Tara Chapman: For the Bees (375)

Tara Chapman: For the Bees (375)

Russ Holden

Hi, I'm Russ Holden from the Northeast Beekeepers Education Cooperative or NEBeec.org. Welcome to the Beekeeping Today podcast.

Jeff Ott

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

Becky Masterman

And I'm Becky Masterman.

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Jeff Ott

Hey, a quick shout-out to Better Bee 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 episode 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. Thank you, Russ Holden, for that great opening. And Russ, I'm not sure where you're from. I looked all over the internet for the Northeast Education Beekeepers. Did you find it, Becky?

Becky Masterman

I did not, but did you get a little bit close to it?

Jeff Ott

I think so.

Becky Masterman

I mean, we could have Russ call in again.

Jeff Ott

Yeah, I think it's nebec.com, but there's no website there. It's really just sign up for our newsletter. So, hey, Russ, thank you for the opening. If you want to call in or if you want to leave us a message and let us know really where you're from and what organization that is, we'd be happy to clarify in a future episode. It's March. This is right on the edge of, I want to get out in the yard, but I can't get time. It's the spring tease is what it is. It's just, you want to be out in the yard. It's almost there, but you can't really do what you want to do. How are things in Minnesota?

Becky Masterman

We don't need to talk about that, but let me talk about the swarms I'm seeing in Florida and California. So I'm in temperature swing-ville where I have to look at the forecast and then I I have to look at the like three days after that to see if, do I really want to go in and check something? Because will the girls have to just recover right away because the temperature is going to drop dramatically? Or do they have a few days of maybe more gentle weather? But I love that part of the country, they're chasing swarms already.

Jeff Ott

That's amazing. Well, that time will come soon enough, I'm sure. I'll be chasing swarms around or hoping they land in the empty equipment I have in the B or like last year. For our HiveIQ tool question, we have a new question that just came in. And because we need to get through the question really quick, we'll do this. And this question comes in from Robin Hicks. And Robin says, and I'm going to paraphrase here, I have four frames of honey that I have saved. I want to introduce them to my hives for food. When do I do this? Where do I place them in the hive? and the best way with minimal disturbance to the hive. Robin also writes, should I also add winter patties? I've never done this before because I've always used candy boards and pollen. And thanks, Robin, for that. And Robin from Ashland, Massachusetts. And Robin, thank you for that question. We're going to answer this question based on the time of year it is today, March.

Becky Masterman

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Yeah, I will say, I just want to remind people, we love your questions, but if you're waiting for an episode to go on air to get an answer to your question, you might be waiting too long. So make sure if it's a question you need to ask right away or get an answer to right away, you're doing a call out to your local club or a mentor or somebody you can trust. But with that said, the first question, Jeff, is do they need food, right? If your bees don't need food, then you're in a situation where it's great that you have the extra honey and you can use that in the future, but you don't want to necessarily do a manipulation to the colony if they don't need it. And so in my cold weather state, I would wait for the temperatures to be above 40 and hopefully sunny. If the bees are flying, it makes me feel a little bit better, but I'm going to heft the colony. But if I'm not quite sure, I'm going to put a little bit of smoke on the top, unless I can actually see it right away. And I'm going to look for the frames of sealed honey. And if I see that they have sealed honey and that it's close to the cluster, then I'm just going to trust them and let it go. Sometimes I'll actually lift the box if I have to, just to be sure that I'm confident. So they don't need food, don't feed them. And if you're using your honey frames, boy, I want those temperatures to be above 50 before I slide it into the colony because you're going to be taking out frames. And you're going to put it right adjacent to the cluster so that the bees are actually going to be able to access it. Now, if they have honey right next to them, then you can put it on the other side of that frame. But make sure you're not splitting up the cluster at all. Why don't you comment on winter paddies, though?

Jeff Ott

I would not give a winter patty in March. And winter patty is really just all carbohydrates. And at this point time of year, I'd be looking to add more protein to the patty. So I'd be looking for a pollen patty or pollen patty substitute. That way the queen will know or that'll help the queen brood up a little bit quicker and start just laying more. The only caveat is if you feed them pollen paddies this time of year, you run the risk depending on the line of bees and your situation. But you run the risk of the more swarms because they'll brood up fast. So just be careful on doing that. But I would encourage not a winter patty this time. I'd say pollen patty.

Becky Masterman

If your girls are extremely light and you're not sensing they have any reserves, then go ahead and give them that honey. If you have to add honey and it's below 50, you could also, if you have a box of comb, you could place it over that cluster. Especially if it's a bigger cluster, because then they can move up into it and then you're not disturbing the frames. Also, go ahead and feed dry sugar or winter patties if they're starving. Of course, you don't want to lose a colony.

Jeff Ott

Assuming that they're not starving, all of our advice is. Well, thank you for that question. We'll be sending you out the Hive IQ Hive tool in a short bit. Folks, if you've been listening, you know that we have two new sponsors, and we just want to acknowledge that fact right now. Premier Bee Products out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And we have Apis Tactical out of Lemoore, North Dakota, also joining us as sponsors. So we really appreciate their support, folks. It takes a lot to run this podcast and get it out to you on a weekly basis. So every sponsor is important to us. We encourage you to visit our sponsors' websites, all of our sponsors. Let them know that you listen to Beekeeping Today podcast and you appreciate their generous support of the podcast and getting you the program you like to hear.

Becky Masterman

Pretty exciting. North and South Dakota, that's the land of honey production and a lot of beekeepers. So welcome to the podcast.

Jeff Ott

Coming up next, we have a return of a guest we had last year, Tara Chapman. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Becky Masterman

Me too.

Jeff Ott

And we'll get to Tara right after these words from our sponsors.

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Jeff Ott

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Sitting around the great big beekeeping today podcast table, sitting down in Austin, Texas, or nearby Austin, Texas, we have Tara Dawn Chapman, and Becky's in St. Paul, and I'm here in Olympia. Welcome, Tara.

Tara Chapman

Thank you. I'm so glad to be back.

Jeff Ott

Yeah, welcome back.

Becky Masterman

We had you in our podcast series about building your bee business and going from hobbyist to sideliner, but you shared with us then that you had a book that actually was just out on starting and beekeeping. So Jeff and I thought it was a great time to invite you back and get some more information about that book and your beekeeping history and how you got from beginner to, I don't know, expert? Let's just say that. Expert beginner, I like to say. I don't know. I've heard you talk before. I'm pretty sure you've moved up from beginner. But it's great that you're helping beginners. That's a big deal to turn around and provide support for people who want to get started in beekeeping because you've got this great expertise in not just keeping bees, but also being able to help pay for those bees and selling your honey and other services. So this is going to be a great conversation.

Jeff Ott

For our listeners who may not have heard you in our prior episode with you, which was number 322, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got started in bees and what drew you to them?

Tara Chapman

Yeah. So I'm a born and bred Texan, but I went to school on the East Coast. It was actually my first real times out of Texas. I'm from a teeny, teeny little town in rural West Texas. And then I just kept going. So I actually, my first job out of college was with the federal government and I worked in intelligence. And then I got a passport, my first passport, and boy, did I start filling that thing up fast. So I spent a decade working with the government, spent a lot of time in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and lots of other places. But those were kind of my two focus areas. So I did that for a decade. And then I really wanted to, I was looking for something different. I really wanted to come back to Texas, to Austin specifically. So, you know, this was long before remote work was even, that was even a thing, right? That wasn't even a term. And I convinced my employer to let me work part-time from Texas. So I was spending a week of every month in D.C. I'd spend three weeks in Austin. And then every couple of months, I would go to Afghanistan, mostly. And so I did that for several years. And during this time, I took a beekeeping class. And I was obsessed. I actually did. I did a number of speaking engagements this weekend. And I had a group of brand new beekeepers. And the organization had won a grant. to put everyone in at like a series of beekeeping classes. So I got the great fortune of like being the first kind of entree. So they hadn't taken the classes would start the next morning. This was over the weekend. I was so excited for them because like I could remember when I walked away from that first class with just like my jaw on the ground. And so I was like, let me just like give you a taste of what's to come. And I was just showing the videos of like murder balls and You know, that reclaiming that feeling of like, I just remember thinking like, how I was like 30, 30, early 30s at the time. And I remember thinking like, how have I lived 30 years walking? I mean, we're not talking about like, you know, safari animals, like hundreds of thousands of miles away, right? How have I walked the earth for 30 years with these insects all around me doing these amazing things? And like, nobody told me about it. So I was all in. It's all I could talk about. And then like very quickly, I was like, I'm going to be a beekeeper. I'm going to be a professional. I'm going to start a honey company. And it really started with, it was very naive. So it was so naive. The fact that it has worked out so successfully is really an outlier and not like a rule. And so, yeah, I quit my job and I went and worked in East Texas for Bee Weaver, a very famous family, at least in the world of Texas beekeeping. and yeah, kicked it off. And honestly, like, you know, I was so grateful for the time that Danny and Laura, like the opportunity that they gave me, but Danny Weaver is, he's genius level. I mean, he's a lawyer. He's like got a degree in genetics. Like he just, he operates on a different level. And so, so fortunate to get to like work with him, but also, you know, there was a huge disconnect because he would explain things and I'm like, I don't know what you were talking about. And so I think really like one of the reasons I got into teaching so early on was because I was like, this is, it was just a leap too far for my brain to make. And so I started trying to figure out like how to break down what was this like complex super organism and all this stuff going on and trying to figure out how I could break it down and really understand it. And I think that's really where it started. Cause I do think that's one of my strong suits is just to break down the complex in a way that people can understand.

Jeff Ott

Does that come from your background of doing the government work you were doing?

Tara Chapman

I don't know how we got from here to there, honestly. Like it was such an odd transition. The only thing that like really is in commonality is that like what two weird jobs, you know what I mean? Like when you're talking about like odd jobs of the world, my mom was so unhappy with my, I mean, can you imagine like, you know, your daughter goes to war zones for a living and doesn't tell you what she does or where she is, where she's going. I mean, I remember there was, I just stopped telling her, you know, a lot of details because it's just worried her for no reason. And so, you know, when I would go to Afghanistan, I would usually stay in the capital, but I would travel outside and I just wouldn't tell her. And then, you know, Kabul, the capital is the safest place of the country. And then sure enough, the one time I leave and I didn't tell her there's a bombing, you know, at the, near the embassy and she can't reach me. And my mom is convinced I'm dead. Anyway. So when I told her, I was like, I'm going to quit. She was like elated. And then my next words were insert a beekeeping company. And she went from like this high to be like, what are you talking about? She's like, I don't think this is a good idea, Tara. I just wonder, like when you go to

Becky Masterman

like a dinner party or any kind of gathering? Do you just lie about what you do so that you're not

Tara Chapman

in the corner with questions? I'll tell you how it first came about because for several years, like again, I just, you know, bees, I would talk about it all day. And then at some point, you're just like, I just can't answer the question of like, have you ever been stung? Which is such an absurd question and like demonstrates like how little you understand Have you ever been stung? It makes me viscerally angry for some reason. And so my husband knows if we go to dinner parties. So when people would say, what do you do? I would say beekeeper. And more often than not, people think that you say bookkeeper. And it kind of inspired me that you can just lie. And so people say bookkeeper. And I'm like, yeah. And no one's asking a follow-up. No follow-up. It's become this like funny dynamic between my husband and I, because he knows like if he dare, dare drop a word about, oh, Tara is a beekeeper. Like it is coming for him later. So when he, we were at a party recently and he walked in and I was like holding the crowd and talking about bees. And he thought, oh, she must really like these people. If she's willing to like go down And it's become like a determination of how much I like someone, of whether or not I'm willing to entertain their incessant questions.

Becky Masterman

I love that this is no longer a secret because you're on a podcast sharing this with everybody. So if anybody meets you at a party from now on, and they Google you.

Jeff Ott

How many colonies did you have before you decided, you know what, I'm going to make this a go and really dive into it?

Tara Chapman

Y'all, I had two. Technically, I had one because I started one and then a friend started one. We built our own top bars. And that's where the name of the company started was from these two original hives. Two hives, honey, it just sounds nice on the mouth, right? So that's where the name of my company comes from. So I technically had two, but I placed an order for 20 new, I think I started with packages, which also makes me laugh. The next year I had on order for 20 packages. So I worked with Bee Weaver the same spring that I went from one, we'll call it one and a half maybe, to 20. I mean, you could just see how like incredibly naive and frankly, like dumb this like whole thought level was. And my only saving grace, well, my, my major saving grace was that. So I worked for Bee Weaver, started these 20 colonies. So I was driving back and forth from Navasota, which is in East Texas, which is several hours away from Austin, you know, each weekend trying to like start the business and then like work for Bee Weaver during the week. And so when my time with them ended, it was just the spring, you know, seasonal engagement. And I came back to Austin, you know, I had 21. I was like, all right, what happens now? And my first, I mean, you know, I wanted to start a honey company and we do sell honey, but like, I didn't envision a world in which I would really, I don't make my money off of honey. Like no one makes money off of honey. Unless you're a honey packer and not a beekeeper. And so I, that's the irony. My first product was agritourism. Like I didn't know that term then that wasn't familiar to me, but I came back to Austin and I was like, okay, well, what happens now? I don't have any honey to sell. I was just observant. And I was like reading a bunch of books. I tell this story that I was reading this book called the hundred dollar startup. And in this book, there was like a section entitled get paid twice. And so this thought of like, how can you get paid twice for the same effort? And it's what inspired I thought, like, all my friends that come into town, like all they want to do is get into beehives with me. And I thought, I think I can charge for that, you know, and that was 12 years ago. So like agritourism existed, but like it was nothing to where it is today. And we were the first in the state of Texas to start like doing tours. And that's really where that was how I was able to quit my part-time job. I was like, I had taken a job running food tours part-time, which was useful with this experience. And by the end of the year, I was able to quit that job because I was paying myself enough to live by the end of the year. And it was all because of the agritourism.

Becky Masterman

Were all of your colonies in the same apiary?

Tara Chapman

I was spread across because my like original vision, which I thought was so original, which again turned out to be not original at all. But my vision was that I was inspired that different flavors or different honey harvests tasted different, had a different color. So the idea was this like notion of neighborhood honey. Right. And so, and I didn't own any land. I mean, I didn't own any land until 2020 is the first year that Two Hives bought land. And so I started putting beehives kind of all over Austin with this idea that I would have like the different neighborhood of honeys. And then as we grew and we needed places to do tours and such, I started doing partnerships with like my first site to do tours and hands-on classes was a farm. Shout out FarmShare Austin, this lovely nonprofit farm, our oldest partner. We still have bees there today. So we would do tours there, but there were no bathrooms. And so part of the instructions was like, turn left at the gas station, pop in and go to the bathroom. Because there's nowhere to go to the bathroom. And it was also manually. It's fun to talk about this because you think about it's so easy to get just pulled down in the day to day of a business. But to think about how far you've come. I mean, when I first started offering tours, there was an item on the website. So you would like it was like a product, right? You would click it and you would buy it. And then I would email you, hi, when would you like to do your tour? And we would like go back and forth with scheduling. And then I would be like, sure, for $50, I'll take you and your three friends out on Tuesday at 10am and do a tour for you. But you know, that's where you start. And of course, now, like it's all automated, and you go on and there's a booking system. And I haven't even run a tour in, you know, years. And that's where I started. So it's fun to like think about just the, you know, the hustle that it took to get here was a lot.

Jeff Ott

How many colonies are you running today? You started with one and a half, one and a quarter, maybe one.

Tara Chapman

Anywhere between like, as you know, like it fluctuates wildly, but we'll probably be at a peak of like 350 and the, you know, at our peak over the course of a year. And about a half, maybe a little less than half, are ours, production colonies or colonies at different key sites or leased colonies. And then about half of those are, we do do the ag valuation. We're folks looking for the ag. We'll pay us a service fee to take care of their colony. So we do a little bit of that. So yeah, that's the divide.

Becky Masterman

Are you still running top bar hives? I'm assuming Langstroth too? Or?

Tara Chapman

Or no. Yeah, only lanes. I loved, you know, we started on top bars, but like it just it just doesn't make sense, you know, for for us. I usually have a couple of like long lanes or maybe one top bar just for students to get to see and experience. But we're we're at the standard all lanes at this point.

Jeff Ott

One of the things you said in the last time you were on, you're talking about beekeepers should all be biologists before they're beekeepers. Is that still something you believe? Is that something that you instill on your students?

Tara Chapman

I do. Yeah. And honestly, there were several factors behind wanting to write the book, but one of them was wanting to have a super biology forward book. And honestly, I had to fight pretty hard through peer review to get that with one of my peer reviewers. really wanted the, you know, the like getting started beekeeping kind of up front, but I start all my classes that way. You know, we have an intro series of classes and before we ever put you in a beehive, you were first and foremost learning about biology because one, it's the most interesting part. Like it really hooks you, you know, if you're looking for a hook, like biology is it. And I want people to understand the nuance, like for beekeeping, I always say like, if a beekeeper goes into their second year and they were successful by whatever that means, meaning if you think success is honey or you overwintered or you were able to split or just your bees didn't die, whatever, and you didn't understand the nuance of the superorganism and the biology and all that, you really were just lucky. And so we are very biology forward in our classes and then, of course, the book, because I really think it's important for you to under, you know, we don't, you learn bee biology to be a good beekeeper. You can't like learn to be a beekeeper and then leave out the biology. I just don't think it's possible.

Jeff Ott

I mean, you have to start with the biology because that drives everything else you do throughout the year.

Tara Chapman

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I started teaching, you know, teaching all the bee schools in Texas. And then oftentimes I'll go even out of Texas for like larger conferences. And I'm always trying to find kind of unique things that no one's talking about or, you know, at every bee school, someone's teaching how to make a split, right? It's important, but I'm always trying to look for new and interesting things. And I developed a course or a class rather a couple of years ago about pheromones. And it had never occurred to me, but one day I thought, you know, someone had asked me, will you talk about honeybee behavior? And I thought, when you're talking about honeybee behavior, what you're talking about is pheromones. Just nobody understands the pheromones behind it, you know? So I developed this course and every time I teach it, I have it. I taught it over the weekend. And I have at least one person that's been around for a while, you know, like wouldn't be classified as a beginner that comes up and says, I had no idea about all of these pheromones that are going on. And again, it's really interesting. You know, it's really cool to listen to.

Jeff Ott

Let's take this opportunity to take a quick break and we'll be right back after these words from our sponsors.

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Becky Masterman

Tara, let's dig into the book. First of all, could you start with the title and actually why you chose that title?

Tara Chapman

Yes. So the title is For the Bees. And it's a funny, I think a funny story. Wrote the book. Then the publisher came to me and we're like, we have to pick a title. And, you know, I wrote a third of this book when I was pregnant, but didn't know I was pregnant. And then pregnancy was not in my life plan. Okay, let's put it that way. Learned I was pregnant in February of 2021. So on the cusp of bee season. So now I've got like, I'm on the hook for a book and I'm pregnant and gonna have a baby. a very challenging also was engaged and was planning a wedding like it was a very challenging year anyway so publisher comes to me and it's like okay we've got the book now we need a title and I was like I have no creative I've got nothing in in the tank left right and so they started doing some research and they came back I'll never forget they were like there's a lot of beekeeping books out there. And there's like this tinge of regret on their part. I don't know if they thought this was a new thing, but they were like, wow, there's a lot of beekeeping books. Oh my gosh. So the title comes from, I write this newsletter. I've been writing this newsletter for 12 years and it's been really successful for me. I share a lot of personal things there that I don't share anywhere else. And so I've always signed off the newsletter like for the bees, because this is what we're here for, is for the bees. And so the publisher was like, I was like, I got nothing. You tell me. And they were like, that's kind of a sweet little thing. It's important to you. Let's go with it. So I don't know if it's the best title, but it is personally meaningful

Becky Masterman

to me. And that's where we got it. I mean, it does signify giving them kind of recognition and the reason why so many of us do it, right? It's for the bees.

Jeff Ott

And I like the subtitle, A Handbook for Happy Beekeeping.

Tara Chapman

Oh, yes. Shall we? We should not forget the subtitle. Yeah. The amount of like, not arguing, the amount of discussion that went into that was intense and deep. And I wish I could remember some of the alternatives they came up with, but it was some heated conversations about this title because I had strong feelings about that. But that's where we end up. So For the Bees, a handbook for happy beekeeping was where we ended up.

Jeff Ott

So when we're not recording, we'll share stories on our discussions with publishers.

Tara Chapman

Oh, yes. I learned a lot. And I would love to just hear more about what it's been like for you, because what a humbling experience, right?

Becky Masterman

It's really, it's not just humbling, but it's also, you realize how much content you take in the beekeeping world and how much content is out there. And so you have to start this by saying, wait, what do we have to offer to this great pool of information out there?

Tara Chapman

Absolutely.

Becky Masterman

And it's interesting now because I will say that beekeeping has changed a lot. And there are a lot of really good beekeeping books out there, but they don't necessarily take into account what it's like to start beekeeping in the age of Varroa and to be all consumed with a pest and to learn biology, but having to learn it in context with really big challenges of keeping bees healthy. So I think that fresh eyes on that problem have to be really beneficial to new beekeepers out there.

Tara Chapman

Yeah, honestly, I really struggled with the pest chapter in itself because it's like, this needs to be like a whole book in of itself, you know? And so I decided to take the approach that because I was starting at the beginning, I mean, it really is for newbies, but it does not skimp on the nuance, that is for sure. And so it's not just for brand new beekeepers. Everyone can find, I think, a lot of value, but the pests and disease chapter was really challenging for me on how to approach it. And so I decided to take the approach of, listen, this is going to be sort of a chapter, like a reference guide of like, these are the, cause you also, I couldn't even talk about it. You can't talk about every, every thing that's out there, you know? And so I prioritize by the most common and the most detrimental, right? And so the, the most all hobbyists will probably never see American foul brood. Like it's important that you know about American foul brood, right. And so I took it as a, I took the approach of like a reference chapter and sort of like, you know, the past described it, how to identify it, some like prevention, some, some tips. And then like said, like, this is your starter kit. Like you're going to have to go out and learn

Becky Masterman

more, but this at least gives you a good primer is, was my approach. What was it like to write a book for all beekeepers? Because obviously you're, you're used to Texas beekeeping, but your book is for everyone. So was that challenging at all?

Tara Chapman

It was. Yeah. And I really wanted, because a lot of the books are written actually by Northern beekeepers, at least at that time. And I really wanted, several books have come out from even Texas folks since then, but I really wanted a book that would talk to anyone no matter where they were, which is really tricky. But you'll hear people say, all beekeeping is local, Which is true with a huge caveat in that what's different about your location is just what resources you have available and when. Right. Like the beekeeping is the same in Central Texas as it is in like Southern California. But, you know, Hillary, a girl next door, honey in Southern California, her bees are like odd. They're making honey in January. You know what I mean? And so I have a whole chapter on seasonal air quotes beekeeping, and I'm trying to convey this idea that we've got to get away from like, it's June 1st. What do I do this month? What do I do? You know, it doesn't matter because even if it, even if it did like with our erratic weather patterns, that has long gone. And so I tried to tell stories and narratives in the book that demonstrate like, you can't just be a biologist and a beekeeper. You also have to be a little bit of like a weatherman or a weather woman. You know what I mean? And you have to think about like, so in Texas, right in 2021, we had the same year I found that I was pregnant, you know, February 15th, we'd had a very, very warm winter. So for us, that means bees are foraging, but there is no nectar available. Even in a really warm winter, we actually have a pretty hard, it's a weird climate in central Texas, but bees will be foraging. No nectar is available, but all of the plants had germinated in pollen producing. They were on pollen flows because we had such a warm winter. February 15th, we woke up. That was the morning that I realized I was pregnant. This is a whole other story. And then we had two weeks at zero degrees, right? So it killed everything. And so we had to be feeding substitute pollen to bees that we had never fed pollen substitutes for because it killed, we had a whole species of wildflowers and plants that like didn't bloom that year because they had germinated, they were growing and then that freeze killed them. Right. And so that's something that if you were following, like, well, my mentor says on this date and this date and this date, you would have missed the boat because you, we couldn't plan for it. So we've got to, I'm always like harping on beekeepers to be paying attention and thinking about what this weather means and what does it mean for the flora? Because that is going to dictate what's happening in our beehives. Of course, there's different, you know, in Texas, we have small high bill and of course up north, not so much an issue. We have to contend more with wax moths because it's warmer, et cetera. Of course, you know, we don't have bears. There the weather patterns and how that affects your flora, that will dictate what's happening, whether your bees are building and expanding or contracting, right? So that's why I have a whole chapter on trying to hit home this notion of like, let's think of not in seasons, but think rather in terms of like resource availability and what that means for our bees.

Becky Masterman

I love that because it's really going back to how you started the biology. It goes back to the biology and then how the whatever nutrition is available can impact that biology and the superorganism. So that is a really, really helpful way. If you're learning to keep bees, it is so much more helpful than learning the exact calendar dates to do things because that doesn't work anymore. I think it used to work a long, long time ago, despite when we didn't have a roa. And now it's like putting together a separate case on every single colony because you'll see from within an apiary, different colonies are responding differently to the environment and the challenges that they have. So being able to teach that, Tara, is a really big deal because they're really valuable skills for any beekeeper to have, not just a brand new one.

Jeff Ott

Yeah, I love your approach to the biology first, the superorganism, and then how that's interacting environment and the flora and the weather to help drive your season as opposed to just going by the

Tara Chapman

street calendar. Exactly. And then like in Texas, like speaking of Varroa, which adds this whole other like complication to it is that in Texas, if y'all like saw how Texas beekeepers react when it hits like 45 degrees, like you would be like, are you kidding me? I mean, we really, We really just can't handle it. And what I'm trying to get across is like, our summers are our winter, right? We had 86 days of triple digits in 2023, 86 triple digit days. Like the reason beekeepers up North make more honey than our bees do is because our nectar flow has three months of like hell in the middle. You know what I mean? Like, and so that affects, you know, when a colony is not able to feed itself and has this huge dirt, that affects their ability to be hygienic. If they're just living off of sugar water and lots of bees, you know, west of Austin are in the summer, like you can't also ask this colony to be super hygienic. So it's all like tied together. In writing the book, you know, going back to this notion of like, there's so many beekeeping books, like what are we bringing to the table? It was a biology forward piece, but I also can't talk about the book without giving some flowers to my illustrator because my experience with the, and this is speaking very generally, and I don't want anyone that listens to this, that's written a book to be offended because it's not meant to, but very generally speaking, the books I found fell into like very serious books, right? Like the index thick, you know, slam this giant book on the table. All the information is there, but it's really hard to, it's not approachable and it's not relatable. And then the other end of the spectrum, which is beautiful coffee table books that, you know, are beekeeping books, but don't really address the nuance and don't really get into really what's helpful information for beekeepers for identifying, you know, all the things we've been talking about. And I thought, surely, can we not have the nuance and then also have a lot of joy and fun at the same time? So I knew I could bring the nuance. It could break it down into simple language. But this illustrator, her name is Carolyn. And she had, oh, I met her because she did a mural on the title. The dedication page is a picture of the first piece of art she did for us. It's a mural at our barn. I just love the work. And I said, you know, are you interested? And so I had some straight illustrations, right? I wanted to illustrate anatomy and some biology elements, et cetera. But I also wanted to have fun with it. And so I put her through beekeeping classes. And I said, you know, I want you to come back to me as a newbie and tell me like what struck you as fun or interesting or funny and let's brainstorm. So a lot of the like really silly fun things you find in the book is from her. She's the one that came up with the, you know, in the nutrition chapter, she drew the Lord Supper down to Judas with the knife at the back, which comes around later when we're talking about like murder balling and killing their queen. You can do this once again with Jesus as the queen bee in the middle. And like on the table is all of the macronutrients and all the things that bees need to survive for sustenance in a colony. And she's the one that came up with the like hilarious little bee doing like the twerking, the waggle dancing, you know, so she brought so much joy and fun to the book that it wouldn't be it without her. I love that.

Jeff Ott

That's funny. I've never thought of a twerking honeybee.

Becky Masterman

It's kind of perfect though, isn't it?

Jeff Ott

The visual is interesting.

Tara Chapman

And I don't know if y'all remember. So this book came out November, what year are we now? 2024. And I don't know if y'all remember like the last Summer Olympics in the opening ceremonies in Paris. There was an incident. People were very upset in God's country here in the US about the Olympics betraying the Lord's Supper by drag queens. Do y'all remember? And I remember sitting and watching the Olympics and I turned to my husband thinking about this illustration and I thought, do you think I'm going to get canceled because I have a queen bee Jesus in my book?

Becky Masterman

Oh my gosh. Have you gotten any emails about that? Or has it all been positive?

Tara Chapman

I have not. You know, it's funny. We'll have to like, after your book comes out, we'll have to circle up because the book comes out and it is like, it's putting everything out there that you, and you think, what if I forgot a period? What if I wrote the number two when it should have been the number three? I mean, the anxiety is so real and I definitely have gotten, you know, you're like helpful, helpful guys and gals, just a few sending me emails that want to like correct things. None of it is actually, it's people that don't know what they're talking about, but you know, there's a lot of those kinds of people out there. But I've not gotten anything yet. You know, maybe people have like suggestions about how I could have done it differently, but there's been no things that have been not factual that have been determined, thank goodness. But I will tell you, during the writing of the book, you know, in the book, it was when I wrote it, it was before Roe was in Australia. And it was very dumb for being honest. I'm like, I knew it was coming. I shouldn't have even put it in, but I did. And I had to pull it out of before it went to print because Varroa, you know, I thought, oh, this book cannot, it will be so dated. So I pulled it back and recrafted the language. But you know, things have happened since there's, you know, there's a little pest that's making its way towards the U.S. And so in the next printing, we'll be able to like at least address it. But something you got to think about is that if it takes you, you know, a year or two years, I mean, even once you write the book, it's another year before it comes out. So much can happen. Yeah.

Jeff Ott

Speaking along those lines, I keep thinking you're down where we originally thought the Africanized honeybee would be a major influence. Is that a consideration in your operations?

Tara Chapman

Yes, a small one. I mean, we definitely have those genetics where we are. We got plenty of like really mean bees. It gets more so as you get further south in Texas, but it's still warm enough in Austin, the Austin area where we definitely have those genetics for sure. And I've seen it many, many times. You know, it's a manageable concern. Like if you're actively checking your colonies, you know, when they go queenless, you know, when, you know, if they're requeening, then you start to see that, you know, that it's not like they're going to go from like chill to like Africanized level aggression overnight. So it's manageable. It's just that people aren't paying attention and they don't know what they're doing. And where it really becomes a factor is when you've got someone with bees at like a school or somewhere where just like oppression cannot be tolerated at all, you know? And so for, you know, I get asked a lot about like, well, if I lose a queen, should I requeen or let them requeen themselves? I mean, there's a lot that goes into that philosophically and can you get a queen and whatnot. But for those that have bees at places like a school, for example, I say, we really should just get you a queen as you can. The chances are just, we can't take the chances. You know what I mean? But yes, they have killed people. I don't mean to diminish the threat, but truly, we are, even if you're a beekeeper, you get in your car, you have exponentially more risk getting in your car every day than an Africanized call.

Becky Masterman

Tara, do you in your own operation mark your queens because of it or is it not that important? And then do you recommend that beekeepers have marked queens because of that?

Tara Chapman

We don't mark queens and I don't even recommend it. Because again, like if you're actively checking your colonies and inspecting for eggs every two to three weeks, every time you get in, you should know. You should know when you lose a colony and then you can like keep track of it. You know, honestly, most hobbyists would probably just kill a queen trying to mark her. Not across the board. But, you know, I was coaching a lady over the weekend and I was like, she was brand new. And she's like, I really want my queen to be marked. And I said, I want you to practice on drones until you know for a fact, because God forbid, you like damage your queen in the process.

Becky Masterman

Right. It's not a happy day if a queen is mispainted.

Jeff Ott

Or damaged in the process. Tara, it's been really joyful to have you back on the show and talk about your operation there in Austin and your book. And we'll make sure we have the link to your book in our show notes. Folks who want to look at it can go out there and click on it.

Becky Masterman

I have one more question.

Jeff Ott

Oh, go ahead. Before we end.

Becky Masterman

Okay. I know you mentioned the next printing of your book, but what about another book? Are you at all tempted to write about the business of beekeeping? And I can't think of that book out there. Is it? And will you do it?

Tara Chapman

Okay. I get asked this a lot. And my, like, knee-jerk response is like, hell to know. Y'all can relate. But I am never quite satisfied with anything in life. So I will say, so I have, this is more than you want to know, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I have this like immersive beekeeping program in Texas. I started it 10 years ago. It's a, you know, 50 plus hour program over eight months in person and online. And it is my baby. And it has been my baby until I had a real baby. And we're actually doing the last running of that this spring. And so that's going to free up real, I spent 25% of my Saturdays with apprentices over the last 10 years. And I have a four-year-old and I need my Saturdays back for my little guy, my favorite beekeeper. But anyway, so that's going to free up some time. And one of the things that I've been doing, you know, with y'all podcasts or anytime I'm asked to speak at a school, I've been pushing and asking for them to let me talk about the business of beekeeping because there's not a lot of stuff out there, either presentations or like literature or reading or otherwise. And so I've been speaking a lot on it the last couple of years. And so I'm thinking more about like how to, because I do want, I care about whether you're a, it's a side hustle or you're a sideliner or you have bigger, you know, visions. Like I want to help more folks that want to make this their money off of fees, you know? And so I'm trying to figure out ways to provide more for the community. So I don't know if we're at a book level yet, but I am toying with the idea of at least doing a sort of like version of the apprenticeship, but for people that are aiming to start or grow their B businesses. So, so stay tuned. It's like, you know, once I finished this spring, I'll have a lot more time and energy. So maybe we'll start there, but that's how this book, this book came about was that I had this apprenticeship program and I didn't have a text for them that I liked. I was like pulling random articles off the internet and whatnot. So that's how this book came about. So, you know, never say never, but I am invested and looking for ways to help others that want to grow their business, whether they're, you know, selling bees or they want to do agritourism or pollination or whatever.

Becky Masterman

Because if it's not an apprenticeship where you're hands-on with bees, it could literally be online and you could be across the country, right? So you could really engage and help beekeepers and it doesn't have to be on Saturday morning.

Tara Chapman

Exactly. So that is my goal. Exactly. That is my goal. And it can be recorded and shared. So that is my goal. I've been asked by a lot of my, a lot of folks that take this apprenticeship program, you know, have these grander visions. And so I've been asked by several. So I'm toying with that. I've been sending out some surveys and collecting data to see what people would want. That of course is going to entail me sitting down and kind of reverse engineering, right? Like, cause I do a lot of things that have like been successful and I like have good instincts, but trying to sit down and reverse engineer it, you know, I didn't go to business school. It's not like I was taught like any of this. And so trying to trace that back and like put that into like, same thing that I've done with the beekeeping, right? Of like reverse engineering and breaking it down and figuring out like what really works and kind of advise and guide people and make sure that I have something of value to offer there. But I hope that I do. So we'll see, stay tuned.

Becky Masterman

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that you do. Jeff and I know that you do. So looking forward to being able to talk about that. And once you do do that, let us know because it'd be great to release that to our audience so that they could take advantage of the class.

Tara Chapman

So you can find the book on our website. Of course, creators always like it when you buy direct for them. I know that doesn't make sense to everyone, but you can buy it at youhivestudy.com. It is on Amazon in both the US and the UK. And Lake carries the book along with a lot of small local bookstores. And then I always like to mention, I don't think people know this trick. I'm a big fan of libraries. And if your library does not carry the book, you can request it. And most always, they will pull in a book if it's been requested. So a great way to check it out and read it for free.

Becky Masterman

And we will be sure to include links so that people can check the show notes and purchase the book. And I highly recommend that whether or not you're a beekeeper learning to keep bees, in the very beginning, or if you're helping somebody start their journey, that you use this book for some great guidance.

Jeff Ott

It was nice having Tara back and talking to her more about her book and finding out what she's

Becky Masterman

doing and what it took to write it. It was. It's nice to hear the process and hear how much thought went into putting it all together. And honestly, those beekeepers who get to read it are going to

Jeff Ott

benefit from all of that work. Yeah, and she's a great example, or she demonstrates how beneficial it is to be creative in your approach to beekeeping and marketing to be able to generate a business out of it. And I like all that she's doing, especially from the education standpoint. It's really important to get the beekeepers off and a good start. It's one thing to start beekeeping

Becky Masterman

and then to start a business, but then to turn around and start supporting other beekeepers and sharing the good and the bad and, you know, a different approach to it. It's really nice. And I hope she starts that business apprenticeship for beekeepers. I think that a lot of beekeepers would really benefit from that.

Jeff Ott

I look forward to having her back. We'll talk about it. That's for sure. 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 Podcasts 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 Better Bee, our presenting sponsor, for their ongoing support of the podcast We also appreciate our longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their support in bringing you each week's episode And 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. ♪♪♪