and it's in a digestible format. So nobody has to worry about this over science, you know, too many graphs and charts and things like that. Very good practical, solid advice.

grounded in bee biology. So it is an excellent book. If anyone's on the fence about it, you should get one. And here's the other thing. You know, this occurs to me. We problem solved with my grandson today. He's eight. And I made him inspect his beehive because it didn't seem up to speed and it's missing a queen. So what did we fix his beehive with? Queenless colony, no brood at any age, borderline layer worker stage. Well, it was hanging in a nearby tree branch this morning, just saying, let me fix your colony. Hey, look at me. Yep.

Yeah. Great windows happened. Collected a swarm. So we did multiple things. We gave them a queen they didn't have. We put it, Colorado BVAC, same thing you use there. Put it right on top. They went right in.

A little squabble, a little tiny one. But now they're queen. right and they're settled. So swarms can solve your problems. They're not always, they're viewed as a problem. They say they can create problems. So many beekeepers are like, I get this question all the time. I'm sure you've heard it once or twice in your life. How do I stop my bees from swarming? My part of my end is I like it. So I have many uses for swarms. So what do you think about, can you fix colonies with swarms? You can fix colonies? You can fix colonies? with swarms, you could fix them without swarms. And as you pointed out, you know, swarms are great for a number of reasons if they happen at the right time. You know, as you said to, you know, people, I get the same questions you do. You know, how do I stop a colony from swarming? And the short answer is you don't, you know. And I teach that all the time is that there was no such thing as swarm control. It's swarm management, swarm mitigation, pick your word. Bees are going to do in the,

Wise advice of Jim Fitzroy, who recently passed away, an old beekeeper here in Pittsburgh, very intelligent man, knew his stuff. He always said bees will do what bees do. And that's what we have to keep in mind as beekeepers. You know, we can't stop that natural, instinctual urge. You know, bees want to swarm, especially healthy colonies. Unhealthy colonies, not so much. But our goal is as beekeepers, we have to remember we're not there to intercept. the natural process. We're there to actually manage it to benefit us, however that may be. Do we get to

occasionally stop a swarm? Sure, pure luck. But we can at least get in there and try to mitigate and manage and due to our best of abilities to kind of keep those bees in the hive, so to speak, so that we haven't increased honey production and bees aren't moving into neighbors' houses and things along those lines. But I love swarms. And that's kind of what I wrote the wrote the book too is, you know, I really enjoy the process. They're fascinating. They're fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It never gets sold. No, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've sat back and said, all right, you guys are in the middle of swarming. I'm going to sit and watch, take pictures and video. You just do what you're going to do and I'll deal with it when it's done. But at the same time,

I've also ran around like an interesting, crazy person running around the B yard, holding a frame of drawn comb up a swarm commander trying to get them to land on the frame so that I'm not chasing them 60 feet up into a tree. But now, swarms are great. They could fix a lot of things, but they could also create a lot of problems, which is what I talk about in the book a little bit. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about you running around with a frame of brood.

Yeah. Now, is a brood enough to act as an attractant or did you have to touch it with a little Swarm Commander? Yeah, so I just used brood comb, right? I don't actually pull a lot living brood out of there. Yeah, Swarm Commander, I love that stuff. I'm not sponsored by it. I wish I was. I mean, I'm not either. Scott Derek, who is the inventor of that product. Great man met him when the product first came out and, you know, went back and forth with him and got a couple samples and talked to him.

And boy, a product that took off, that stuff is fantastic. I buy that by the case every season and give it out to bekeeper to door prizes and things along those lines. but going back to me running around with a frame of brood comb, you know, one little sprit to that brood commander or swarm commander on that brood comb, you get in the midst of that cloud and you just hold that frame up as high as you can and get slightly upwind of them so they catch that odor. And I've caught more than enough swarms, you know, than I can count where they're swirling around, swirling around. And as they're moving, you're moving, trying to stay in the center.

and a lot of times, you know, as soon as you get a half a dozen, dozen workers that land on that frame and they start fanned with the real NASNAF, man, they just all start coming in and that's a neat circumstance as well. I mean, if you've never had a swarm just kind of land on you, it's fun. I mean, it's a thrill. But yeah, it works. Sometimes it doesn't. They ignore the pheromones, but a lot of times I could stop a colony from flying,

way up and getting the land you know a lot of times you don't even have to hold it long you know as long as as they start to land i'll prop it up on a limb i'll set it up against a hive and before you know it the whole colony's on that that frame and you can't get any easier than that right you pick up the frame have you have you heard of the swarm reacher the swarm reacher oh yeah yeah yeah the pole with a the little plastic clip that goes on the end of a pole yep yeah it sounds like you're you were your arm is a swarm reacher, but would you have a purpose for something like that? Would you something way up in a tree? Yeah.

I mean, I've done it. You know, I've used those poles where I've duct tape the frame to a pole. You know, anything you can, screw a frame into a pole and, you know, get it up to where they are, especially if they're on a big limb that you can't cut or shake. I've cut trees down with swarms in them before. Just because, hey, why not, right? But yeah, there's lots of different ways. And that's one thing I don't talk about in the book, and I might have to add is just different ways of catching swarms.

You could shake them, you could vacuum them, you could do all this fun stuff. But with that frame, you know, you get it up in there and let them start walking onto that frame. And eventually that queen will be on there. And as soon as you have the queen, you know, you can put that box directly below where they are. And over a course of a day, all those bees up on the limb will filter back down to where the queen is. And a lot of great ways to do stuff like that. interesting because I was going to ask you about swarm commander. I actually use it sometimes because I don't shake my swarms into the boxes. I try to get them to walk in.

Yep. Sometimes you get a stubborn cluster right on the front of the hive that won't go in. And the tiniest sprits, or in this case these little capsules, a little dab inside, up in the back. And it's just like they found the queen in there and in they go. You know it. Yep. One of the questions I get when I demonstrate that, and I just demonstrated it yesterday, does that compete with the queen's actual mandibular pheromone? I would say no, because it's two different pheromone, right? I mean, the queen pheromone is part of that whole process, but the nassanof is a completely different pheromone,

as you know, two different glands, two different ends of the body. And I think, and this is where more is not better, right? So if you put more is worse, actually, you can overdo it. Yeah, absolutely. And if you, you know, and this is the neat thing about talking about beekeeping is, you know, you start on one topic and it splinters in the seven different topics. Swarm commander mimics the nassanof pheromone. And the nassanof pheromone has seven chemical components. One of those is, quote, lemongrass.

So the nice thing is that when you use lemon grass, it's one component. When you use swarm commander, you have all seven chemical components. But lemongrass as well as many other chemicals can act as a. bug repellent. We see that in our natural bug repellents. Citronella, lemon grass, too much actually repelled them. So in that case, yes, it would actually cause an overpowering of just colony pheromones in general. And then you could have that kind of issue where they either abscond or they won't come in. And those little capsules I have found is just strong enough to do exactly what you said. You know, just kind of coax them in and say, hey, you know, come on in,

do your thing and you don't need a lot of swarm commander in fact it's so potent and this is where I always tell people I am not sponsored by the company because what we talk about so much but it's just a really great product I carry it in my bee jacket or in my pants pocket during the storm season basically from April through June and there's been number of times where I don't even have it in my pocket but because of the residual smell from it being in my pocket I'll get clusters of bees landing I've twice now I've had swore actually land on my bee jacket while I'm out working and you're standing there and you're going, wow, there's a lot of bees around me.

Yeah. And they're all just clustering right on where you are. And let's mention that too because when the cluster forms like that from the swarm commander, I made the mistake of putting a little bit of it on tree branch, you ended up with a cluster bees. That is a queenless cluster. Yeah. So you have to be careful because you're creating a bunch of, they're not orphans.

I mean, people panic and think, well, what are you going to do with them then? Well, eventually they will move on. Yeah, eventually. It's one of those things, too, even with swarm traps, you know, I see a lot of comments of people saying, I put up my swarm trap and within, you know, minutes, there's bees investigating. And it's not so much that they're scalp bees, but it's just that aroma that they're attracted to. And, you know, they'll follow you around. I've had them come in the truck and, you know.

Yeah. Well, the good news about scout bees. though, is if they do, because they are just out foraging and they find that pheromone and they get derailed and go to wherever the pheromones coming from. The good news is they're social influencers. So when they get back to the hive, if they are making preparations to swarm, then they'll be able to communicate the location of a suitable cavity, right? And they're the original YouTubers, right? They go out and they get product. They come back and they show their stuff and they garner viewers and the more viewers they have.

off to go. They tell everybody they convince them, and there we have the HoneyVe democracy that Dr. Tom Seeley talked. I was just going to mention that, and that goes right to that book. So let's talk a little bit more about swarm commander or other lures that you've used,

how you use them when you're trying to collect a swarm. In other words, let's talk swarm traps, I guess. Yeah, I mean, Swarm Commander did. I mean, I've tried Lemongrass in the past. Before Swarm Commander, lemongrass was the go-to, right? That was the, it was easy to get.

It's just an extract oil from lemon grass. I've grown lemon grass and made my own. I've also used queens that I've harvested, if you will, older queens from other colonies and you put them in, you know, alcohol. Yeah. Whatever, some to create a queen essence, if you will. And that works to a certain extent. But again, you know, the queen manibular pheromone is just a tiny point. portion of that whole swarming process.

So I look to what would mimic a Nasanoff. And there's some other swarm enhancers or lures that are out there that just didn't cut it. And so I'm strictly a swarm commander guy now. I mean, I've got anywhere I look, I could probably find a bottle within arm's reach, whether it's in the truck or out in the B yards, et cetera. Yeah. But swarm trapping, you know, I think it's, I swarm trapping is starting to gain popularity. much like when people started

to overwinter nukes. You know, it wasn't that long ago where overwintering a five-frame nuke was a novelty. Like, what do you mean you could overwinter five frames? And now more and more people are doing it and doing it very successfully. And now swarm trapping is one of those things

that not only can you obtain feral genetics, right? We never know where the bee actually come from unless you actually have a hollow tree with a colony in it for several years and you can pinpoint that. But swarm trapping not only allows you to harvest genetics from other areas, but also capture your bees before they head out to actually move in your neighbor's yard. We have a swarm trapping program at the Pittsburgh International Airport where I run about 150 colonies out there. And before I even did that, that's been going on 10 or 12 years now. But prior to me putting bees out there, they were getting bees on the airfield.

One of those pictures is in the book. You know, the famous picture that went around the world in 24 hours, you know, a swarm of bees on a delta jet. So now what we're doing is we're putting swarm traps up about every quarter to a half mile around their air operations area to kind of just stop the swarm from getting on. A few get by, but we catch quite a few swarms. But swarm trapping is one of those things everybody can do. You don't need a lot of specialized equipment, you know, eight frame box is what I use. I make swarm traps as swarm traps. I don't use them for anything else.

And pretty simple straight setup. Dr. Tom Seeley has a nice little guide on setting swarm traps and bait hives. And I always jokingly tell people, you know, yeah, read all that and then forget about it and do it the way I tell you to do it. And Dr. Sealy wrote my forward to the books or wrote the default. He's a great guy. He's fantastic. It's just mind-blowing how intelligent that man is. But, you know, I took what he found as part of his study and just adapted it to what worked for me.

And that's just an eight frame deep with a solid bottom board, migratory top, six frames of undrawn comb or undrawn foundation, a frame of drawn comb, another frame of undrawn foundation. Swarm commander, put it up six to eight feet. Done. I mean, it's a pretty straightforward process. And there's all kind of other designs and stuff out there. but swarm trapping is just another piece of the puzzle, if you will, I guess, when it comes to managing bees or managing that swarm impulse and capturing free bees, which I don't think any bee is ever free. We ultimately pay a price in some way, shape, or form. Yeah.

So check my thinking on this. I've stopped trapping bees. I used to put up the swarm traps. I don't bother anymore. And that's because, now I was fooling around with QMP, the temp. Queen that's being sold, the better bee. And I stopped using that too because I found out this year that Swarm Commander works just as well. And I also need to put out the same disclaimer you have,

we are not working for Blythe Wood B Company. We just like the product. Same line as you. American company, American product. Okay, good guy. All right. So here's what I've ended up doing is I use it early in the spring on a tree branch, the tree branch that I want them to use.

and I get a collection of bees, maybe a queenless collection of bees, but they're leaving pheromones on the branch. And in some cases, they're even putting a little beeswax on there. And that becomes my frequent, kind of like a stagecoach stopoff for their bivouac, and then I just collect them there.

Yeah. And I actually take it one step further than you because of the weather and everything and sun exposure, just like any other product, you know, stuff breaks down. So I'll actually take a pill bottle and spread some several sprays on a cotton ball and put it in the pill bottle, drill a bunch of holes and zip tie it to the limb. That way it never really goes away. And I have, I caught swarms this year.

They kept landing onto one limb and I was catching them, but I wasn't paying attention to it. And lo and behold, there was an old small, it wasn't even a pill bottle. It was a little vial from Swarm Commander. that four or five years ago had zip tied to that limb. Like one of these? Yeah, sometimes, yeah, like that. And it's, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's just one of those things that you create that artificial landing spot.

And they don't all go there. But the odds are high that if you're in your B yards quite often, and I always, in my book, I talk about it. And in my talks, I speak on it, you know, between the hours between 11 and 2 is when most colonies will leave or most swarms will leave their colonies. So if you're in your bee yard over that lunch hour, there's a good chance you're going to see the swarm or take off or are you going to watch it hang from a limb, hopefully where you put some swerb commander down. And yeah, that's a great way of doing it.

And I do that in addition to swarm traps because I've got more bees and I do traps and I can't catch all of them. So it's nice to be able to set those temporary bivouac landing spots. Okay. I'm going to check by thinking, again, is this a waste of time? Here's what I'm going to tell you. All right. So we get those little traders that just fall out of pheromone, that they have no queen with them,

and they created this cluster that's probably, that's a good pound or so of bees. Yeah. And I shake them into a butterfly net. I keep them overnight. So stress them out a little bit, make them think they have nowhere to go. Then in the morning, I walk out, and I put that on any hive I want to add foragers to. Yeah. And they go in.

Is this a bad idea, an okay idea, or a terrible idea? and why? Well, I'm going to throw a monkey wrench into your system there because I'm starting. My thinking is that are they really queenless or are they scouts leading up to a potential spot to live, right? So we know that prior to a colony swarming, even before they even leave the colony itself, the hive, if a scouting party can leave and it might be several hundreds or several dozen to several hundred bees. And, you know, a thousand bees is substantial amount of bees. So I'm wondering in your case, maybe you're just taking a scouting party and rehoming them. And are they really staying there or are they going in to make you happy?

And then when you leave, they're like, hey, Fred's gone. Let's go back home and take off. So I'm wondering. I don't like that analogy. I don't like that story. But I'm wondering if I wonder if it is a scowling party, so to speak, where, and I've seen this in swarm traps where there's bees there for days and days and days. And you're like, man, it looks like a colony. You open up and there's not really anything.

And then eventually the entire colony shows up. So I'm wondering if that might be what you're experiencing. Not to say you're wrong, but my mind went down the scouting party route. So it may not be helping as much as we think it is. I don't think it's helping, but I don't think it's hurting anything. either. I mean, you're taking them, you're going to put them in another colony, and they're either going to join that colony. As we know, you know, foragers are more likely to be accepted into a colony than, especially if they're bringing back goods. Then they're okay. Another angle. Right. So I did the same thing. Now let's say that they are foragers or not foragers, but scouts are looking for a new place to live. And I picked a colony that was weak and not very productive. Let's say that colony potentially had no queen. They're just, just dwindling. And so when I took this manufactured swarm and I parked them on that landing board, and let's say these are the scouts, and they go in, because they do go in, but then they discover

no resident queen, could they then go back to the hive that's about to send a swarm out, and then could that swarm ultimately end up occupying a queenless colony? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you're familiar with the term usurpation, right? Well, usurpation is a hot. will takeover though. It could be a queen. It is. You're right, where one queen takes over. And it's particularly active with Africanized African and Africanized bees.

But I have seen it with my own eyes where I have a colony that's either in lane worker mode that I've just kind of ignored or a colony that's in process of requequining. So they don't have a queen, but they might have queen cells, but a very low population. But they have all the resources. Entie drawn comb. A little bit of honey, a little bit of pollen. because the colony wasn't doing well, but it gives them space. And I've watched that swarm just march right in and everything gets torn down and does what they're doing. And so I would I would say that, yeah, that's very, I think that happens a lot more than we realize where these, these colonies are in a state of requeenning or just a state of stagnancy.

And that's the right time, right place and swarm moves in. Hey, you know, so what if there's a few leftovers? Yeah. Be. Yeah. No, absolutely. Bees do what bees do, right? I mean, that's the fascinating thing.

That's what keeps us going with honeybees is all these different scenarios, and we could probably talk for two hours just on this little scenario that you and I have been talking about. Well, no, the whole point of it is get the conversation going and get people experimenting, especially if your abiary is busting at the seams. You've got all the bees you need. This is a great opportunity to just feel your way through it and kind of see what the responses are. to introducing swarms to various hives and things like that. In introduction methods, what is your best or favorite method that's least disturbing to the bees

to introduce a swarm to a hive that already has some bees in it? So you mentioned this earlier about how you don't like to shake bees. You like to let them walk in, so to speak. And I don't really shake bees either in a way. But my best success with putting bees into a colony is literally just dumping them in. I mean, just letting them – it seems rough and tough, but also with the number of colonies I have, the lack of time that I have – that's what works for me. Ideally, what I will do is if I see a swarm that I'm capturing from some other location, I'll snip the branch. I don't like to shake.

I don't like to dump them and then let them walk in. I don't like to vacuum them if they don't need vacuumed. If I can take them intact, I'll take them intact and I'll set them down into my collection box, whether it's a nuke box or an eight frame box with frames on them. Usually by the time I get home, they're already on the frames and somewhat settled, and I'll just take the frames and set them in. No dumping. Everybody's calm, collected, and whatnot.

But if you're in a hurry, you know, you pull them off of that limb from the box, the cardboard box that you had in the back of your truck for three weeks. It has holes and you duct taped it to get the swarm. You know, I pull a couple frames out, put the bees down in, give them a good shake, put my frames back, close them up, and let them do their thing. Ninety-nine percent of the time it works, but I have done that where I've caught the swarm, put them in a box, take them home, shook them into their permanent home. And because it was a virgin queen who was unstable, they've actually just boom, absconded and took off for parts unknown, you know, and they were 30 miles from where I originally caught them. So there's a negative aspect to all of them. But as far as introduction,

I try to keep it as calm and collected as possible. I don't like bees flying all over place. That was the ultimate rejection, though. You take them 30 miles and they still rejected the house you provided. I think it's, it happens with Virgin Queens. I see it a lot with Virgin Queens. They're anti and they just they're anti and they just yeah and that's where a frame of brood you know open brood comes in handy you could kind of anchor them and let them sit. I've also found that the longer you keep them in a box, the more settled they get especially with Virgin Queens. Yeah. Also that's a good point. Do you recommend keeping a swarm overnight before hiving them?

If you're if you can, I mean, there's a lot of variables, right? I mean, what container are they in? How much ventilation? Let's say they're in Colorado. BVAC boxes. Oh, the Colorado BVAC box, I mean,

great design about that is the whole top is screened, right? Yeah. And actually, I've done that numerous times where I think I've got five or six boxes,

maybe more. I can't think, but I'll catch swarms and those. And you tilt them up on their end, so the screen is vertical. So they have ventilation. In the morning, you'll come and they're all just

nicely clustered up in the corner. And then, of course, then you have to introduce them, right. So you have to shake them out at that point. But a good thump and poor and the bees are there. But yeah, ventilation's important. I'm not ashamed to say I've cooked swarms before, you know, just because I put them in a box that was too small and just transporting them a short distance. You know, it happens. But the more ventilation you can have better. And if you could have them ventilated and keep them in a cool shaded spot, basement garage, wherever. Yeah, definitely keeping them overnight. Now let me ask you this. Transporting you in a box, you said too many in the box and they overheated and you cooked them.

Not that I've ever had that happen to any bees under my control or care, but were they wet? Did they seem like a pile of wet bees? Yeah. Yeah. What is, see, where did that moisture? I mean, not that it's ever happened to me, but when I opened my Colorado BeVac that I had a monster swarm in, like huge, jammed that box too much. I'll never do it again. They were wet.

Where's some moisture coming? from. It's the honey. It's actually not even moisture. It's, it's a sticky gooiness. They're actually regurgitating the nectar that they've had in their honey stomachs. Well, that's even worse. It's, you can't recover from that. I mean, and I've tried. I've tried to dump them in a box with lots of ventilation and spread them out. Yeah. You just end up with a big flat layer of stick. Yeah, that was terrible. And so that's why I have three of those Colorado BVAC transport boxes. Yeah. Yeah, there's And people are going to think people are going to think this was set up because the opening of this video shows that very thing. Yeah.

It doesn't show the dead bees or anything, but it shows multiple boxes being used to introduce into a single hive. Yep. Yep. Again, there's so many products out there and it's trial and error. And I've tried homemade be vaks and, you know, every now and then there's that one product that comes along that that person just nails it. And that's one of those products, just like Swarm Commander. And again, we're not sponsored or paid by any of those guys. But no, no, none of this is.

When a product works, it works. We get no kickbacks. The Colorado BVAC, but you introduced me to the Everything BVAC, so I have both. Yep. And the Everything BVAC also has its place, right? I mean, you know, that small swarm that's high up that you can't quite reach. Or I like them for those forms that are interlinked on chain link fence or vines. Sure.

You can't get to everything. Yeah. And, of course, the nice thing about that vacuum, too, is that you could buy a second container, right? So you could swap it out on larger swarms. But there's still that issue of too many bees too fast with a lot of pressure. Okay, you can only have one be vac and you have to buy it. Is it the Colorado BVAC or the Everything BVAC? Oh, boy. That's a good question. I hate, I don't want to say I hate to say this, but I would go with the Everything BVAC for the sole purpose of that it's lighter. It's easier to carry on my, on a, with a backpack. You know, has backpack straps. I can get up with a long, you know, duct tape.

You got your controller right here. Controller right there. And I would rather swap out multiple buckets than I don't know if you ever try to carry a Colorado BVAC up a 30 foot ladder. It's bang. I don't, but I have the 30 foot hose. Yeah, that's an option too. But that's harder on the bees, right?

Because they have to travel that 30 feet of hose. Right, because you need higher suction to get that front down to the bottom. So by time, it's light suction at the end of the end of the. the hose by time they travel 30 feet 30 feet to the bottom they're at full force and it'll work um but you know i have my i have both and i have multiple containers of both and each one had its own purpose um i carry the everything back bvac during the swarm season because that's when i need it most but when i'm doing my removals and and other things like that the colorado bvac has a play and if i run out of boxes to get swarms in those work just as well also and they stack nicely too

Yeah, and my big complaint about the Colorado BVAC initially was I have to have a big extension cord wherever I go. But now I use a DeWalt power station. And it is strapped right to my gorilla cart, which has the BVAC on it and everything else. And now I just wheel that thing right wherever I need to be. Yep, and that works as well. I have a generator. I bought a generator when I was using the Colorado BVAC, but yeah, that is the downside. You have to have electric.

The everything to be back for the short times that I need it, it lasts. Yeah, I've never run that battery out, have you? Once or twice, but it was weeks of use before. Right. You're not taking it home at night and charging it. No, no. It's sat in the truck. And in fact, I have one in the truck now for the last three weeks.

Every time I've used it, I'm like, I need to get this thing charged, but it keeps going. Yeah, you need to charge that up. Okay, so we're talking about that. By the way, people that are listening, watching links to videos demonstrating both of those VACs will be down in the video description. So I actually had that. If you were designing your own BVAC, what are the ones that are already out there missing? What would you like to have,

you can just think about it and have it in your kit? What would it be? You know, the Colorado BVAC is great. I would like to see that like in a polystyrene hive to get the weight down. Smaller motor with a portable charger, you know, running off a DeWalt battery or Milwaukee or whatever. With backsharer.

straps, backpack straps. I mean, lightweight, just portable. I mean, the technology is there. It's amazing the stuff you can run off of just a single lithium ion battery. I mean, hedge trimmers, chainsaws, right? I mean, all high powered stuff. So, you know, you could, I would like to see that, like just a lighter weight backpack with more ventilation. So the bucket idea that everything BVAC is great, but I like the capacity and the ventilation.

of the Colorado BVAC but big motor funky you know yeah and I need an adapter plate to unload the bees from the everything BVAC which I have

I made the adapter plate they may even sell one too I think yeah for that so and I have my adapter plate allows me to put them on nukes any size box so anyway moving along do you ever collect bees in butterfly nets

things like that no not butterfly nets but I have used my veil numerous times. Use your veil to collect a swarm. Hey, you know, times are tough. You have to. Now, just to be clear, you're not wearing it at the time.

I have at times. You just kind of while you're, okay. All right. No, usually. All right. I have a couple different just veils. You know, like I like to wear a jacket and do my bee work. But in my trucks, you know, you swarms are docile, generally speaking.

not a whole lot involved. You might get stung on the arm here, they're not a big deal. But yeah, there's been numerous times where I ran out of boxes because you're on your way to the B yard with five swarms in the back. You didn't expect to have that many calls.

And you get another call. It's right along the way. So what do you do? You take your veil. And depending on what you have, you know, I have some that are to complete like the Alexander veils. I have some that are just like a bug net

that goes around the hat. And you just adapt and tie things in knots. make it work. That's probably the most unique thing I've done with catching swarms is having to use. Why not just bring a pillcase, a giant pillowcase? Well, so I've done that. I also have netting. They sell the little nukebox nets, I guess, laundry basket nets, I guess.

It's funny how we change something that's normally in society and we turn it into a B term. But yeah, those little baskets or those little nets, and a lot of times what I'll do with those is I'll put some kind of like a cross stick or something to keep it open on the bottom and then just dump them into that. I mean, you come up with things. There's a thousand ways to be innovative when it comes to catching bees in some fashion. Even queens. I mean, you know, you find a queen and you need a cage to put her in. So you dump out your Tick-Tac bottle and drill some holes in it real quick. Who has a Tick-Tac bottle?

You tick-tack, okay. I can't even remember the last time I had a tick-tack. Do you carry tic-tacks with you? Is it because bees react a bad breath? Is this helping you? It could be. I'm a candy monster, so I'm always buying weird stuff, and it comes in handy. You'd be surprised.

Okay. So for the backyard beekeeper, small-scale person, give us a quick and dirty rundown of what kind of go-kit they need to have assembled. So when they get a swarm call, well it should be ready to go. Yeah, and that's a great question, and that's covered in the book as well. I mean, your go kit very easily.

At a minimum, you want some type of a box. I like to get cardboard boxes that are already broken down flat. They store easy. You want a roll of duct tape. You want some kind of hand pruners. You want a pair of the big loppers. Your standard B equipment, whether it's a veil, gloves,

whatever you normally wear to work with bees. And that's really basic. I mean, that's the bare minimum you need to catch bees. If you want to add to that a canvas drop cloth, because sometimes you put them underneath the bees before you cut them or shake them, maybe a two-foot step ladder because that hive, that swarm that the homeowner said was four feet is actually seven feet.

So you need to get up a little bit more. And that's really it. You don't need a whole lot. The more important thing in the Go kit is up here in your head, and that is the questions that you ask when you get those phone calls. I have bees that are hanging from a limb. Okay. You know, how big? You know, is it covered in a gray papery material or is it all bees, right?

Right. Yeah. Identify your bees, yeah. Yep. The Winnie to poo beehive is not the bees that we're looking for, you know, that time of year. And I always tell people, if they, whatever the size of the swarm, the person tells. as you, you divide that in half and whatever the height is, you double it. So it's always going to be smaller and taller or higher than they actually say it is. You know, it's gigantic. It's

the size of a beach ball and, you know, it's cantalob. Which would be amazing if it was that big. That would be a big. Yeah, I've caught some big swarms. I mean, I've, over the years I've been doing this, I think I probably have caught two or three that literally filled a five gallon bucket two-thirds of the way. I mean, just gigantic. Those are a few and far between. Um, Yeah, the, you know, that question of how high are they? Oh, they're not high. You could reach them. Sure.

I mean, can I reach them with a two-foot step ladder or a 40-foot ladder? That's important. So asking those questions are probably the most important tools. And then all your actual tools have Swarm Commander, of course, or some type of lure because you might need that little enhancement to get them in the box. I also carry a straight edge or a not straight edge. Like a paint scraper or something that's that's stiff and flat so that I can scrape bees off of flat surfaces to get them into the box. I'll sometimes carry just plain plastic foundation that I could use to kind of scoop. I also, a bee brush.

That's the only time I ever use bee brushes is when I'm catching swarms. And then your smoker. Your smoker is the go-to tool, you know, to get bees to do what you want them to do. you know, whether it's kind of smoking them on the outside perimeter to get them to move into a box, or oftentimes, you know, after you shake them into a box or coax them into a box, you always get those stragglers coming back to that one spot in the limb and using a smoker to mask those pheromones that have stuck to that limb and force them to reorient on the hive itself is very important. So it's a real basic. You can fit everything into a little tote box without too much of an issue. The bigger question is how many,

swarms do you plan on catching? So how many boxes do you need? You know, one cardboard box or 50? Yeah. Well, bring more than you need. Always bring and you'll never have enough. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is something I recently are getting a lot of people. And so I want to know if this is on the rise, hot hives, hot swarms, Africanized traits, genetics. Is this on the rise or is it just people are more vocal about it? What's going on? part of it is more people are more vocal about it part of it is a lack of understanding i guess or lack of education perhaps because you know we're seeing a big push of newer beekeepers and it's not saying that they don't know what they're doing but you know i've been around bs since i was four i still don't know anything everything or anything for that matter um you know every day i'm out my bees i see something different and and i'm sure you're the same way we're just fascinating so we tend to

sonify certain actions. I had somebody say the other day to me that they had a hot hive because one B chased them back to the house. And so that's that's not really hot. Is that a Karen B? Can we say that? Is that Karen? No. You said it. Okay. So I did not. I did not. I did not. There's no politics. Okay. Yeah. So I think a lot of... Yeah, so what constitutes a hot hive? Do they... Because I had a nurse come up to me at the VA hospital, and this guy said he couldn't get out of his bee yard.

There were so many of them on his veil he couldn't see through. Yep. That is a hostile hive. It is, or is it? I don't know. You tell me. A couple of quick stories. So we used to help manage the bees at the Pittsburgh Zoo.

and one of the guys that the workers at the zoo was going into the hive and inspecting. And he called me. He says, Steve, I need your help. Where are you? And I said, what's going on? He said, my smoker's out and there's bees all over my veil. And I can't get smoker lit. I don't have this.

I didn't have that. So I explained them what to do because I was nowhere near him and able to help him. And I ended up talking to him later and said, what was going on? He said, well, everything was fine. And then I was looking for the queen. So one of the techniques of looking for a queen on a frame is to, if you see a cluster of bees to bend down and blow lightly on it to disperse the bees to see if the queen is there. And he said he was doing that. And the more he did that, he said they just got angrier and angrier and angrier.

Turns out he had several bananas for lunch. And the chemical component in the alarm pheromone of the honeybee is the same chemical component in. which is isopental acetate, right? So it's a very similar. Is this the same? It's identical? I'm pretty sure. Okay.

If not, it's, if not, it's like super close. Like, don't eat bananas and blow on bees. Less and burn, right? So, and you may have noticed this. My sense of smell isn't as strong as it used to be, but if you open up a hive without smoke or even if you get stung, you could actually get that whiff of bananas. Sure. So there's that story.

You know, the other stories you get is that people are in there and we see this a lot when we're teaching classes or testing people that are interested in being master beekeepers. They're wearing big, clunky, heavy leather gloves. You know, it's like those toy games in Chuckie Cheese where the big claw comes down and grabs that stuffed animal. You know, they're reaching in there and they're yanking on Frank. their gloves are getting stung and guess what those gloves get dirtier and they get soaked if you will with the alarm pheromone and now anytime you're in a hive they're just going to go nuts on you so that's part of it so not being as gentle with your hives i think is part of the blame for aggressive colonies and then the other thing i think especially when catching swarms i get the comments of man

that swarm was mean they just you know they were stinging me right off the bat well there is that that phenomena called dry swarms, right? Where ideally when a colony takes off, they engorge on honey so their honey stomachs are filled. That is meant to either carry them through potential weather systems or when they get to a colony or to a potential new hive site, they use that to create wax, build comb, etc. Well, if a colony gets hung up and they can't find a home, they're just utilizing that for energy stores and they become dry. And it's that whole hangary. concept, right? They're hungry. They don't have a home and they can't be aggressive. So I think we overthink it a lot with these aggressiveness. Is there a possibility that there's some Africanized genes? Absolutely. And I don't quote me on this, but I think Dr. Margarita Lopez Uribe out of Penn State did some genetic studies that shows that almost every bee in the East has some percentage of Africanized genetics in it. The question is, what part of the genetics express themselves. And yeah, I've had some mean bees, but, you know, I can't tell you

the number of colonies I've gone to save from people because they're like, just take them. I don't want them. They're mean. I can't deal with them. And you go and you're opening up with just a veil, short sleeves, very little smoke, and they're happy as can be. So a lot of it has to do with how we handle or mishandle colonies. So I don't think we have to worry about true Africanized bees up here. Or is there to the occasion. mean colony, sure, but it's just like some of the people you run across every now and then. It's just, you know, a person's miserable for whatever reason and their personality comes out. Are you serious?

Is people like that? So let's say, though, because somebody's going to ask, so let's give them the answer. They have a colony. They sure is dangerous. Dangerous to people, dangerous to livestock. It killed their prize horse and their mule and their hogs are off their feet. what would they do? How should they euthanize a colony of bees?

If 100% dangerous. Yeah, if it's 100% dangerous, you know, obviously go through the proper steps, you know, talk to your mentor, talk to the Department of Agriculture, you know, make sure that that's truly the case and it's not something different. But if it's 100% truly flat out dangerous, that probably the safest, easiest method is using soapy water, you know, taking a, you know, taking a, at night making sure the bees are enclosed. Yep, that's great for a mite wash too. Not mouthwash, just might wash. Yeah, I'm with you. But, yeah, I mean, tape off the entrance, you know, open up the outer cover,

leaving the inner cover in place. And fortunately, the intercovers have a nice little oval openings, put some screen across the top of that. And then you just have to, you know, douse it with soapy water. The other option you could do, too, is CO2. You know, get yourself on it and get a tank of CO2 and tape everything up, wrap it in a garbage bag. If you don't have CO2, just wrapping it up, period. Get some saran wrap and just wrap that hive and as tight as can be.

Just let them overheat and kill themselves. I mean, and then, of course, you know, clean up is not the not so fun part because you got a bunch of wet sticky bees. But, you know, you clean them up and if you want to keep bees again, you install bees, they'll clean it up and you'll be good to go. But yeah, it's definitely, you know, I've euthanized a few colonies for various reasons. And yeah, it's, it can be, it can be dicey at times. So as a pest control guy, what's the harrier situation you've been called into for stinging insects? What was the worst that you had to deal with and what did you do? Yeah, so they all seem worse when you start to look back.

There's always some crazy situations. probably one of the worst is dealing with it was dealing with yellow jackets. Two situations. One was an external yellow jacket nest in a shrub. It was probably one of the largest external yellow jacket nest I've ever seen, probably the size of a basketball. And they just, I mean, you just looked at them and they came after you. I mean, I came around the corner and I got whacked right off the bat,

so I had to go get suited up right away. And they were just, I think I have video of it somewhere, and this was years ago, but I videotaped it and they were just, I mean, the buzzing was intense and they were just pinging off the phone, stinging gloves, stinging your veil jacket. I mean, they were just everywhere. That was the worst outside encounter. The worst inside encounter was a similar situation with yellow jacket. The homeowner had gone away on vacation and the yellow jackets, as they are notoriously known for, they chewed through the drywall and it. actually built the nest into the living space of the house. And there were yellow jackets flying through the room and just, I mean, yellow jackets, it just takes one little insect to set off the alarm and they all just come pouring out and go nuts.

So nothing that's ever been life-threatening dangerous for me, but certainly intimidating where you wish you were somewhere else, you know, other than holding two cans of insecticide in your hands, hoping for the best. So what is it? This is something that probably that only a commercial person would have, the insecticide that you use. Yeah, it's over. You know, we have the over-the-counter stuff and then we have what I call the prescription strength, right? The stuff you have to be licensed and regulated or, you know, licensed and all that fun stuff with the EPA.

You know what you're doing? Do you ever watch the movie of Ragnophobia? Yes. So are you like that, best control guy? Not quite. Not quite. Who was that guy? Who was that actor?

I can't remember. It's been years since I've seen that movie. Yeah, we see some interesting stuff with pest control. I mean, it's, you know, I think the people are more interesting sometimes than the insects themselves. Yeah. That's often. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So my favorite movies are pest control people and how they overcome. It's always some nerdy person that's working in the basement's got some gadgets. Hey, so. My basement and I'm not nerdy, so. Yeah. So listen. You're starting over. You lost all your bees.

And you can be anywhere in the United States. You have no ties. Where is the best place in the United States to keep year-round colonies of bees? The best place to keep year-round colonies of bees? That's a good question because, you know, I don't think there is a best place. Because everywhere you go, you're going to have challenges, right? So if you're in Florida, you've got year-round nice weather. but and you have continuous flows

but you're dealing with Africanized bees you're dealing with heat, humidity, mosquitoes that are twice the size of the bees. You know, you get out into the Dakota where there's an excellent honey crop but then it's done, right? And you've got harsh winters. You get into sunny San Diego,

70 degree temperatures, gorgeous scenery, Africanized bees. I think we're sitting in the best place, Fred. That's probably the best answer. The north-eastern, the northeast really, actually even more so than northeast, western part of Pennsylvania, you know, Ohio, New York, West Virginia.

We're fortunate where we have a winter most years. We have a good spring crop. We have a good fall crop with knotweed or golden rod or whatever it may be. And we actually see cycles of the honeybees and we're able to manage cycles versus, you know, like Florida, it's just continuous brood year round. And I'm not sure I would. want to deal with that. So I think we're sitting in it.

I really think we are good. The eastern half of Pennsylvania, not so much because they get a spring crop and then their dearth starts now and they have nothing. And that's just more stress, right? More money, more stress. So we're sitting on it. I really think, you know, I say it tongue in cheek, but I honestly think we're sitting on one of the best places.

I mean, we've got a lot of resources. Yeah. And don't interpret that as being an invitation for. everyone to bring their fees here into Pennsylvania. We think that you're probably doing well exactly where you are. Yes. We're not a friend of state. It's like a guy up in Vermont that gave me his business card one day and says, we are home most Sundays and hope you are the same. It's a good one. Was that Mike Palmer? No, but he's, yeah, he's up there in the western side of northern Vermont. He's in a great spot too. You know, speaking of great spots, I mean, Lake Champlain,

all those areas. I mean, there's pockets. Yeah, there's pockets all through up there that you get some really good spots. It's just, it is what you make of it, ultimately.

Yeah, he's in St. Alvin's up there. Yes. Beautiful area up there. The back to Earth. Well, yeah,

my whole family is from Vermont. Oh, okay. I'll be in Vermont this year too, so I'll be up there. But in the Northeast Kingdom, it doesn't sound right for such a small state to have a Northeast kingdom, but that's where I'm headed. Yeah. Okay. So, I was like, oh, yeah, when you've hived a swarm,

do you automatically treat for varroa mites after seven days or something, if at all? Or how do you assess or decide whether to treat, not to treat? You have a clean slate potential there. My go-to saying is do as I say, not as I do, mainly because of my schedule. So do I treat? No. Should I treat? Probably it's such an easy time to do it. And when I talk to groups, you know, I automatically assume and generally correctly that the majority of the people in that lecture hall are going to be backyard beekeepers, which, you know, 10, 20 hives or less. So it's much easier to manage, I joke half seriously and half jokingly is say, I wish I could go back to 10 hives because it would have life would be so much easier. But yeah, the best time to treat is when they're broodless. And when you catch a swarm, you're putting in a box, you really have three weeks to get some type of treatment on them.

And, of course, you could argue that, you know, you don't want to treat your organic or treatment free or whatever, you know, different management styles out there. And that's okay. But if you're going to take advantage of the biology of the bee, that's a perfect time and the biology of the mite, that's the perfect time to treat. You know, an oxalic acid dribble is great. Oxalic acid vapor is great during that time period. You could even use the hard chemicals like amatraz, you know, but it's make sure it's a flash treatment. You follow the directions, all those good things.

I wish I had time to treat all my hives. I barely, there have been times I had, didn't have time to even install the swarms. You know, it's dump and run and I'll check them later. A few years ago, we did some work with Penn State and Marguerite, Dr. Lopez Uribe, and we. and we actually took, I caught 75 swarms that year that we used. And I had a protocol of, I installed them in a five-frame nuke, every single swarm, unless they were too big for the five-frame nuke, then they went into an eight-frame.

But we gave them undrawn foundation, one drawn frame of comb. We installed them, and we just let them be bees. And we came back after three days and assessed the colony for colony size. So how many frames would be is one, two, three, four, five, et cetera. Virgin Queen versus Maid Queen because that drawn comb, if there was a mated queen in there within three days, she was already laying in it. If it wasn't, it was Virgin Queen. And then we let them go.

And then we started, that was the whole month of April and May that we caught swarms. And we started doing mite counts at the end of May through October. And surprisingly enough, the might counts really didn't jump until end of July. They were all zeros and ones all the way through May, June, July, and then that first week of August, everything skyrocketed. So even treating a swarm when you first catch it doesn't mean they'll be completely mite free. You might still get that push later on as the bees start to produce brood, et cetera. So it's a great time to treat for sure. And it's just a matter of you have the time to do it.

So I had from Ferroa, what's the number one pest for honeybees that you deal with? beekeepers. There you go. Bad beekeepers. His poor beekeeping. And again, I say that tongue and cheek, but I'm serious, too. No, it's true. We're the worst enemy enemies.

I mean, we do so much to cause stress to bees. And I'm not talking from a environmental standpoint. I'm talking about going into our colonies too often, using too much smoke, using miticides incorrectly, just a general lack of knowledge of how to manage bees. And talking to Dr. O'Connor about this too. You know, we get into this dichotomy of treat and don't treat, but we don't have that discussion of how to manage bees properly. And I think that's where we lack as beekeepers and even as master beekeepers.

You know, we are not teaching these newer beekeepers, the correct tools or the, the correct tools or the correct ways to manage to be successful. And I think it's a lot of the newer beekeepers get into this black and white. You know, it's a yes or no answer. And, you know, if you're on Facebook, you see that, right? I mean, where there's no understanding as to what, you know, if I asked you a question and said, Fred, what do I do about screened intercovers? And do I use them?

And do I combine that with the screen bottom board or a solid bottom board? And you would come back and say, nope, solid bottom boards, no intercover, don't worry about it. That's all you need to do. So I go out and do that. But I don't understand why I did that. And that's what we're missing all of it is that there's, we do what's told, but we don't understand why we were told to do it that way. And there's also a lack of discussion on that. And we see it on Facebook where I also want that instant gratification.

I call it the Amazon syndrome, right? If I need an answer or if I need anything, I want it the next day. I see that in my pest control company. You know, people call, what do you mean you can't get here today? Well, I'm sorry, there's 500 other people that have called for service. And the same thing with beekeeping is, you know, or the other one is I see people that post and say, I was in my hive today and I did A, B, and C, was that the right thing to do? Well, if you already did it, it's kind of too late to go back.

So I really think beekeeping is beekeepers are the worst enemy to the honeybees. Beyond that, varroa mite climate change, monocropping, overuse of pesticides by homeowners, not farmers. I think farmers are pretty good about following directions because they have to. Homeowners, if it says one ounce, we're going to use four ounces and hope for the best. Yeah, and really kill it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So aside from your books, Warm Essentials, what book should every beekeeper have on their shelf? Honeybee Biology and Beekeeping, third edition by Dr. Dewey Karen and Larry Connor. Yeah.

I like that book. I think that's a really great all-around book. I'm looking here at myself. I mean, I've got queen rearing essentials. I've got vocabulary essentials, the beginner's guide to beekeeping observation hives.

I mean, I have every book imaginable, and I think every beekeeper should have almost every book imaginable because every book doesn't contain everything a beekeeper needs. No, I told you you could only name one book, Steve. Oh, well, then Honeybee Biology and Beekeeping. By the way, does Mr. Conner... Does John Connor own Wickwas Press? Larry Connor, yes.

He owns it. Yes. Okay. And that's the publisher of your book. Yep. Yep. Okay. So because I see him at all the big conventions sitting there by Wickwoss Press. And he doesn't seem interested in talking to people. Is he just trying to get through the day? What do you think? Yeah, he gets overwhelmed with a lot of people coming up to him. And sadly, I think we're also seeing a generation of beekeepers that don't know who the legends are.

Well, that's just it. I'm walking past. is that if he's sitting right here why is no one noticing that he's sitting that he's right here the people you know they don't know who dr you know tom seeley is they don't know who juvie karen is um uh diane sammatero um yeah all these you know there's still a few out there that are getting known but um it's in a way a lot of the newer beekeepers are seeking out information to other places, whether it's, you know, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, you know, those types of places. And there's some great YouTube channels out there, but there's also some pretty scary ones. I mean, I remember watching a YouTube video years ago. The title was

installing a, how to install a package of honeybees. And the very first sentence out of the guy's mouth in the video was, I'm a new beekeeper, and I've never done this before, but I'm going to show you how to install a package of bees. Thanks. I think they're just excited and I want to share everything new that they're going through. Yeah. That's one of my biggest fears is that something I've said, Todd demonstrated. We'll come back to haunt me later. It's all you mentioned it.

You know, you can do this for your whole life. You're a second generation beekeeper yourself. And we're learning and seeing new things all the time. I think it's because we're looking for new things. Yeah. Some people feel like they've got the answers and they cross their arms and sit down and they know it. Yeah. And that's unfortunately, that's not the best way to be a successful beekeeper. I mean, you learn by making mistakes. And in my beekeeping classes, I always tell people, if you want to learn how to keep bees, learn how to kill them first because then keeping them is going to be easy. You know, make your mistakes up front. You know, do, you know, don't be afraid to lose your bees in the winter. You know, you're still going to be out of, come out of head because of drawn comb. You know, and then again, that's, you know, part of that's jokingly, but part of it's serious. You know, you have to accept. loss. I mean, the number of beekeepers that I've talked to that are just devastated because they can't keep their bees through their first year. Hey, that's okay. It's going to happen. But it's, you know, I use the quote in my talks all the time is it's not, you know, what's the definition of success? It's not how much honey you've, you've made. It's not whether your bees survive or die. It's what did you learn from the lessons the bees taught you the previous year. And if you walked away and said, everything.

went perfect. I didn't learn a thing. You're going to be bound to, you know, have something bad happened to that colony. But if you look back and say, hey, my bees survived, but I should have done this differently. I might want to look at this next year. And you're constantly trying to improve. I mean, and that's as master beekeepers, we know that, right? I mean, it's, it's not a test of how much you know. It's how much you're willing to learn and to know and share and get to that point. and be open about what you don't know. Oh, yeah. Because this goes back to some of the stuff that you were mentioning on social media.

Somebody gives an absolute answer, and that's the end of it. You know, this is what you do. This is how you handle it. End of discussion. Oftentimes it's because they're not secure with the information they just put out and really can't expand on it. Right. You know, we have probably run into these teachers or professors in the past. The big thing was go back to the book or read the chapter.

No, you're here to expand on the chapter. That's why I'm paying you. Right. I want to know. So. What I wrote the book, the book first came out, sat down and went to dinner with Larry Connor and Randy Oliver and myself, three of us sitting at dinner.

I had given Randy a copy of my book the day before as just a courtesy, hey, do what you want with it. You know, I'll give you a copy. So we went to dinner and he's like, oh, good. I'm glad we're going to. to dinner. He says, I've got your book right here in my pack. He said, I want to talk to you about it. Okay. He read the whole thing that night, the night before. And he had all, he had pages earmarked and indenting it. Oh, man. And he's like, okay, let's start. And he opened up and he just hammered me.

Well, explain this. Well, how do you prove that statement? And he just, he. Yeah. And I have all the respect in the world for Randy. And I was like, you got me. I mean, how do you answer to that stuff? You're not the only author he's done that to, by the way. I believe it. But he's a biologist. And I see where his mind is going with that. So you have to be able to stand behind your statements and explain. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I really love it when someone asks or challenges something that you've said because they need us, we need ourselves to have the knowledge to explain and fill in the blanks. And this is the beauty of it. if we can't, we're driven to new knowledge. In other words, now we have to research our own stuff. Right. You know, why am I doing what I'm doing?

Why did I tell them to do that? I want people to question everything. I always hope that somebody asks a question that I don't know the answer to. It pushes me into new territory. And Randy, he's just so polite all the time. He's never going to hurt anyone's feelings. No. Just he's Mr. sensitivity.

No, but I love the matter of, of fact, hey, what does this mean? Why did you say it and why do you believe it and why are you telling others that it's true? That's the kind of challenge that we actually need. We need a bunch of Randy Oliver's out there holding their feet to the fire saying, prove it. Yeah. And he does that.

And he does that on the list serves. I mean, he calls people out and it's not out of being trying to be offensive. He's explained it, you know. And he may not have an answer either, but he wants to know why you have that answer. Yeah. Question. question everything. That's what we're here for. Okay. So I question every day I go into the bee yard. I question myself. What am I doing here? Oh, really? So you have imposter syndrome when you walk out of the beer. So where is this beekeeper? You know, you want to really be challenged. Walk around your beer with an eight-year-old that's full of questions. That's my life right now. My grandson. That's a great age. You actually met him, I think. I did. You and I don't have kids myself, but, you know, You know, kids of that age are just they are full of questions.

And again, it goes back to what we just talked about is rethinking of your answers and maybe explaining it differently and saying, well, you know, kids have a different way of looking at things in an innocent way. And you may have never looked at that way. And it's like, holy crap, kid. Yeah. No. And we need that kind of that we need that childlike honesty. Yes. We need because they don't, they question everything.

They just, you know, open about it. challenge you at every turn. And some people just say, yeah, go do something else. But the thing is, what we're teaching them as a perennial result. So we really are investing in our beekeeping future through these children. So giving them correct well-researched answers and helping them. Good books. Experiment.

Yeah, good books. Yeah. That's part of it. So what's the future of beekeeping look like? Where are we headed? Is the backyard community, the fastest growing demographic? graphic? Is commercial beekeeping going to go through some unusual change, some dramatic, you know, bellwether shift? What's going on? That's a good question. I mean, definitely the

backyard beekeepers are growing. I'm not so much concerned about the growth of the backyard beekeepers, but the lack of knowledge that they're seeing. So they're growing in number, but not growing in knowledge. And we're seeing reinventing of the wheel, so to speak. you know, and we're seeing some of these products show back up that's like, they're like, hey, I just, you know, check out this, this long metal thing with holes in it that I could put in front of my hive to keep mice out. And it's like, well, yeah, we've had those for decades and type of thing. And it's not a bash on the new beekeeper, but we are seeing that change.

And it's, we're seeing the change. We're going from, I guess we could probably redefine what a beekeeper it is, right? what a beekeeper was in the 60s and 70s and 80s and even to the 90s is not what a beekeeper is today. And I think a beekeeper today is somebody, I guess we call them bee havers, right? They have bees, they keep them, but they don't manage them. And then we see the other part of that population that are actually bee managers, where they're managing the varroa mites and the pest, you know, all the stuff that goes along. that we do to create better sustainable, healthier bee populations, higher honey harvest, etc.

But we are definitely going to that trend of more and more backyard beekeepers. It's a dying art of to be a commercial beekeeper. I mean, there's, I mean, hundreds of them out there, but more and more going out of business every year. And I think a lot of that is a reflection of society in itself, too, where, you know, the old stereotypes of millennials and Gen Zs and their outlooks on. employment and hard work and things like that. I grew up on a farm. I don't know the meaning of sit back and relax and not do anything. I get I get anti. I have to be doing something. But on the

flip side with my pest control company, I can't find somebody that wants to actually work an eight hour day. I mean, I have a great crew now. Don't get me wrong. But in the last 10 years, it's been a battle just to find somebody, you know, I interviewed people with no experience. They $35 an hour. So the shift in beekeeping is also a reflection of a shift in society, values and ethics and things like that. And I'm afraid to say that I think commercial beekeeping is going to, you know, by time I'm in my 80s commercial beekeeping is going to be non-existent.

And I think you're going to see changes in the food industry. And, you know, maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am wrong. But I also think the backyard beekeeping is a trend. It's trendy, it's flashy, it's new, slow food movement. And I think that bubble is going to pop as well. And I think we're seeing that, at least in Pennsylvania we have, where we used to hold two or three beekeeping 101 classes a year with 100 plus people in each one. And now you, you know, you hold one with 15 or 20.

Oh, is that right? Yep. And I think that varies region by region. But there's a change. The good news is there's beekeepers. It's still an exciting hobby. It's still attracting young, vibrant, energetic people who want to learn about this crazy hobby. The question is how long is it going to survive?

That's really interesting. So tell us one thing about yourself. Most people do not know. Oh, boy. Some skill, some talent, some little known fact. Hmm. That's a tough one because I have so many hats and so many things. So many talents. So many abilities. I don't have any talents. I even, you know, being an author is still kind of odd to me because I don't see it as an author. I just see it as sharing my experiences.

But boy, one unknown thing. I mean, we talked about pest control. We talked about wildlife biology and Penn State. I mean, I'm a diehard Penn State fan. right. Okay. Loon white through and through. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't really have anything that's kind of unknown. I mean, my life isn't exactly public, but I certainly share what I do. I mean, a big outdoors person.

I love to hunt and fish and I love to stay busy. I can't sit still. I love to travel. I've been to Kenya four times to work with beekeepers over there. I'm just, you know, very much a people person, if you will. and love the shared knowledge when asked. I don't think I'm the type that's an arrogant type of person. But yeah, just, hey, you know, I like to talk bees and beekeeping and enjoy it.

I'm going to throw a plug out there too. If you want Steve Rapasky to come and talk to your bee club or you've got some convention going on with beekeeping, he's a great presenter and provides really practical guidelines, good speaker, sticks around, talks to people afterwards, exactly what you want in a speaker. So check him out. looking for someone to come to your organization. I want to thank you, Steve, for joining me for this interview. It's been really great, and the information is really helpful for everyone.

Do you have any closing comments or thoughts that you'd like to share that we haven't covered? I appreciate the invitation, Fred. It's always good to talk to you. You're kind of in my neck of the woods, and we see each other. Finally, we're not that far, but we're far enough away that we don't see each other often. But, no, I mean, it's great to spread the word, so to speak, in your channel. You know, you have a lot of great videos and you reach out to a lot of people. And I think the, I guess the closing message I have or parting message is, you know, again, don't be afraid to make mistakes and beekeeping.

You know, my word is not the word. I mean, we've all grow to be a certain point. And, you know, you're a master beekeeper. You're now, Fred, and just like I am, two different organizations. But, you know, I get a lot of comments about people think, well, you know, who do you think you are being a master beekeeper? That means nothing other than it's just a title that we. strive to say, hey, we are working through knowledge, a knowledge base that we're still continuing to learn. And it just says that we are educators and teachers and we want to share

our information. And that's what we're here for. You know, it's not for the fame and glory or the money. There's no, there's no money and beekeeping. But, you know, doing interviews like this and just chatting, you know, came up to me earlier when we were talking about teaching or whatever it was we were talking about and laughing about stories and where we learn things and we go to these conventions and 99% of the stuff that I learn is is either at the bar or in the hallway talking to beekeepers like yourself and you know hey what do you do in your beer oh you have this many bees have you tried this type of queen and this is I think these type of interviews and interactions does that it gives other beekeepers an idea of hey

what's oh he's you know two hours from me and I haven't tried that before you know the next big thing I'm working on as single brood chambers. You know, I run all of my colonies as single brood chambers and the next book is coming out as single brood chambers. So we're working on that. And it's just getting the ideas out there and encouraging people to try different things, you know, try different management styles, but ultimately enjoy what you're doing and hopefully not make as many mistakes as we did as we moved through the industry. Yeah, I'm glad that you actually mentioned that part about what a master beekeeper is and what that, uh, it's something, it's a title you live up to each and every day.

And it's interesting, my grandson was just asking me today, why? Because he wants to be a master beekeeper. He's eight. All right. Well, he just wants to check every box and get everything done. But so the whole point of it is you have to like talking about bees, educating people about bees, and that's a responsibility that lands on the shoulders of the master beekeeper. And I guess a lot of people in my course work at Cornell didn't understand that that's really

what it was. They were looking for the credential. They didn't realize we have to do research papers, get up in front of the group, and give our own presentations about our findings. And that now it's really public speaking, it's education. And if those are things you don't like, it's not a credential you want. And we are looked at as the experts, you know, and that does give us that credential to be so to speak. But it comes with a lot of other stuff that we have to deal with. But you have to enjoy that like you said you know dealing with me oh yeah dealing with beekeepers getting that random phone call hey um you don't know me but blah blah blah and um yeah and i think you know like yourself and myself you know we didn't do it for the fame and the glory we did it as a goal to ourselves in a way

but also just to give us that little bit of weight that when we do talk to the media or we're presenting a class or doing you know interviews like this that it might hold a little weight to somebody that's trying to learn about what we do in the beekeeping world. Well, it is an achievement. We don't want to understand that. It is an achievement. There's a lot of stuff to know. Speaking of another book, I'm going to give you one more book that I think people should get.

Is what don't you know by Clarence Collinson? Or was it, what do you know? I think it's what do you know by Clarence Collinson. Like 500 questions that you open up and it's a little. a lot of what the master beekeeper exams are and things like that. It's like, boy, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. It really makes you feel dumb.

Is that a book about, is that like a psychology book or is it actually beekeeping? No, it's a beekeeping book. Oh, it's beekeeping. What do you know? It's called, what do you know? And I'm looking to see if I have it here on this shelf and it's not. Okay. But Dr. Clarence Conelson, you know, retired entomologist, beekeeper, researcher.

And it's a great book with a whole bunch of questions. But yeah, it's great. I love doing interviews like this and especially with guys like yourself who can appreciate the work ethics and the blood and sweat and tears. It goes into beekeeping to keep the industry alive and really encourage the new beekeepers coming up to move forward. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You know, expand your knowledge and take everything that you can. One of the things I often tell beekeepers too is that don't focus on one person. as your mentor, right?

You have to talk to five, six, seven people or different authors, and you're going to glean a little bit from everybody, and you're going to develop your own management style, and that's going to be very different from the beekeeper who lives two doors down from you. Yeah. Think about 20 years ago. If you wanted to learn about these, you grab a couple of books, but you tracked on the one beekeeper, everybody knows,

and tried to get knowledge off them, and they wouldn't talk to you. They wouldn't talk to you, yeah. And my dad, you know, I was back. in the day in the 80s you know beatkeeping was simple you you put supers on in April you took them off in October you caught a couple swarms and that was beatkeeping

you rarely inspected your bees now you have to be a carpenter an entomologist you know everything you have to know diseases it just gets to be burdensome but you also look at it as a game as well right every time there's a

different level when you beat that challenge and there's another challenge waiting for you. And that's kind of the intrigue behind beekeeping. And that's where I often wish I had just 10 colonies now because I really like to just sit down and just watch the bees come and go and smell the odors coming from the hive and listen to that hum. And we're often too busy to do that anymore, especially with larger numbers of colonies. So there's a balancing act there for sure. Yeah. Yeah. My grandson was sleeping by a colony this afternoon. He just loves the sound of him. He had his full B-suit on so he could just be there.

Well, isn't that a thing now sleeping with the bees, right? Oh, yeah. Now you're into a whole other thing with, have you seen the hive with the big glass front on it? Yep. It looks like a sauna, but it's got, I think, four colonies of bees under it. Yeah. Yeah, he basically sleeps on top. Okay, so if anybody wants to check that out, I can tell you right now, it's Dr. Leo Shirashkin, has a hive like that,

And it's on his site, Horizontalhive.com. Yeah, the smiling beekeeper or smiles. Well, it's beekeeping with a smile. That's the book. He translated that. Yeah. And he's a lay-ins hive guy. But if you want to check that out, check it out.

And there's a lot of... Another interesting keeper. I mean, he's intelligent. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've listened to him numerous times. I've met him several times. And it's just, it's amazing that the intellect. that we have out in the industry.

Well, and he's from Russia, but he lives in the Ozarks of Missouri, if you can imagine that. And he's just doing a great job down there. And he's trying to keep beekeeping is light and easy and fun as you can possibly have it. So another great guy to check out. He does not have his own YouTube channel, unfortunately. But I did interview him. So he's in my interview with expert series, right along with this one with Steve today. And so I want to thank everyone for being here and listening.

and if you're on podcast, thanks for listening. And if you've got comments and questions, please write those down in the video description here on YouTube. So thanks a lot and thanks Steve for being with me. Thanks, I appreciate it. And that wraps up another episode of interviews with experts. Please visit the video description for valuable links and updated information. Don't forget to pick up your own copy of Swarm Essentials.

You'll be glad you did. I'm Frederick Dunn, and this has been the way to be. Thank you for watching and listening.