Holiday Special with Jim Tew - The Promise of Bees (365)

365 - Holiday Special with Jim Tew - The Promise of Bees

Santa Claus: Ho ho ho. Santa Claus here, and yes, even Santa keeps bees. You are listening to the Beekeeping Today podcast. [laughs]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Jeff: Hey, a quick shout-out to Betterbee and all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 300 past episodes, read episodes' transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtoday.com

Becky: From all of us at Betterbee, thank you for another great year. To show our appreciation, we're gifting Beekeeping Today podcast listeners with an exclusive 10% off orders, up to $150 in savings, this holiday season. Shop at betterbee.com and use Discount Snow, that's S-N-O-W at checkout. This deal is good through 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time on December 31st, 2025. From the team at Betterbee, we wish you a happy holiday season.

Jeff: Thank you, Santa, from the North Pole for returning this year and giving us another opening. That was wonderful.

Becky: I can't believe you're not going to give them a hive tool, though.

Jeff: Hive tools are only for questions, not for openers. That's just the way it was set up.

Becky: Santa gives and gives and gives. Jim says it's Santa. I feel like it's Christmas because Jim's here. This is so nice to see you, Jim.

Jim Tew: I'm happy to be here.

Becky: It's like a Christmas present.

Jim Tew: It is. Isn't it exciting? Christmas week, we have bees. What more could we ask for?

Becky: Where are your bees? Because mine are hard to get to right now, Jeff.

Jim: There are a few things I could ask for, but has a lot to do with weather.

Jeff: The promise of bees. The promise of the spring and the coming season.

Jim: I like that. The promise of bees.

Becky: We get to talk about bees. I'm with two of my favorite beekeepers. That's pretty cool.

Jeff: There you go. Where are my bees are? They're in the rain. They're just sitting there in the rain right now saying, "It rains a lot here." Everybody, this is Christmas week. This is a special episode of Beekeeping Today podcast. We have Dr. Jim Tew here joining us from Honey Bee Obscura. Excited to have you here again, Jim. You're part of the family here of Beekeeping Today podcast, Honey Bee Obscura podcast. Thank you.

Jim: Thank you for having me again. I always enjoy coming out of my darkness and my loneliness over here and having people to talk to on the screen.

Becky: You say that, Jim, but you literally have a cult following of devoted listeners. Jeff and I are just a little jealous about your cult following.

Jim: I didn't know I had such a thing. If I do have a cult, I'd like to thank him right here, right now. [laughter]

Jeff: It's been a wonderful year, and Jim's episodes on Honey Bee Obscura plane talk series and even your interviews with Anne Fry a couple of times. That's been a great series to follow and be a part of. I encourage our listeners, if you're not listening to Honey Bee Obscura, that you go out and check for Honey Bee Obscura in wherever you download and listen to podcasts. They're about 20 minutes long, Jim?

Jim: Very close to 20 minutes. I'll make an effort as best I can without getting into long stories to keep it down to 20 minutes.

Jeff: For those listeners who don't know what your podcast covers, what do you cover in your podcast?

Jim: That was a great thing. It covers absolutely everything. I would hope that at some point I can get around to some aspect of beekeeping, but it's supposed to be conversational. I'm not trying to teach or lecture, and there's no note-taking going on. It's just like I've got a person standing with me in a bee yard somewhere, we're quizzing about it. That has been its historic design, and it's one that I'm comfortable with.

Jeff: I find it really fun to listen to. The way you do it, and you're in the bee yard, you can hear all the sounds of the bees and working the bees and the smoker and the hive tool.

Jim: The screams and the language.

Jeff: Oh, I think those get bleeped out, Jim. I'm pretty sure we--

Jim: Oh, okay.

Becky: It's a family radio.

Jim: I was wondering if you left any of those then. The spice of the bee yard.

Jeff: They're very entertaining, and I encourage our listeners to check out Honey Bee Obscura with Dr. Jim, too. Let's just talk real quick about what are bees doing right now. Becky, what are your bees doing right now? You mentioned that earlier, you can't even get to them.

Becky: I think there's a desire to check on them, but it's just not a good idea. If I see my bees, it's because I'm standing in the snow looking at them, but not touching. You can look, you can't touch. You can't pull off the telescoping cover. There's just nothing that I can do for my bees right now, but the exciting part is that there are some really good data that-- there was a Minnesota beekeeper in 1970. From November 26th to February 15th, the colony just consumed about, I think 16 pounds of honey in just under three months.

They're just eating a little bit of honey. They're clustering tightly, and they are 100% just conserving their energy. That's what my bees are doing. They're all very comfortable. I checked, but I didn't check.

[laughter]

Jim: Have you ever gone out and put a stethoscope on the side of the hive?

Becky: No, I haven't done that, but because I have upper ventilation, I can peek in and sometimes I'll see activity, sometimes I won't, it doesn't mean anything, but there's that indication of when you go after a fresh snow, if you see just a spattering, a few dead bees here and there, it's the best sign because it means the bees are alive because it means that a worker left either for a cleansing flight that went wrong or just it was their time and they flew away from the hive to die. That's the best indication as far as not invasive checking. If you have snow on the ground, you have to have snow, but if you see a few dead bees around, that's actually a great sign that they're alive.

Jim: I want to agree with that. The snow is such an indicator because when I kept bees in Alabama, that was completely not an option. You didn't know where they were or what was going on. It's really intriguing to see how far some bees make it before they crash and burn. They'll be down around my house, which is about 120 yards away.

Becky: You have seen them that far away because I know I've seen them 30 feet or so, but again, it's where you're looking for them. That's so interesting.

Jim: The other thing I'd like to bring up because I never knew what to do with it, when I had my bee lab, when the sun would hit that bright snow, the bee lab would shadow the sun and would put a dark shadow line on the snow, and the bees would crash along that line and form a straight line of bees-

Jeff: Oh, interesting.

Jim: -along that shadow line. I never knew exactly what that meant or what the bees were responding to along that dark shadow line.

Becky: That's interesting. That's very interesting. In Alabama, though, what was your rule as far as, "I see bees flying, it's 50 degrees." Would you go ahead and pull a cover and take a look at them?

Jim: There would be no reason to. You can use the cheat method and do the hive tilt thing and have an idea, and if they're flying and they're active and there's poop on the car windshield when they get back to the car, I don't know why I would open them. It's just going to upset them.

Becky: I started to give new beekeepers the advice of, come fall, all the way until when you can actually buy a queen, it's really best that you're not pulling any frames out, because if you cause a queen issue, you cannot solve a queen issue if queens are not readily available.

Jim: I'm afraid many times you wouldn't even know that you had caused a queen issue if you killed her back in the colony and didn't know it.

Becky: They can't fix it because there's not a good chance that there's a great supply of-- depending on when you do it, you might definitely have brooded, but you won't have that great amount of drones for mating if you're in a winter season.

Jeff: Let me ask you, you mentioned, made me think of the brood or the cluster, and it's December, and we're all in different parts of the country, do you think the colonies are harboring any brood? Are they raising anything at this point?

Becky: Do you know about the study that Auburn is leading, the brood study?

Jeff: Why don't you tell us? No, I don't. Tell us about it.

Becky: Dude, oh, this is so exciting. It's actually going on in North Dakota. There are going to be data this year that was just added to the map. There's an Auburn University winter brood study where they are showing on a map colonies that I think they inspect them every two weeks, and they are sharing the amount of brood that they're seeing in the brood nests. It's a situation where it'll just give you a little bit of an indication depending upon where you are, and I guess your closest test colony is. I think in my colonies, I always look at those Italians, and I bet they've got some brood in them, but I'm not going to look for it.

I think it depends upon what you've got in your boxes. If you pull up that map, you will see brood across the country and different proportions based upon where they are.

Jim: That's the type of hive they have to open during the winter month, even in North Dakota to get a brood measurement?

Becky: What a sacrifice because they might not make it. That could also influence the data, too, because if you're opening a colony and disturbing them, you don't know that they're not going to maybe start rearing more brood in response to the need to have more bees. Maybe you could lose them if you're opening them up in really cold weather. I think that they probably never asked a northern state to participate because that's a tough thing for a colony. I know for data collection, I've been in colonies and seen brood in December, and we know that they're starting to raise brood in end of January, so it's not going to be a full frame.

I bet there's a patch in there somewhere, except for those colonies, or those Carniolan, or Caucasians that might just shut down at the slightest hint of inclement weather, and they just change what they're doing so that they don't have any brood, they'll cannibalize it. It's fascinating. It's such a fun question and thought.

Jeff: Jim, what about your bees in the wintertime?

Jim: They're just like, Becky's, but not quite as cold and not quite as much snow. It's about 25 here right now, and probably 5 inches of snow. From this point on, I don't bother them. I did do the stethoscope thing years ago. There's nothing you can really tell except they're alive or they're dead. I did find it really intriguing to sit there on that cold winter day and hear that hum coming through the stethoscope because I thought this is equivalent to an air handler in my house, to a blower motor running, generating that heat. When you come across the dead one, it was just stark silence, no air handler running.

Jeff: That is fun. I encourage everybody, if you have your bees in the winter right now, to go out there and even just put your ear up to the side of the colony and listen and see if you can hear them closer to one side or the other side, or you don't hear anything at all. That might be something to consider.

Jim: Now, I want to say if the wind hasn't been blowing, sometimes that bottom board can give you information you really didn't want to know. If there's too many dead bees piled up on the bottom board and maybe a mouse got through your entrance reducers, and you can see parts have consumed bees or whatever that colony, I want it to be like Becky described, I want the bottom board to be fairly clean and I want to have a few spatterings of bees indicating that it's alive. If you've got snow there and there's not a single bee out front, and you check it maybe three or four times and there's not a single bee on any of those traps, I bet you that colony has already gone to bee heaven.

Becky: That's always a sad sign.

Jeff: I will admit that I cheat-

Becky: Yes, you do.

Jeff: -with my bees.

[laughter]

Wait, not on my bees, but with my bees.

[laughter]

That takes some of the speculation out, but I also gives me some comfort to be able to look at the sensors or look at the graphs and say, "It's seven degrees in that hive near that sensor, so I'm comfortable." Or there's one hive that's bouncing around 90, so I'm thinking that maybe I'll move this sensor one way or the other. I might pick up the full brood size temperature. I enjoy that. Just intellectually sitting here when it's just miserable outside. Right now, it's only what, 44 degrees and raining, but the bees are, I can tell that they're fine and all the colonies are doing well.

They're all maintaining temperatures above the outside temperature. That's good to see. Also, it won't surprise either of you, there was a time I had an aircraft drone, that kind of drone, they had a thermal camera on the front, so I would fly it around the colonies to check out the image to see where the colony was in the box.

Becky: I'm a little surprised right now. [chuckles] Are you kidding me? I said I'm a little surprised right now. You took a drone with the thermal imaging camera-

Jeff: Yes.

Becky: -and you looped your colonies?

Jeff: Yes. What's your find, Becky?

[laughter]

Jim: I wonder where both of you're going. I know part of these, listeners, this is between Becky and Jeff with this--

Becky: I think it's great, but I just have never heard of anybody-- I have to ask--

Jeff: Yes. I'll put photos in the show notes.

Becky: Why not walk out to the colony and walk around the colony? Why is the drone involved?

Jeff: Because I had the drone.

Becky: Is it because you can?

[laughter]

Jeff: I have a drone.

Jim: He had to justify the drone.

Jeff: I didn't have it. I feel I have a handheld by a camera. I had a drone by a camera.

Jim: That he needed to use.

Jeff: I had to justify it.

[laughter]

Becky: Okay.

Jeff: I won't say it's a guy's thing, but Jim understands.

Jim: I understand perfectly.

Jeff: All right. I don't have that drone anymore.

Jim: I was wondering why you didn't clarify that, but I decided not to ask the question. Did that drone crash?

Jeff: Oh gosh, no. Long story short, I just felt it could go to a happier place. It was really designed better for industrial work, and I wasn't going to do that. I knew that bee season was coming, and I sold it while I could, but it was fun.

Jim: I would have bought it from you. I didn't know you were selling it. I would have bought that from you.

Jeff: Oh.

Jim: I need to do aerial observations of my beehive.

[laughter]

Jeff: I'll give you the number of a guy I sold it to down in Florida. [chuckles] All joking aside, I like having the sensors on the colony. I can actually sit here and know that everything's fine. It's also sad when you see the temperature inside the colonies is the same as the temperature outside, and that colony's also gone.

Becky: I have a question for both of you. This is a dark question. Your sensors say there's no life inside because of the temperatures. Say that you've been out to the colony, Jim, multiple times, and you just don't see any signs of bee flight or cleansing flights or anything like that. Do you go ahead in the winter and take steps to close up those colonies?

Jim: For me, yes, I do. I try to keep the mice out, but it's going to be so cold back there and messy to do it, I'll probably close them up, but I'm not going to really address the dead bees in there until real late next winter or early spring when you finally get a day when you can go back and bounce the bees out and before they begin to decay and petrify and try to get them out then. You said a bit ago it was kind of sad, I want to say no, it is sad. It's not kind of sad. It's real sadness. Every time a hive dies, I don't care if you-- we had a lot more hives than I've got now, I've remorse over every one of them.

It wasn't always my fault, but when it was, I felt guilt that under my management, they couldn't pull it off. I do close them up. I don't want mice. I know they serve a purpose and if you're wildlife, you like to have them around, but they just constantly are in my life and in my way, and the storage building back there and the beehives, if they could, I'll leave my entrances on the 3/8 inch side year-round on those that are reversible entrances. I don't flip them over. Just couldn't tell that it mattered that much, and it's just one less thing you have to do. I go down to them and clean the bottom boards, but I don't do the cup bottom board flip.

Becky: Is that the only entrance to your colonies, or do you have an upper entrance in the inner cover?

Jim: Well, because I have started out in a warm climate, during the summer, I slipped it above the two deeps. I slipped it back a quarter of an inch.

Becky: You do? Wow.

Jim: We did that when it was so hot. I don't know who I'm offending now, but it was a typical procedure, not I want to argue with either of you and I'll stop doing it because right now I had to go out and do slip shot beekeeping because two of those colonies were still slipped back and I didn't want to break the [unintelligible 00:19:20] of seals and make all the noise and upset them just to push it forward a quarter of an inch, so I did a quick fix that I don't want to go into again.

Jeff: You can listen to it on your latest episode, the flip side.

Becky: Darn. That's the one episode I haven't listened to.

Jim: I wish you wouldn't.

Jeff: Flip side of beekeeping. It's really fascinating. Really fun.

Becky: Do you worry about water getting in there if you crack the box or if you move the box back?

Jim: I don't because it just runs right down the wall and then runs out, the screen bottom board usually.

Jeff: Hey, let's take this quick break and we'll come back after a quick word from our sponsors, and we'll continue this discussion. We have a listener question for the HiveIQ Tool that we can talk about, and we have a couple other things we want to discuss as well.

[music]

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Jeff, Jim has already not just answered the question, but there was a confession in there. What do you do if you literally sense that your colony has passed?

Jeff: I have two colonies out there right now that have perished, and I have not done anything other than close them off for mice. I've never had, knock on wood, I shouldn't say this out loud, but I've never had a mouse go above a slatted rack, so I can have slatted racks on all of my colonies except for a couple colonies. The HiveIQs don't have slatted racks, so I have slatted racks. I've never had a mouse get above the slatted rack, which I'm just fortunate of. I close them off to keep anything out or keep things going in and out, and go out on a nice cold, sunny day, usually below freezing. That's when I clean them out, scrape them off, and get them ready for the spring. I find it easier to work with them at that point.

Becky: I've got follow-up question.

Jeff: Please. I'm your answer--

Becky: First of all, not everybody knows what a slatted rack is. Literally including me, I've heard of them. I don't think I've ever actually seen one. I'm not even going to answer my own question. Tell me why you use a slatted rack, and describe it a little bit better, please.

Jeff: Jim's done a couple episodes on slatted racks or including slatted racks, so you can give us a history, but today they're made with inch and a half, 2 inch shim that goes between the bottom board and the bottom hive body, and the front, I don't know, say 3 or 4 inches, that's just a piece of wood. You cut down towards the front of the box, and then it has the ribs that go, and the way they set them up today, they set them up so they go right underneath the frames above with a bee space between the ribs.

Theoretically, is that it, one, keeps the cold and wind from blowing directly into the hive on the brood comb. Whereas if you have your hive body right on the bottom board, that's right there next to the entrance and right there real close where yellow jackets can get to it, mice can get to it, robbing bees can get to it, and it's just exposed. With the slatted rack gets it up off the bottom board, makes it a little bit more distance for predators and prey to get inside the box.

Also provides some more ventilation. The bees on the really hot days, they made beard, but they don't beard as much as they would otherwise because they're either inside and fanning in the slatted rack space or it keeps it a little bit cooler. Jim, you used slatted racks in the past, or you still do?

Jim: I have used them in the past, and I don't want to burst your slatted rack bubble, but I have had mice chew through it, and I think I've got a picture of it. I still used it, but the mice did cut through it, they are made of quite a hole, 2 or 3-inch hole opening. I think Dr. CC Miller gets credit for those. You did a good job describing it, but I always think it looks a bit like an antique washboard, an old washboard from the old days, except a metal grill on it. It's got slats, it's supposed to give the bees more clustering space and keep them from hanging out front, whatever it takes to get done with that.

Becky: Was Dr. CC Miller a cold climate or warm climate?

Jim: Marengo, Illinois. I think I wasn't prepared to do this. He just took a bottom board, made the bottom board deep, and then he built a second rack that went in. In later years, the rack became a single entity that went on top of the bottom board.

Becky: This was like over 100 years ago.

Jeff: Now, you said originally the slats and the slatted rack went from left to right as opposed to front to back.

Jim: Yes, I was going to say that sets my teeth on edge because one of the purposes was to break up airflow going through the colony, so you wouldn't have air blowing in the front entrance and then whistling right up between the combs to where the cluster was. I was told that later models have the slats run directly underneath the frames so that the varroa mites could drop off and not be captured on the top of the frame. I think that takes away part of the reason that those things were used, but I have not a shred of data either way. I just have a beekeeper opinion, now that ain't how it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be across the frame.

Jeff: I'll tell you that because I use OAV on my colonies, and it needs a port to put the vapor in. I put my access port in the back of the slatted rack between two of the slats. The vapor goes in not directly on comb, but in between the slats, and then it can go throughout the colony, but provides a little bit easier place to provide that OAV port.

Jim: Slatted racks are a piece of equipment that won't succeed, and it won't die. Everybody's got one or two somewhere.

Becky: I don't have any, Jim.

Jim: You need to get one. Everybody should have at least one, and get that queen and drone cage too. That was available for everybody. Everybody only had one of those.

Becky: I'm feeling so left out...

Jim: They really want to work, but you just can't tell that it's just critical that you have them. I've always liked them, but in reality, it's just one more thing to take to the bee yard and one more thing to take off. I like to think I'm helping, I'm doing my part. I'm a beekeeper, and I'm nurturing my bees.

Jeff: I like them. I've always had them. I've had them since '80s or '90s or something like that. Long, long, long, long ago.

Jim: Didn't you have the early ones that went across the frame?

Jeff: I don't recall. I'd have to see what AI Root had back in their mid-'80s catalog. Enough of reminiscing about slatted racks and everything. I mentioned it before the break, we have a listener question that really pertains to winter right now, getting ready for Santa's sleigh and everything. This is from Phil Nicole in Vermont from Dogs Love Farms. I think that's what he said. I'm not sure we'll hear it here real quick. Folks, this is for our HiveIQ hives tool that's co-branded with Beekeeping Today podcast. You too can enter to win a hive tool by submitting a question that we'll read on the air. Phil's lucky because Jim's going to help us answer this question. Let's listen to it right now. Here's Phil Nicole.

Phil Nicole: Hi, this is Phil Nicole from Dogs Love Farm in South Londonderry, Vermont. There may not be a known answer to this question, but here it goes. "How do the bees inside the hive on a cold day know the outdoor temperature. I live in Vermont, and my bee yard has full sun exposure, so on a cold day, the internal temperature rises nicely, and the bees don't need to expend much energy to maintain the queen and brood nest.

Outside, it can still be in the mid-30s. If some bees go down to the entrance and report back that it's too cold to do a cleansing flight, do they have a temperature waggle dance, or do some bees fly out and don't come back? The inside bees say to themselves, 'Janice must have froze so let's stay in.'" I don't know if there's an answer to this. It might be a Dewey Caron question, but see what happens.

Becky: Jeff, do I have to answer this question correctly in order for Phil to get the hive tool, or does Jim have to give us a correct answer? Is Phil going to get the hive tool regardless of what we say right now?

Jeff: Phil will get the Hive tool because we're reading this question in the podcast. Now, whether we're right or wrong, we'll find out in the comments or questions or comments from people who submit answers or submit comments. Yes, Phil will get the HiveIQ Tool.

Becky: I just wanted to make sure, just because in the spirit of things

Jim: Now you've made me nervous, and I'm not sure I want to play this.

Jeff: How do the bees know it's cold?

Becky: Can they read the brood minders' sensors that are in the colony to send help?

Jeff: No, I think at minimum, you need a cell phone, so unless they're holding a cell phone.

Becky: They're unable to tell that way. No. Honestly, Jim, you and I have both have a fair amount of insect physiology classes, things like that. Do you remember learning about insect temperature detection?

Jim: It was always odds and ends. There was some receptors on temperature control, and then there was papers out about the blood volume and the head, and the head was the warmest part. If that part cools first, this was going to be, I don't know, if a single structure or a single mechanism is how the beep makes a decision. Wouldn't it be like my feet being cold or my hands being cold, or the top of my head being cold? Would you say that I'm cold? At the top of my head is cold, am I going outside? I don't know exactly what their fundamental role is, but it does look like that sometimes they make mistakes.

Becky: Yes, it does look like that.

Jim: I don't know of a clear structure you could incapacitate and then make the bees all come flying out. I don't know.

Becky: I think what confuses it, too, is that we were talking about this earlier, but sometimes bees will just leave the colony to die, and they don't care what the temperature is. It's just it's the right thing to do for keeping the hive clean and maybe removing pathogens. It's just you die outside the hive. Sometimes, the colonies or the bees will leave the hive in order to perform a cleansing flight. Those are really critical. On those flights, they want to get back in, and if they're leaving to die, then that's a one-way flight. It's hard to know when you see dead bees outside in the snow. Why did they die? Did they make a misjudgment on the temperature, or was that what they were trying to do was to die outside of the colony?

Jim: In answering questions, you just generate more questions and more questions and more questions because not only are they sensing the temperature, they're sensing their own time of demise. When I'm seeing bees a distance, yards and yards or meters and meters, whatever you want to measure, you think, "If this bee went out to die, did it have a need to fly 50 yards away?" Why wouldn't they just crawl to the front of the hive and die? I don't know how to answer any of those things, but bees are clearly having some instinctual response to some stimuli they're sensing.

I've never known how bees decide to take themselves out. Do they have a going-away party? Do they hug bee next before they leave, and it's been fun. I'm being sarcastic, but it just seems to be a gloomy day for that little bee who says, "Well, my time is here." At the same time, I think it's the same kind of question as how the bees sense temperature. It just can't be a single neuron response or patch of brain cells somewhere that's looking for a stimulus. I don't know what I'm talking about, as is so often the case. I don't know what I'm talking about here.

Becky: I usually trust people more when they say things like that, Jim, so I trust you. I think that is the answer. It is something that I know that I have not read a number of studies on this question, and I can't remember reading one. I think that we have to remember that they're cold-blooded insects acting as a warm-blooded animal. It makes your head get a little tired when you start really thinking it through.

Jeff: You think about the individual being, you think about the superorganism, and it's like, well.

Becky: Right. It's like, who's making these decisions? With that, I hope Phil gets the hive tool.

Jim: I hope he gets the tool, he certainly deserves it.

Jeff: It's a good question.

Becky: We don't get the hive tool.

Jeff: No.

Jim: I wanted a hive tool also. I wanted a hive tool. Can I send a question in?

Jeff: Yes. You can send in a question. They have to go through the question jury, but yes, sure.

Becky: I want to know what his question is right now, I think.

Jeff: Yes. What is your question? Yes, that's a good question.

Becky: What is your question, sir?

Jim: I got to think about it because it's got to beat out all the contenders. I just can't cough up a question and have you say, "Oh, no, no. We've already discussed that in the third grade."

Becky: It's interesting reading questions from listeners because we're getting a good amount of them, which is great, and some of them are like, "Whoa, that'll take some research," which is fine. I love that these bees are just making us think so much. Very cool.

Jeff: All right. Let's hear from our sponsors a couple quick messages, and then we'll be back. We'll talk about North American Honey Bee Expo, Christmas, and a few other things. We'll be right back.

[music]

Bee Smart Designs: Coming to NAHBE, visit the Bee Smart Designs booth and get a free compact-type tool. Yes, you heard that right, free hive tools only at Bee Smart Designs. While you're there, check out our Universal Hive system and learn how it reduces losses, improves brood building, and increases honey yields. Our products are 8 and 10-frame compatible and proudly made in the USA. Don't forget to visit our Bee Smart dealers for great deals and show specials. Get your free compact hive tool and discover simply better beekeeping equipment at Bee Smart Designs. Mention Beekeeping Today and get a special gift while supplies last.

Jeff: Hey, everybody, welcome back. If you just listened to that spot and you heard the commercial for Bee Smart Designs, and if you are going to the North American Honey Bee Expo, make sure you stop by and talk to Cliff [unintelligible 00:35:05] there in Booth 447, tell him that you heard his ad here on the podcast, and he has a special gift for Beekeeping Today podcast listeners if you tell him you listen to the show and you heard about this, and so please go by and see him.

Becky: That's pretty exciting that he's rewarding listening to the podcast. That's fantastic. Thank you, Cliff.

Jeff: Yes, Cliff's been with us for a long time and really appreciate his support. In fact, all of our sponsors throughout the years, and especially this past year, we truly appreciate, and I think all but one's going to be at North American Honey Bee Expo. We want to thank our key sponsor, Betterbee, for the last year of support for the podcast. In fact, they've been with us, what I think going on four years now. I'd have to go back and check, but it's been wonderful having them there, working with us. They're your partners in better beekeeping. We encourage you to check them out in Booth 900, which will be right across from us.

Becky: Excellent. We also want to thank Global Patties. Global Patties will be at NAHBE. Visit them in Booth 635 and learn about beekeeping nutrition and what they offer for your colonies.

Jeff: Yes, Global Patties has really been with us almost from the very beginning, the first year, maybe the second year, where we started in 2019. They've been a loyal supporter of the podcast, and we really appreciate their support. We also want to thank Strong Microbials. They've been a supporter of the podcast for many years, almost as long as Global Patties. Slava and Vera have been great supporters of the podcast. They'll be at NAHBE in Booth 918. Make sure you check them out. We hope to get Slava back on the podcast this year too. He stopped by, and we recorded with him last year.

Becky: You know what, I think maybe we should do a map for our listeners so that they can go to our different sponsors and say, "Thank you for making the podcast possible." On the map, we would also include Booth 507, which is Hive Alive. Hive Alive is a sponsor of the podcast. I know a lot of beekeepers love using Hive Alive products to help make their bees healthy.

Jeff: Also, in Booth 920, we have HiveIQ. They are current sponsor of our listener question with that beautiful, shiny, nice HiveIQ-branded and Beekeeping Today branded tool. It's really nice. It is an envy of anybody who sees it and doesn't have one. Thank you.

Becky: It's a solid hive tool and the branding is just a bonus.

Jeff: Yes. Thank you, Victor, and team.

Becky: Not at NAHBE, but we are very grateful for the support of Northern Bee Books. Jeremy and Jonathan, thank you so much for supporting the podcast. It's going to be a little bit more difficult to thank them in person, but if you do happen and you're in the UK, or if you are purchasing a book online from them, make sure you send them a thank you for sponsoring the podcast.

Jeff: Northern Bee Books. They have a great catalog of beekeeping books, and we really encourage you to take a look. They publish them there and located in UK, but the books that are sent to the United States are all printed here in the United States, so you don't have to pay all that and worry about tariffs or anything else. It's really good.

Becky: They've got a huge, huge selection of a lot of different management styles and different topics in beekeeping. It's really a great place to learn more and add to your library.

Jeff: Last but not least, this year we had Dalan, who was on, and they produced that queen vaccine that came out during the summer. We appreciated their support and look forward to having them back in 2026. Thank you, Dalan. Let's talk about North American Honey Bee Expo because it's the biggest show in the country right now, and it's going to be a lot of fun this year with the three of us. I don't think the show can handle the three of us there.

Jim: It's actually just two of you because I'm not a full participant. I'm an old guy that you bring out of retirement and truck down there and take care of me. I'm the guy who says, "Hey, I've forgotten what year it is." I am looking forward to being there. This is a treat for me. You guys are helping me get there, and that means a lot. I don't have to do so much of the driving.

Jeff: Yes, we'll see how you feel by the time you get home after driving with me and my daughter and eight hours in the car back and forth from Ohio.

Jim: I got little white pills, so I'll be okay.

[laughter]

Becky: Jim, is this your first time at NAHBE?

Jim: It'll be my first time.

Becky: It's beekeeper Disney World. Just get ready. It's a happy place. It's a happy place. Lots of bee talk, lots of very, very friendly, nice, happy beekeepers.

Jim: Ironically, I was just in Owensboro, Kentucky, just before Thanksgiving for their state meeting. I hope I don't wear out welcome in Kentucky.

Jeff: There's no warrants out for you at this point, is what you're saying.

Jim: Not that I know of. I think I addressed all those.

Becky: Oh, if anything does happen, go down at the booth. We'll need to catch that on video, not just audio.

Jim: All right. Okay.

Jeff: I think we've come to the end of our show. I wish you both a very, very, very merry Christmas with you and your families. I'll be seeing you both in a couple of weeks in Louisville. It'll be fun, and we'll try to keep the lid on the place and look forward to seeing-- [crosstalk]

Jim: I just don't foresee a problem at all.

Becky: I don't know, though, that's slatted rack conversation. I could just put things over the top.

Jim: We'll play that again because it has such intrinsic educational value.

Becky: Hey, if anybody here is a vendor and you are selling slatted racks, you got to bring one by to the podcast, and we can talk about it. That's important.

Jeff: Jim, you probably have a slatted rack in your shed.

Jim: Of course. Absolutely. I'm a proper beekeeper.

[laughter]

Becky: We thanked all of our sponsors, but let's give a quick thank you to all the listeners. We really do appreciate you all out there listening to us weekly. We certainly love recording episodes for you. I think I can say that for the three of us, and we're really glad that at least somebody listens.

Jeff: Thanks a lot, everybody. Merry Christmas, Jim. Merry Christmas, Becky. Merry Christmas, all of our listeners. That about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today. Before we go, be sure to follow us and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcast or wherever you stream the show. Even better, write a quick review to help other beekeepers discover what you enjoy. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews tab on the top of any page.

We want to thank Betterbee, our presenting sponsor for their ongoing support of the podcast. We also appreciate our longtime sponsors Global Patties, Strong Microbials, Bee Smart Designs, and Northern Bee Books for their support in bringing you each week's episode. Most importantly, thank you for listening and spending time with us. If you have any questions or feedback, just head over to our website and drop us a note. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks again, everybody.

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[00:43:00] [END OF AUDIO]