The Way To Bee with Frederick Dunn - Report a Honey Bee Swarm, Or Register as a Swarm Collector. FREE Honey Bees BeeSwarmed.org

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

This is the audio track from this YouTube Video:  https://youtu.be/S3qY32KE_Bk   This is a FREE registration service for beekeepers who wish to obtain free local bees while providing a valuable service to the public.

So hello and welcome to another episode of The Way to Be. I'm Frederick Don. And today, I want you to meet my guest, Mateo Kaiser. Mateo is a beekeeper and an innovator who has developed a website where honeybee swarms can be reported and where beekeepers can register to collect them. Ever head out to collect a swarm of honeybees only to have another beekeeper get there just ahead of you? This website, vswarmed.org, speed, the entire process up and helps eliminate the confusion that swarm reporters often face. Here's Mateo.

So hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. If you want to find some links about what we're discussing today, please look down in the video description, and we will connect you right away to a site that's going to help you deal with a swarm, if that's what you're looking to deal with right now. And my guest today is Metrea, and I want to ask you, first welcome you for this interview, and I want to ask where you're located

and tell us about your brand new website and why you built it. Yeah, thank you for having you, Fred. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm a beekeeper from Northern California, and I built a service for beekeepers to report swarms or for the public to report swarms and get a beekeeper as quickly as possible

to come pick that up since the name of the game is speed and so many people in the public have no idea what to do when they see a bee swarm. That's an unexpected surprise for so many people and so I wanted to create something that works really well and makes that process really fast. Okay, so thanks. So someone just joined this discussion, but they don't want to hear our whole discussion. They want to know where to go to report their swarm right now.

Where do they go? Yeah, so the website is beswarmed.org or you can type in beatsworn.com. It comes up either way. The service is called Swarmed. And you just fill out a quick form. It's like a Google form. Answer the couple of questions, and then you'll get a text from a Veekeeper. and usually within 15 to 30 minutes, so it works quite quickly.

And what part of the country does this cover? Yeah, so the service is built to work anywhere. So there's about 1,000 beekeepers signed up right now all across the U.S. And so I'm very happy that when a swarm was reported, most of the time the system is able to find a couple of beekeepers right away and get them connected. Okay, well, that's important too. So if you're logging in as a beekeeper, we're going to tell you what kind of information you need to provide. and we're also going to show you step by step how you would register as a person responding to a swarm call.

Part of this I want to know about is, is there any costs going to be associated with this for either the keeper or the person reporting a swarm? Yeah, so I wanted to build something that works really well and works for everyone. And so the service is free. I built it in a way that the costs are under control and so this can stay a free service. And so this is entirely free for people to use. Of course, if you're reporting a removal, you may find that the beekeeper quotes you a price for their special skills and for their insurance, right? The beekeeper who has insurance. So if you have bees inside your house or in a wall, you may find that the beekeeper quotes you a price, but that's between you and the beekeeper.

I'm not involved there, right? The service is really just about connecting you to a beekeeper nearby who can come by as quickly as possible and help you out with the bees. And I'm glad you mentioned that too, because those who are new to beekeeping are often told just get your bees, for free, go get a swarm. And I often tell people register with emergency responders, fire department, police department, and, of course, your local B association and get the information out on social media.

I think that this is going to be a much more streamlined method. And so at the end of our discussion today, I'm going to ask viewers and listeners, because this is also a podcast, to go to the website and register so we can build those numbers. Because that's actually a pretty small number, considering the size of the country. And we do need a clean method for responding to calls for swarms.

Some of the problems, some of the problems that come up, of course, you see it on Facebook or whatever your social media. Are you on Facebook? Okay, because I didn't think people your age even cared anymore about Facebook. Because as soon as somebody reports that there's a swarm, somebody goes, yeah, I'm going to go get that and they're driving 15 minutes into a 30 minute drive to go and collect the swarm and then they say, ah, somebody else just showed up. So how does this service change that part of the response problem? Yeah. So the way the service is set up and I put a lot of thought into this

based on my own experience, catching swarms and doing exactly what you mentioned, right, I spend my spring refreshing my next door forum, my Facebook feed, looking for people who are posting panicked about a B swarm saying what do I do, who do I call? And then usually there, I hope that I can text them or respond to their message fast enough that the bees are still there. And that I'm the first beekeeper on site or that the bees haven't left yet. And so the way the system works is when a swarm is reported, the system looks for nearby beekeepers and sends the nearest beekeepers a text message or an email depending on what they choose.

And then they can click on the link in that text message, for example, and that'll take them to their dashboard where they'll see a photo of the swarm, the sort of basic details, how high up is it, how large is it, things like that, the kind of information that you'd want to know before making a drive over somewhere. And if you want to claim the swarm, you just click the claim swarm button, and then you see the contact information and the address for the swarm. So you don't see the exact address until you claim it. And that way, only one beekeeper shows up. So the person who reports a swarm isn't getting bombarded with texts. I think a lot of people will post their phone number in a Facebook group and be overwhelmed by the texts and

phone calls they get from from beekeepers. And so the idea is that person's phone number is only getting shared with one beekeeper who is kind of the first to the scene, right? And that way, you make sure that the beekeeper is actually available, right? So the beekeeper who claims it is able to respond right now, sees the address, sees the phone number, is able to arrange to pick that up. And so that way it's easier for the homeowner, right? It's a little less hassle of getting contacted by a bunch of people all at once and the beekeeper isn't competing for a swarm and maybe arriving

out of swarm that's already been picked up, exactly. And I have to say ahead of time, I really like that feature because a lot of people are hesitant to report that they have a swarm, and they don't want their information out there. Also, the beekeepers don't want their phone numbers out there. So when people post on social media call me and they put their full number out there

or they give an address, now it is important that somebody reporting a swarm, and we'll start with that group, that you have access. to the property, legal access to the property. It's not just walking through the park or down the street. You see a swarm in somebody's yard in a tree. We need to establish ownership of the property. They technically temporarily own the swarm because they're on their way somewhere else. Yeah. So is that in your screening process, property ownership?

Yeah, exactly. So when you report a swarm, there's a little checkbox. Are you the property owner or not? since I've responded to swarms on the street in park strips here myself. And of course, I was just out one in the other week that a biker was biking past and he spotted them, which thought was a pretty keen eye that he saw the bees up in a tree. And of course, there it's important to know that he's not the property owner. So I know to knock on the door when I come by there. So you see that on the dashboard before you claim the swarm. You can see whether this is the point person or otherwise you're able to contact them

or you know to find someone else, right, who maybe is the responsible person there once you arrive at the scene. Now, let me ask, did you look up, you must have, before you developed your own website, you must have looked at other websites that provide a similar service. Did you find that there was something inefficient about the current process and websites that are available to keepers and swarm spotters?

Yeah, so there's been different attempts at building this sort of thing. And there's actually a system in Australia that works in a very similar way to mine. And so I was actually emboldened to see that this is already working relatively well in Australia. And so I was happy that the core idea that I started with was saying that's already being done somewhere else successfully and that I can improve upon. In the US mostly, there's a couple different sources where you can find contact information for a beekeeper. But there's nothing like this system that notifies you based on location.

And so everything else is sort of a version of the traditional swarm call list where either you're getting an email with contact information for, say, a dozen beekeepers to call, or you're going to a website and you're seeing a list of hundreds of counties or, right, you pick your state, you pick your county, and then you see the beekeepers in that area or you go to your local association and you see a list of beekeepers. And so what inevitably happens for the public is that you're going to end up dialing your way through a list, right? You're going to call the number. Nobody picks up. You're going to call the number. It's disconnected. If someone picks up, you're answering the same questions every time, right? The beekeeper always wants to know how high up is it, how long has it been there?

Can you send me a picture? Right. So the questions are always roughly the same. And as a homeowner, as a member of the public, then it's quite inconvenient to dial your way through the list, answering all these questions until you find someone. And so you always streamline that. Yeah, and that long wait, hoping somebody responds, because often the way it's set up in my beekeepers, Association. We have a call list. So we have a phone tree. And you have to get a hold of the first

person at the top of the phone tree and they have to respond. And then they have to reach out. Usually it's a message or an email or Google groups. And then we go through that whole process. So I do like it. This is very streamlined. I'm going to tell you ahead of time that we're going to be probably replacing that with a link to your website. I appreciate it. Because that actually takes a lot of legwork away from us. And when swarms are happening, swarms are happening. in a lot of places at once. So it kind of, it's an avid, you know, recession there. So one of the things that I'm really excited about

and that I'm happy to talk more about later is that my website can be embedded into a association's website really, really easily. So you don't have to be, I'm not a technical person, first and foremost. I've been teaching myself this as I go to build this. And so this is something that every webmaster and association can do is I send you a little link and you put that, into your website and then my swarm reporting form appears directly in your website and so people don't

actually have to leave the association right they just fill out the form right there and it kicks it into the system and starts things going and so I've been working with associations to get that set up that's great so if anyone wants to see how that's going to work you can go to the way to be.org by the time this post and I'm going to have it embedded on my site too only because I want to be the first one looking forward to it okay so yeah that's another great thing so it's embedded like a widget and then it takes you straight to your site. So how are you going to earn money from this, if at all? I mean, if people aren't paying to join,

if swarm collectors aren't paying a fee for a swarm that they accept, finder's fee or whatever it is, how are you going to generate revenue from this or are you just doing it? Yeah, that's a question I get from beekeepers a lot. I think they're also concerned about their privacy, right? Is their data being sold or something like that? It's important to me that I only collect the data that I need. It's just the beekeepers email, phone number, and for the address that they put in,

right, they can put in any old address they want. So a lot of beekeepers will just put in their town rather than their home address. Okay. And that way you're not giving up any data. The site doesn't track you or anything like that. And so the way I make money off this, not that that's really my goal. My goal was to create really a useful service. I'm always building something.

And a lot of my projects have been beekeeping related. and that's what I really enjoy about the hobby is all the kind of side projects that I've gotten into over the years. And so my goal is never to make money, but of course there are expenses, right? To pay for the website, sending texts cost money. And so there are these expenses.

To a certain degree, my time isn't free either. I contribute. I like to put a lot of time into this, but as this gets bigger and bigger, it becomes a little harder to manage. But the way I pay for the cost of running this website is that I have a small online store where I sell a beekeeping logbook

that I designed a couple years ago and I sell that wholesale to bekeeping stores and people buy it for themselves. And so I sell a beekeeping logbook on Amazon that I use myself in my in my apiary, just a checklist and kind of some handy measures that you'd want to have, right?

What's the size of your logbook? Sorry? What's the physical dimensions of the logbook? I have one right here. It's just inspecting my bees yesterday. This is the version for California beekeepers. There's a general version, and there's a version for California beekeepers. So it's nice and portable.

And I carry it with me on inspections and fill it out. The idea is that it can serve as a kind of to-do list or a checklist. And so the sales from that help me pay for the service. And then for the public more, I have a small Etsy store that sells some beekeeping t-shirts with some different designs on them. And that pretty much covers the cost of running the website. Who designed your shirts? Those are done some by me, some by me,

some by friends over the years, when I decided to start selling them, paid for the designs to be able to sell them. And so what is your day job? Yeah, so I graduated from my undergraduate a year ago, and so spent the last six-ish months working for a beekeeping startup in Europe, and they were doing,

or they're still building this, hive scales and in-hive sensors, for beekeepers to use. And so they have a little, yeah, they have some scales that go underneath and weigh your beehive and a little sensor that goes inside and measures things like temperature, humidity. And so I was the customer success manager there, going to a lot of beekeeping conferences, meeting hundreds of beekeepers presenting the product. And that got me thinking, too, about building my own beekeeping service.

And they were doing a lot of work with how can data be used to improve beekeepers' lives and how can beekeeping be done more efficiently and how can be done more sustainably? and right now I work on a couple different freelance projects now that I'm back home in California. So you're not talking about Brude Minder? It's another company? No, but I've been talking to Lorenzo from Brut Minder. Okay, because it sounds like an overlap.

Yeah, they do similar things, and I really like Brud Minder's sort of citizen science approach, and so we've talked as well. Now, you said you've been to conferences. Were you at the North American Honeybee Expo? No, but I enjoyed your video about it. I was still in Europe when you released that And so a month or so before that, I was at the Eurobee conference in Germany.

We were launching these hive scales to the German market. And so I had a great time talking to hundreds of beekeepers and getting the feedback and meeting beekeeper smaller in Europe and seeing some interesting products there as well. Okay, so let me ask you this. Will you be at the North American Honeybee Expo in January of 2025? I'd like to be. I haven't made any plans yet, but I would like to be, yeah. Okay. All right.

all the stuff that's worth sharing happens there. But, you know, so are you fluent in German? Yeah, and I lived there for a year. So I studied abroad in Germany for a year during my undergraduate. And I was actually just listening to Dr. Seeley's Honeybee Democracy and found out that some groundbreaking honeybee research was done in Munich, where I lived for a year. And so that was a nice reminder of that very nice time there. What do they call raccoons in Germany?

Oh, a wash bear? Yes, a wash bear. Exactly. The bear that washes its hands. Yeah. I'm glad that you knew that. I'm glad that I knew that. Yeah, it's pretty funny too because Tom Seeley had a raccoon as a pet.

So I don't know if you know. Really? Okay, funny. But he, yeah. Yeah, he spent a lot of time there. So that's really interesting. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah.

Okay, let's get down to brass tags. I have found a swarm. You are able to share the screen. So if you would also please explain it in detail for those who are just listening rather than watching. Sounds good. So somebody gets to your website. We'll say the name of the website again. Yeah, so the website is Swarmed.

I'll share the screen here. So you can see what I'm doing. The URL is be swarmed.org. And you'll find the website and there's a big yellow button to report a swarm. And so the idea is to write a lot of people when they come across the swarm, this is sort of a maybe a scary or at least surprising experience. And so I wanted to create a website that was friendly and approachable and could kind of help diffuse that situation

and make sure that people knew what to do. So that report a swarm button is nice and big there in the middle. And then there's some information about how the service works, that you report a swarm. A beekeeper will connect with you. They'll take care of those beads for you. And then there's information for beekeepers, right? So there's sort of two sides to the website.

the stuff for beekeepers and the stuff for the public. And so there's a guide to identifying a swarm. And so that way, we've actually had really good success with, at this point, one person reporting bumblebees. But in the entire time the service has been running, have had no problems with wasps or anything getting reported, because that is something that I keep in mind, right? It's a problem if people are reporting wasps or bumblebees or anything like that. But one gentleman reported a bumblebee hive.

But if you click on report a swarm, takes you to the quick, quick and easy form that the public fills out, put in your name, your email, your phone number, and then select from a drop down, you select the size. I went with easy metrics here, right, that people can gauge kind of by eyes, so you're asked is the swarm, tennis ball size, football size,

basketball, beach ball or larger, or unknown. When people report removals, they generally do unknown. How high up is the swarm? and then we have how long has it been there, right? That can be really crucial. And so one of the things that I show, if you, for example, select a week or over a week,

you see a little text that tells you that, well, this actually might not be a swarm. This is actually an established colony, right? Since for the public, a lot of times, it's hard to differentiate between a swarm and an established colony that would be a cutout. And so I choose to kind of on the front end of the website, refer to swarms very broadly,

and then let the beekeeper distinguish what's a swarm and what's not. But so I kind of cue people up that this may actually, if it's been here for a month, it may actually be a colony. You type in your address, where the swarm is, and then you'll see it, you'll still dot here. You can put in any extra information, so people will put in special information about what times they're reachable, whether there's an access code, things like that, and then upload an image. And then you can get that information with beekeeper, you submit the report. and then like I said many times between 15 and 30 minutes later I see on my end that a beekeeper has claimed it and has reached out to the person so this is working very very quickly and that's that's really the goal here the services is working as fast as possible since who knows how long that swarm will be there

and of course you want to catch them while they're in an easy to catch spot and not when they've moved into someone's house and so take the rest of the website yeah go ahead what were you around to say yeah taking through the rest of the website there's an identification guide with information on what to see, right? Is what you're looking at, a swarm of bees, or is it maybe wasps? And so those are some of the things that I have on the public facing side to queue people up. And then this is specifically for associations. If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see community outreach.

And this will take you to a handy page about what the service looks like for associations. And so how that integration works. for example, the form can be put directly into an association's website. And so I've been working with some associations who want a sort of custom solution. They want to have their logo on the top of the form. And so they have sort of, they use my form in their website with just a little note at the bottom says, this association does swarm reporting powered by swarmed. And so a little bit of information about that.

What the dashboard looks like. We can look at that as well. And then a little bit of information too about how to spread, the word because right i'm a one-man team um i put a lot of work into into getting the website out there um reaching out to cities reaching out to to beekeeping businesses going trying to go everywhere where the public might hear about it getting the website ranked on google and so that's that's been a real focus for me recently um but there's also all the information's here for people to support the service and so people donate um people use the shop

and and buy beekeeping log books and t-shirts there that really helps me out right that helps me pay for the cost of running this. And there's a small media kit too with some Instagram posts and social media posts and flyers that could be physically put up in the world to spread the word. And so the idea there is to kind of enlist the beekeepers who use the service and enlist the public. Because so many people are enthusiastic about honeybees to help spread the word and get this out there. Well, this is a very interesting opportunity to record analytics too, as far as size, location, height off the ground, time of year. You know, you'll be able to identify a lot of trends through the years.

Are you going to connect with groups like the B-informed Partnership or to help share your data as time goes by? Yeah, and I'd love to talk about that because I'm currently getting certified as a California Master Beekeeper, and I'm looking forward to working with the California master beekeepers to spread the word about the service. And from what I understand, the B-informed partnership is merging with them right now. So the folks from the B-in-Fourne partnership, I believe, some of them are moving over to California Master Beekeepers. And so it seems like there's going to be some cooperation there.

But one of the things that I'm excited to show off to is, I don't know if you can see the dashboard that I pulled up here. But this is essentially to share some of the data with associations. And so when an association uses my form in their website, they're able to, and the way I have this setup right now is still quite flexible, but the idea is if an association is willing to pay a small fee, they can use their logo on my form, and they'll get the data from it, since this has taken me quite a lot of time and work to build this. But this is a draft of what it'll eventually look like,

but that as an association, if you use my form on your website, you'll see the data from the swarms reported through that form. And so your members sign up with the code, and that way associations can also guarantee that only their members are being notified of a swarm, right? So a lot of associations I talk to are worried that if they use my service and maybe a beekeeper who isn't a member of the association responds to a swarm reported on their website, that their reputation will suffer, right, and that maybe the public will have a bad experience and that their reputation will be on the line for that. And so this way, associations who use a branded version of my form on their website are then, able to just have those swarms go to their members. And then they're also getting the data from it.

So things like when are reports happening? When are they starting in the spring? Are they starting earlier in the year? How many are you seeing? I'm actually able to see what the temperature at the time and day the swarm was reported was. And so recording what temperatures swarms are being reported at, what the weather was like. Is the sky clear, cloudy, things like that. I want to show associations as well, the coverage. So how good is your coverage? Is your area, are you see kind of overlapping circles of where the beekeepers radii are? And so is your area covered?

Are there swarms happening that you're not getting a beekeeper for? What's your average response time? Yeah, your percentage of claimed swarm reports, right? So as an association, you're hoping to have pretty high percent of those reports being claimed. And, of course, claiming them quickly, since that's how the service works the best for you, and for the public. And we're working too.

This is a little bit of a, just fun aside is estimating the number of bees saved. Of course, there's always a rough estimate and I've been doing the math here on a very, very conservative undercount. But then even going off the kind of half a cup is around 300 bees,

extrapolating that to if the swarm is the side of a tennis ball, the football, right? Extrapulating that up to how many bees might have been in that swarm. But of course, that's very difficult and something I'm still trying to improve on and making sure that the estimate er is on the very conservative side. But that's some of the data that I'm working with associations now to provide.

So I've gotten a lot of feedback on this from associations, and I'm building this dashboard now. And should have this ready in the next week or two. Now, do you have, as part of your reporting scale defensiveness, defensive level of the swarm that's encountered? Not at the moment, because right now, all that information is being inputted by the person reporting them, and the person reporting them

is probably not the best person to gauge the defensiveness of the bees. But based on the feedback from associations, the next big thing that I'm adding is the potential for the beekeeper to input their own information. So for the beekeeper, when they claim the swarm to add some notes,

right? So the beekeeper can then say, well, the swarm is defensive or that they're able to go back and edit the size, right? So what does happen? And right now I still kind of look, right?

So when a swarm is reported and the person says it's beach ball sized, I'll go look at the picture that they post and say, well, is that actually a beachball size swarm, just so that I can get an idea as well of how well are people estimating the size of the bee swarm, since we're depending on the public to do that. But I'm working on a way to make that sort of information editable by the beekeeper so that once they claim the swarm, they're able to go and kind of correct some of the information and add some of their own notes and passes on to the association. So that's in the works.

So you mentioned you're a one-man show. So is this an automated system when somebody logs in a reports the swarm, does it automatically link them to a potential swarm collector? Yeah, exactly. So the way it works for beekeepers, so if we go back to the original website here, I have to click on four beekeepers, there's some information about the service, some of the frequently asked questions that I get, how will data be used, how is the system funded, where does it work, things like that. And then the beekeeper signs up and inputs are radius. And so this is really crucial. We skip the rest of the sign-up form here for a minute. If I put in an address here, let's pick Seashell Avenue in New Jersey. I can then

adjust the radius. So I can select miles and I can say, well, I'd be willing to go five-mile radius around my house for swarms. So the default, but I see people who do up to 20, 30 miles, right, and you'll see this kind of big radius forming. And that gives you an idea of where you're going to be notified of swarms. And so based off this information that the beekeeper puts in, the system automatically finds a beekeeper for you. So when you report a swarm, right, you say the swarm is at this address. And then the system that looks for beekeepers who overlap with that address.

So if my radius is overlapping with that address, I get a notification. And so you get a quick text, click on the link, and then you see it on your dashboard. That's interesting. So I would anticipate right now in the month of May, guys are probably willing to drive. drive 20 or 30 miles. And then when it gets to August and September, you'll see that little radius shrink to about five miles. They're not ready because it's late in the year. They're spoiled. They have all those swarms they need. They might walk across the street to get one, but I'm not driving to the next town. So you can adjust this at any time. You can adjust it. And of course,

when you get notified, you always have the option just to turn it down, right, or to not respond. And so you see the notification. You see how far away it is. You don't see the exact address. and that prevents multiple beekeepers from showing up, like we talked about. But you see how far away it is, right? So you can see, oh, okay, that's three miles away. I'll make the trip. Or I've been seeing swarms here recently that are too far from me. But here in California, I have a pretty good network.

And so someone else usually beats me to it anyways. And so that's part of what offers a great service to the public, too, is that with enough beekeepers signed up in areas, there's some pretty hot competition to catch the swarm, right, to claim the swarm. and so beekeepers, especially in Los Angeles, where there's quite a few beekeepers signed up. I've been seeing swarms go really fast, and you notice the beekeepers learn that they need to be quick, right?

So when they get a notification, they need to respond quickly, otherwise someone else is going to snatch it up. And that provides a really great service to the public too because they're hearing from a beekeeper quickly, right? That beekeeper's not ignoring the notification because it may not be around for a long time. Yeah, no, I like the way it says.

It says here, are you a licensed insured? professional beekeeper. Yeah. So that might be something people want to know. Do I have to be insured to go on somebody's property and collect a swarm of bees

once, even though they invite me to come? Yeah, yeah. So that's a complicated question. This varies from state to state. And so that's not something that I can really govern. But I ask people whether they're a licensed insured beekeeper because one of the things

in my mind probably for next season is thinking about how can I improve the service for beekeeping professionals who make their living this way, right? I approach this from the hobbyist perspective of someone who catches swarms to replenish my beehives every spring, but what does this look like,

especially for a professional who does cutouts? And so I'm really focused for next year on improving the service for them. And so for now, I just, I ask, so I can figure out how many of my users and there are quite a few people now signed up who are licensed professionals, and then down the road,

want to make sure that there's a business, better way to connect them to cutouts where they're the best person to be doing it to be doing that right there'll be some people using the service who need a person who's who's insured and a professional to do a cutout or removal and so that's one aspect of it the other aspect is that it is on the beekeeper right there's only so much i can do um to make sure that they're in compliance with state and local laws i was speaking to someone i think from georgia they have some pretty restrictive laws about about catching swarms um and so it's definitely on the beekeeper to make sure that they're in compliance with local ordinances, state laws,

since that varies quite a bit from state to state. That's very interesting. And though this is not, to be clear, this is not legal advice. But I understand that the situation has changed if the beekeeper collecting a swarm is charging a fee. If you're in there as a volunteer, you're just collecting the bees. That's one thing. if you show up and you say, yeah, I'll collect the bees and it's $20. Now you just entered a different liability potential zone.

Another interesting thing, I don't know if you knew this, but in the state of Florida, is it required that when they collect a swarm that they requeen the swarm? Yeah, and that's like I've been hearing too from beekeepers in Southern California because where I come from, right, I learned beekeeping in Oregon and beekeeping here in California. Africanized bees are not an issue, but in some of the southern states, right, where they've warmer weather, they're seeing more Africanized bees. And so catching a swarm and re-homing a swarm is also expensive, right? You're paying for a queen, potentially, to re-queen that swarm. And so I've been trying to adapt the service. Like I said, I'm a one-man team, and so I haven't been

able to prepare some of those legal resources for people. But down the road, we'd like to have a page about kind of state-to-state ordinances to give people an idea of what they're walking into. But right now it's on the beekeeper to know their local codes. or probably better than listing the ordinance just links to those states and the governing bodies that then, because then if that gets updated, you're not putting out old information. That's really good. So I like what's going on so far. Now, let's say we're the beekeeper.

We're responding to a swarm. This is our first couple of years as a beekeeper. What should be in our go kit? Yeah. So I always carry a cardboard nukebox with me, the nice and portable. I enjoy that. I actually keep a couple frames of brood or of drawn out honeycomb with me. The scent tends to attract the Vs.

I usually have some lemongrass oil with me to coax them down, but usually a new box works just fine. I actually just ordered a new gadget that I'm very, very excited to try out. Off of Ali Express, I ordered one of those nets that closes and attached it to one of those extension poles for painters. And so I'm very excited to give that a try next time I get a swarm that's a little bit higher up because it's essentially a bag with a string and you pull the string and the bag snapped shut. And I ordered that after catching a swarm that was a bit higher up in a tree than the person

had told me and had to catch it in their pool net. So they had a pool and had one of those long extension poles lying around. You know what this is? And I got that net and brought them down. And I've seen the swarm reacher. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So I played with this yesterday. And here's what was funny. I also took some. swarm commander a capsule this. Huge mistake. Okay. I took the swarm. They look like this.

Yeah, I have some two, yeah. All right. So I took that. I put a frame on it. The frame did not have a lot. It was half drawn with comb. So I was just half playing with it because it was an easy swarm to deal with.

And I honestly didn't care if they stayed or went. But I smeared a little swarm commander on there. Not only did I get the swarm off the branch onto my pole, the clamp, the frame. Bees from all around were flying and collecting onto it. So I built up a good, so let's see, let's use your scale, probably a basketball size swarm of bees, which are, you know, I kept them overnight. Now I'm trying to get them just a volunteer to go into another box. That was interesting and I didn't have to use the clamp method. So you're right, the lemongrass

oil, or since you have the swarm commanders, have you tested that at all on something to attract them off of a high location like that? I've tried that. I've had a swarm the other week in an apartment complex that was very, very high up. Pretty unreachable without a cherry picker. It gave that a try, but so far no luck. What was the mechanism you used?

There I just, I set up a nuke box with some drawn comb inside and some swarm commander capsules, or any swarm commander capsule in there. And did you get it up to where they were, or you just were trying to get them to come down to it? I got it as high as possible. They were pretty high up. So I was able to,

a neighbor offered their balcony to put it up there. To try to get as close as possible, but haven't had much luck there. So I think it's actually easier to get them onto an open surface if you've got an old brood comb or something than it is to get them into an enclosure.

Okay. And then once they're on the frame and you've got it covered in the bees, then you can just put that frame into your box. Yeah. And that's why you already mentioned you bring multiple drawn frames of comb. and so then you take another one,

same treatment, send it up, collect more bees until hopefully one of them is the queen that gets on it. Yeah, I haven't tried the swarm reacher yet, but I saw it. I think actually in your video about the bee expo and thought about getting one or now came across my extension pool

with a big bag on the end. Or even, you know, if you don't have a swarm reacher, I don't want to talk to get out of business, but they make those really small sea clamps that you could really cinch that really tight on the end of your painter's pole, and then you just tighten that down on whatever kind of frame you have. Again, I'm not trying to take his idea and sell something else, but we all have tiny C clamps around.

The same mechanism works. So I think this is much more lightweight, and it's great that the guy has this innovation. But that's a fun way also to get things. Let's not derail completely off of the task at hand, which is we're on extra credit now because we've covered the basics. What else should be in their kit? Yeah, let's see. I mean, I bring my bee brush.

I'll usually have a smoker with me just in case, but the bees tend to be so relaxed that you don't end up needing it. Of course, for a removal or a trapout, it's a whole different, whole different arena. I've been going in that direction more and learning some of the skills there. But I think that's a pretty different arena. So now you mentioned trapout, which is different from a cutout or removal,

trapouts are a real game of patience. Have you had any success with that? I've got one trapout to my name so far. A friend from high school had a beehive in his tree, and we set up a trapout, and that successfully got them out. But over the last couple years, I haven't been home long enough to really see one through all the way. And so I think a really interesting one to try. So did you make really long escape cones or what did you do?

Yeah, I basically screwed a hive entrance into the tree and then, yeah, and then got that in there. Okay. Did you try to use any repellent scents or anything to push them out? Some people drill another hole in the back or something. Yeah. Insert a scent that drives them out. Yeah, and this was such a thick tree. I lost a drill bit, a pretty long drill bit in the had an impact drill and lost it.

It broke off in the tree. So I had to buy a new one there. And so I ended up actually using a plastic tube and pumping smoke down into the cavity. So it kind of fed it. It was a pretty big cavity. He was able to feed the tube through the small opening and then pump some smoke in there. So come from the bottom up. But didn't want to give them too much smoke either.

Right. That's interesting. So you don't know what the long-term success of that was. That one knows. So that one was successful. So this was a couple of you. You emptied a bee tree. Yes, after maybe a month and a half or so, it took quite a while.

That is a game of patience. We gave up, basically gave up, but I said, well, I'll just leave it there. They had had the bees there for many years, and we're eventually trying to get them removed so they could rent the property. And so we had some time, but this took quite a while. And I'm not sure how many of the bees, how much of the colony moved in. We had the queen, but the colony ended up being quite small. I don't know if they were small to begin with, though, but picked up quite a few bee stings

setting that up. But that was an interesting challenge. Let me ask you about another algorithm that might be showing up. Do you find more swarm reporting following storm fronts? So after the storm has come through, and we have warm weather afterwards, after the storm comes the swarm if it's warm. Yeah, I actually just set up the data collection for weather data. So that that's automatically, right, based on the location of the swarm, my system automatically measures the temperature and and the weather conditions. And I just set that up last week. So the service launched last January.

So it's still quite new. I sprinted through the winter to build this and teach myself all the tech skills I needed to build it. And so it's now just, I was in a rush to get kind of a, the basic version out there. And now I'm focused on improving it with the feedback that I've been getting. I think a lot of people are excited about the idea. I got a lot of emails from people saying, I was thinking of just something like this or I've always thought there should be something like this,

but here my two cents, right, here's what I was thinking. And so I get a lot of great ideas that way. And I always like it when people reach out. My email for people is Mateo, M-A-T-E-O at B-Swarmed.com, and people send me their ideas, and more often not, I add it to my to-do list to build it into the service. So constantly working to improve it and get more features out there. Now, are you a web developer?

No, I studied history. So this is not my background, but I like to build things. I've always got a couple of projects in my backyard. They tend to always be keeping related projects in the end. And so I've worked in a couple different projects over the years. And so this is the latest one and needed some new skills for that. But that was very, very interesting and a good experience to sit down and teach myself web development and build this website. So how did you come up with the graphics that are here on this?

swarmed page. Yeah, my sister actually was kind enough to draw those for me. I wanted something that was sort of friendly and approachable. And so my sister drew me some kind of woodcut style art for that. Is she a graphic artist or a fine artist? She's studying sort of mix of psychology and design right now. So she's still doing her bachelor's. So she was kind enough to draw me these sort of shapes and some flowers. Yeah, so I'm super happy with those. That's interesting psychology and design. Yeah. That I'm sure she knows of a website since listeners, since we have on color matters.com. Have you heard of that?

Yeah, yeah. You have? Oh, man. Can't give you anything new. All right, because that's really interesting for those who wonder why I even brought that up. It ties psychology with your reaction to color. And it's not all the same for everyone. Women look at something a certain way.

Men look at something a certain way. And I notice these are very neutral tones. These are almost tertiary colors that are being used. And I like it. It's very well done. And pass that on, of course. Don't just take all the credit. I absolutely can't.

Okay. So is there anything else we need to cover that's on your mind here? Yeah, I'd love to show what the dashboard looks like for beekeepers because just this week released or released the newer version of it. There was a first version that was based on kind of my skills at the time. what I could build, and it worked and it was good enough to start with, but pretty quickly it was realizing that there needs to be some improvements here. And so I'd love to show the new and improved dashboard.

That's what that looks like on computer, on the computer, but one of the key things that I looked at for this dashboard was how do I make this work better on cell phones? Because I'm seeing now from the data that 60, 70% of the beekeepers are, of course, they're getting a text on their phone and then they're on the go, they're clicking the link and it opens up on their phone. And so I didn't, I've been asked to why I didn't go the website or the app route with this. And so part of the reason was I didn't have the technical skills to build an app that's actually a whole different beast, especially building one that works on iPhones is very, very difficult and expensive. And so I ended up building in this website that works really,

really well on your phone. And so this new dashboard is meant to work, work well. The picture is now bigger. So you can see the bees better. These are a couple samples, just in my testing dashboard, but you can see here, right, when a swarm is reported, you see the picture, how far away it is, the size, how long it's been there, and then you can choose to claim it. Here's what the swarm looks like once you've claimed it. You see some of the comments that the person left, right? If they left a note, they're not the property owner. Looks like this one's in a parking lot, the phone number, the name of the person, and then the address. And you can click that.

It opens in Google Maps, takes you right there. I do a button here to see whether the swarm has been captured. And this is for associations down their line. If they want to be making sure that their members actually picked up the swarm, who's claiming the most swarms, who's capturing the most. It's not mandatory to fill that out, but wanted to have that included. And then, of course, there's always the option to unclam- Just to be clear.

Just to be clear, the information we're looking at here would only be shown to the individual responding to the swarm, location. Exactly, right? So this wouldn't be on a wall that everybody can see. No, right? So everyone sees this, right? Everyone sees just this basic information, a picture.

Okay. And this basic information. And then if you hit Claim Swarm here, you'll see the Swarm is now claimed to your responsibility. A lot of what I try to do is kind of set expectations right for both the homeowners or for the public and for the beekeeper. So there's as little miscommunication as possible. And of course, keeping that flexibility, right?

Like, as soon as the swarm is claimed, the beekeeper's in charge, right? They are now in charge of the situation. And you can see now this swarm that we claimed. Now we can see the phone number. Actually, there's a test swarm, so I didn't have a phone number here, but some of the information about the person, it's in a park, they're not the property owner, where I need to go.

All right, and here you can see who I need to call, for example. Here you can see the number I need to call. And so that tells you what to do. And of course, there's always the option I try to discourage this, since, of course, that's not ideal for the system. But you can always unclaim a swan. if something comes up, right, and you're not able to deal with it. You unclaim it, and then it gets kicked back to other beekeepers who can then claim it,

but only one person at a time is able to hold the swarm, right? And that way you're creating as easy of an experience for the public and for the beekeeper. Is that everything? Yeah, that's what I want to share with the dashboard. Yeah, you're able to go in settings. There's some feedback. I always like to hear from people. And one of the other things that I'm excited to, I guess last thing is that you can filter for available swarms

or by the date so that you always see unclaimed swarms at the very top. So this was technically quite difficult to set up, and I'm very proud to have that out there, or all the filters, too. So you can filter my status, right, looking for an unclaimed swarm, a claim swarm, or claimed by yourself. Since the idea is that this works like a Facebook feed, right, you'll see all the swarms here.

So when someone else actually claims a swarm, I'll show you that too. Let's see, this one here, right, has been claimed by someone else. So the button is grayed out. You just see the first name of the beekeeper who claimed it. And so here I can't get it right. So maybe I got a notification. I clicked. I went to my dashboard, but the beekeeper, someone else beat me to it.

Greg has already claimed this. So I'll still see this in my dashboard, but I can filter to just see the ones that are, for example, claimed by me or that are unclaimed. And you can filter by size and situation as well. So there's all different options. Exactly. Nice. Yeah, there we go.

Best one I've seen. Okay. So I hope that those are listening and watching will get that link, share it on their social media or their club social media, or reach out through the email

that Mateo offered up here. Also, I found the email that worked was info at beastworm.org. Yeah, both of those should work, but info goes to the same account and you'll hear from you either way. Okay. All right.

Last words? Anything? Yeah, I think anyone who's interested by the idea, I'm always happy to chat either by phone or over email. I'm trying to grow this into as useful and as sustainable as a service as possible, whether for individual beekeepers or for associations and down the road also for those beekeeping professionals. And it's something that I'm really passionate about and I love building things for beekeepers and all the challenges that come along with that and building something that really, really works.

And so I would love to connect with people and look forward to hearing. some of your viewers and listeners. That's great. And of course, I want to thank the membership of the Northwest Pennsylvania Beekeepers Association who brought this to my attention. And I think it's great, and I think it's going to take off.

We're going to do our part. And of course, as soon as I get off, I'm going to be registering because I want to respond to Swarms. Sounds good. Appreciate it. Thanks for your time, Mattia. I really appreciate it. Yes, thank you.

Yeah, best supply. And that wraps up another interview here at the way to be. I think it's great to have a resource where swarms can be reported and beekeepers can receive the information in time to take action. I'm Frederick Dunn and thank you for being here. Because this is recorded so we can loop anything out. So you have to say, the skunk jump, the stunk jump, jump, jump, jump, the stump jump, the skunk jumps, the skunk jumps. Oh, man. Okay, say this, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, Toy boat.

Wow, that's a tough one. Oh, man, I'm glad we're doing this. Now say this, I slit the sheet, the sheet is slid upon the slitted sheet. I slid the fitted sheet on the... You failed. We can't talk. Okay.