2027 North American Honey Bee Expo with Kamon Reynolds (408)

0:00 I'm Tristan. And I'm Christina with TNC Be Co. And we're here at the North American Honey Bee Expo, and you're listening to Beekeeping Today podcast. Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Better Bee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott. And I'm Becky Masterman. Today's episode is brought to you by the Bee Nutrition Superheroes at Global Patties. Family operated and buzzing with passion, Global Patties crafts protein-packed patties that'll turn your hives into powerhouse production. Picture this: strong colonies, booming brood, and honey flowing like a sweet river. It's super protein for Your bees and they love it.

0:40 Check out their buffet of patties tailor-made for your bees in your specific area. Head over to www. globalpatties. com and give your bees the nutrition they deserve. 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 episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode.

1:24 and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www. beekeepingtoday. com. Thank you, Tristan and Christina, for that great opening from the North American Honey Bee Expo. Becky back in January. Jeff, are we gonna have to record extra episodes in twenty twenty-six to include the rest of the Openers that we recorded at the Bee Expo? Actually I'm very happy you asked me that question, Becky, because no, we're almost at the end I mean we're like a few away from the end of our bucket of pre-recorded openers, so any listener who wants to give us an opening For going into December, and we got four episodes in December.

2:10 We have to have openings for. Get 'em in. Send us. Yeah. You can send it to us, record it on your phone and send it to us, or you can click on the little microphone on our website in the lower right hand corner and record an opening there and we'll use it hopefully in the upcoming episode. You could have your whole B Club record an opening. Oh, wouldn't that be cool? That's so much fun. Becky, it's End of October, beginning November, what's going on? Well, I would just like to say that I'm packing my bags and sprucing up a couple of talks because I'm going to be at the Kansas Beacon the first weekend of November this year.

2:52 So I'm really looking forward to talking with that group and hanging out with them for their conference time. Have you been there before? Kansas, yes. Kansas, the Kansas Beekeepers, no. Alright, so this would be good. Since this is coming out on October 26th You know, I'll just be getting back. Actually, the morning that this comes out, I'll be on a flight back from Ohio from speaking at the Ohio State Beekeepers Association. So we're both packing our bags to talk to beekeepers. That's kind of fun. You're proactive. I wait till the n ye hours before I leave to pack. But I'm looking forward to Ohio State Beekeepers. I'll be talking to them about technology in a bee yard and hopefully get some interviews along the way.

3:36 I'll be stopping at the Bee Culture offices, our good friends there in Medina. And spending some time with our buddy Dr. Jim too. So I I'm really looking forward to Ohio. Not to mention getting to see family. Well, no one of the family listens to this podcast. Yeah. And he brought the bees up first. I'm guessing that's a lifelong issue for the album. Yeah though they're just kinda yawning at this point if they're le even listening. If only I was a honey bee. Well speaking of honey bees, how are your honey bees? Well, I was gonna say speaking of family, my husband is while we record actively on a shopping trip 'cause I need just a few more insulation boards for my colonies just to get them all set for winter, so I ran out and so, you know, it's nice to involve the family in and the family business.

4:31 There would be a single response by a my spouse to go out to the store and get stuff for the bees Well that's really cool. So you're in south-central Minnesota, you're not in a way north Minnesota. Yeah, I've never considered myself southern. Low th lower third of the state. I should know this, shouldn't I? I feel like we're not in the warm part of Minnesota. We're just above that. Is there a warm part of Minnesota? For Minnesota there is. Fair enough. But yes, you're right. The top of the lower thirty When do you have to have your bees ready for winter? That's such a good question. So the officially the answer is if you don't own snowshoes, you have to have them ready for winter before the snow prohibits getting to the colonies.

5:15 Which in some years could be October. But but for the most part The final touches, I think, go on in in November. Honestly I'm laughing because Are you laughing? Because why Same thing? Because you had to correct it earlier about what warm part of Minnesota and you're talking about snowshoes to determine whether to insulate your hives. Hey, snows and insulation. So anyway The part about getting your your bees ready for a northern climate winter is really making sure that they are supplied when they start raising brood, usually in January, unless you've got an Italian queen in that colony. I think I I secretly suspect they never stop.

5:57 But you want to make sure that they have access to pollen. You want to make sure that they have plenty of honey really starting in January. So so that's critical. But in January we might have temperatures that are well below zero for a couple of weeks at a time or Well below thirty-two at least for a couple of weeks at a time. And so you can't do anything then without really disrupting the colony. So when they need it and when you have to have it on are are really two different things, if that makes sense But yeah, so I I try to have everything done by November and I always get an oxalic dribble on, which I I wait until there's as little brood as possible so that I can it'll be as effective as possible.

6:38 And so That's usually that's usually end of October, early November. I miss the the very cold weather of Ohio and Colorado because during that time I knew the bees were consuming less and they were clustered and they were doing what bees do. And I've struggled and I and you know, I've I sound like I've just moved here, but I've been here for twenty years I'm a slow learner. But the bees here, it's mild winters. I mean, we'll get a week maybe of twenties or maybe even down to teens. But that's it. And most of the time it's in the forties and they're just, you know, chewing through resources and and managing that and all of the metabolism and all of that is a completely different wintering than what I was used to.

7:26 And then not to complain about Varroa, but then you add Varroa on top of that, then it's just a completely different ballgame. So yeah, wintering is is a challenge for all beekeepers, no matter where you are. I agree, I agree. And I I do think it might be easier it's probably easier based upon where you first learned beekeeping, right? Because that's where you first learned the dynamics and I really love the fact that I can't do anything because because it forces me to, you know, take a kind of an organized approach to getting them set for winter. And then if I don't have easy access to them, which I I don't for some of them, then it's just it's just easier to to know that I did everything I could to get them ready and and they're gonna be good.

8:07 That's the And and they do. They it's it's amazing. I will see the coldest temperatures for the longest stretches and I'll I'll know I'm like That cluster's too small, they're not gonna be able to get to you know, to new food and and yet, you know, you go there and and every every spring I'm just I'm so excited about the power of the the winter cluster and and uh and how how they're able to to make it through and thrive. It's it's really a fun thing to see For those listeners who are waiting for our hive IQ question, we're saving that to answer with our upcoming guest, Kamon Reynolds. Who will be joining us to talk about the 2027 North American Honey Bee Expo and everything he has in store for this year?

8:51 This will be a fun conversation. Oh, I'm looking forward to it. For more than forty-five years, Betterbee has proudly supported beekeepers by offering high-quality, innovative products, providing outstanding customer service, many of our Staff are beekeepers themselves, and sharing education to help beekeepers succeed. Based in Greenwich, New York, Betterbee serves beekeepers all across the United States. Whether you're just getting Started or a seasoned pro, Betterbee has the products and experience to help you and your bees succeed.

9:32 Visit betterbee. com or call 1-800-632-0. Better Bee, your partners in Betterbeekeeping. Hey everybody, welcome back sitting around this great big virtual beekeeping today podcast table City in Tennessee, we have none other than Kamon Reynolds in St. Paul. We have Becky and I'm of course in Olympia. Kamon, welcome back to the show. Hi, Jeff and Becky. Thanks for having me again. So happy you came back and and are willing to share more of your time with us. Thank you, Kamon. Yeah, I'm happy that you're willing to come on the show, especially after spending a couple of weeks ago we were together in Washington State.

10:18 And you had to put up with my driving across the mountains and um a car full of other uh show speakers. So I'm glad that you joined us today. Did you record that whole drive there and back and then will we be hearing it in upcoming episodes? Should have. It would have broke the internet probably. It would 've be worth some money. Uh that's all I'll say. But To everyone who's wanting to know what was said, I did record the panel discussion from the state meeting. If everything goes well, we'll have played the week prior to the release of this episode. So uh you can go back and listen to the Washington State Beekeepers panel discussion on the week before this one.

10:58 But let's not talk about the past, let's talk about the future. How are you doing? I'm doing really good. So it's it's been a little warm here. Bees are still flying and a honey flow fall honey flow is over and so we're just kind of batting down the hatches on the bees, removing excess space. positioning the honey above the the bottom brood chamber if we're running double deeps and making sure that everything's ready to go into winter. But primarily we're working on the B expo. There's so many things going on with that. There's some new things. And you guys are helping us with some of those new things. So there's just the Bee Expo, once we get to October, the vendors are starting to release their deals.

11:39 There's so many attendees starting to engage. And it is just going to ramp up and get crazy between now and January 7th. I don't think Beekeepers ever lose their excitement for the B Expo. So each year as it gets closer, I'm just guessing that you have a lot more enthusiastic beekeepers who are ready to go, who want more information, who can't wait to see those specials. Is that is that true? Are you seeing that momentum build faster? And larger? We do. And so a lot of it is because everyone's gotten more used to what the B Expo is. A lot of people were confused and a lot of people assumed it was a regular B conference.

12:23 And we do have some things similar to many B conferences. We do have a great lineup of speakers, like a lot of other conferences do. This year it's expanded double, so we have over 70 hours of lectures and opportunities, not including some other educational sources. Heck, the darn trade show. is an educational resource. We have Dr. Robyn Underwood teaming up with several other groups and universities to bring So much education to their booth, and I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head. I'll get a text from Robyn here shortly. Um and uh it's gonna have a microscope in there, dead triple Alapse mites, yellow-legged hornets, and all kinds of other information.

13:08 There are so many interactive booths. There's some companies that are now doing workshops inside of their giant booths at the show So if you love beekeeping, it doesn't matter if it's top bar hives, all the way up to commercial beekeeping, we have sessions for you, we have massive extractors for you, or hand crank extractors for you If you're a beginner, so we just have it all and the vendors really do bring great pricing to the show because whenever it says free shipping online You know, they're accounting for that. There's no such thing as free shipping. Especially these days. Well, 100%. You know, there's there's no such thing as free shipping. And so when you come to the Bee Expo, the vendors are able to bring a semi-load.

13:50 Some of them are bringing multiple semi-loads. When we say that anyone who buys a halfway decent amount of equipment can pay for their ticket and savings, we're not kidding. It's very common for folks to do that. Now if you're flying in, it's not quite as easy, but we do have the Mann Lake shipping department. And you can ship stuff. And last year we I was talking to some people while I was in Washington and they ship stuff back to Washington because the deals are still that good. that even paying for shipping, they're saving money at the B Expo. So we do a lot of things there and and you guys have been with us for a while now. So there's just a lot of great people. For no other reason Come to the Bee Expo to just get to hang out with the movers and shakers and fun people that are in the realm of beekeeping.

14:36 It's just a big party. When you talk about hanging with the the the movers and shakers, I mean that's just a small part of it. The other is just all the other beekeepers. I mean, not even the movers and shakers. It's just People like Becky and I just walking around and starstruck and dumbfounded by all the neat equipment that you read about, but you never get to see. And here you see it set up And you can go in and touch it, you can see how it works, you can talk with the person who designed it. You were talking about big extractors, and it was really fun to see some I I think it was Cowan who had the whole extracting setup in a trailer and you could go and see how they set it up and you could talk to them about how they put it together and how they envision it being used.

15:19 And that was just amazing to be able to see that You said earlier, you know, dumbfounded. I I I have a hard time believing Becky would be dumbfounded, but not so much you, Jeff. And there are people that look forward to meeting you guys. They I know folks that listen To beekeeping podcasts while they're you know, I used to drive a truck, I was a semi-truck driver, and so I know truck drivers that are beekeepers as well, and they're listening to podcasts, and so there's a lot of people that look forward to meeting You all at your Beekeeping Today podcast booth, like you said, there's a lot of people that aren't maybe high profile people like Bob Benny. or Michael Palmer, who are two people that will be there this year.

16:00 They're just a lot of good people in beekeeping. That's why part of the reason why we love it so much is I love bees, but I also love beekeeping people. Sure, there's always a couple nuts, but most of them don't come to my conference because they're intimidated by me. I'm kind of a you know, a big dude. And so there's a lot of concerns that they have about meeting me face to face so they don't show up, those guys. Yeah. I don't know how to respond to that one, Kamon. I I um I just let it go. I'll leave it to Fred and John Hill to respond to those kind of comments. I just would like to say that that there was a Hillco warming cabinet in between I think me our our booth and then I think the coffee and muffins and it is now in my kitchen.

16:47 I mean there that it is so nice to see what tools there are to help make our our beekeeping lives easier. And that trade show is is fantastic. You mean just absolutely fantastic to peruse. and wish list shop and then eventually buy. What are the dates of the show this year in twenty twenty seven? January 7th, eighth, and ninth is the the show dates this year. And this year, unlike past years, It's all day Thursday. So typically in the past, it's half a day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday. This year, Thursdays all day. For the speaking sessions, the trade show on Thursday won't start till midday, but the vendors need a good bit of time to prep.

17:33 We've expanded the trade show significantly. So Anyone who's come in the past needs to know that things are going to be shifting around. Like what they do at Sam 's Club and Walmart and Costco. They're always moving things around. We're not doing that because We're trying to get you to see new stuff. We're reshaping the entire trade show floor due to necessity. We've already increased our vendor count this year. by 50 vendors. And so that's exciting. There's gonna be a lot of new stuff. There's a lot of expansion in booth space. And like I said, we're doing a lot of workshops that are provided by the companies themselves. Dancing B out of Canada. has multiple workshops and they do a great job.

18:18 And so there there's a lot of unique things going on this year. We also are I was talking yesterday to a company called Nectar And they've been at our show in the past and they have this technology and I was a little skeptical at first, but I talked to one of my commercial beekeeping buddies. And you can put it in the entrance of your hive, and it can, according to this commercial beekeeper, it'll detect if you're queenless or not, or if you have high mite pressure or not. Within fifteen seconds of putting that in the entrance, and they say the accuracy is as good as an employee getting their eyes on the colony and giving you an assessment. That's how accurate the technology is. And so that's the kind of s new stuff that comes to the show.

19:02 Becky said a warming cabinet, that was a new thing that Hilco brought it out a couple years ago. I know of several other new things dropping at the show this year I can't talk about at this point. However, for those who love innovation and and want to also talk to those innovators and maybe give suggestions or feedback. That's a lot of what this show is about too. Meet those companies face to face. Look them in the eyes and see if they actually are interested in beekeeping. Because some of them aren't and some of them really love the whole industry. And so I think it's really cool for the consumers to get to meet the producers and the innovators. And uh make some relationships there or or maybe blow one up.

19:45 You know, that's how it goes sometimes. Who are some of the other speakers and some of the topics that will be this year's expo? There is a long list, so I'll just do the best that I can to summarize it down. So of course Bob Benny has been with us every single year. Him and Randy McCaffrey were at our first event. And so Bob They're always going to be invited back and until they just say no. And so far they keep coming back. And so we have some new people though, like Michael Palmer. We also have speakers like Stephanie Slater, who's going to be talking about honey shows and preparation and just how to make your product shine.

20:28 Not uh just at the honey show, it's also gonna help you at the farmers market and help you stand out. There's gonna be speakers like Sandra out of Canada talking about how to make more money off of a a smaller operation of around, you know, 10 to 20 hive size and and and to make money outside of just honey. We're gonna have Vicky Atkinson talk about top bar hive beekeeping. Cameron Spath talk about commercial beekeeping and Rainier Ike, who was in the past one of our next gym kids. He now the last couple of years or so has worked for a commercial beekeeper and run his bees on the side. And so that would that's what our next gen program is for is whether they're getting into commercial beekeeping or sidelining or whatever capacity.

21:13 these young men and women are are also educators and several of them are speaking at schools. They're speaking at their uh bee clubs and they're doing so in their teens and so that's so impressive and we want them to keep coming back. So Rainier is going to be speaking. about commercial beekeeping. And then Natalie Summers is going to be talking about how to raise queens on the small scale side of things. So if you're a smaller beekeeper with just a small apiary She can teach you how to do that successfully, and Natalie's really good at that. We have so much more. Dr. Robyn Underwood will be giving a presentation on how to begin to do your own microscopy work and assess things in your bee art.

21:56 And so that's going to be a great talk. And we created this because we have a Workshop ourselves. Dr. Robyn Underwood is putting this on, and there's going to be several different microscopy courses. Now, this is the only thing that doesn't come with your ticket. Everything from our Massive honey bar, the honey show, everything in the trade show, all the regular lectures, 70 hours worth, is with your ticket. The only thing that is separate. is the microscopy thing that we do. And that's because we can only fit about eighteen people per room and the microscopes are finite. And the teachers, it's hands on instruction. So for that We will be opening a lottery system that's going to run the end of October through November.

22:43 And during that period, anybody can enter into it and we'll pull names. And whoever gets polled, I believe there's 280 spots this year, which is a lot for a microscopy workshop. And we'll let people know. So I wish we could give that to everybody. It's highly sought after. That is um one of the other things that we have. Oh goodness, there's, you know, of course, Michael's giving talks about overwintering bees, overwintering nucleus colonies, honey production. Uh so much management tips up there in Vermont. I mean I can't even go through the entire list. We're not even close. It it it would take me 30 minutes to remember and and describe everything.

23:26 So we have the schedule online And whenever anyone goes to our website, they can go to attendee info right there at the top, and it'll drop down a little tab and it'll say everything from beginner beekeeping, which is something we need to talk about. It'll talk about the speaker schedule, honey show, honey bar, and how you can get involved and swapping honey out And also maybe even contribute a jar of your own honey to our North American honey bar, which had nearly 160 types of honey last year and was probably the biggest hit of last year's show. So there's a whole lot going on, guys Hey, let's take this opportunity to take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna ask you for your help in answering a listener question.

24:10 For a hive IQ tool giveaway. And then hopefully we can talk about how Becky and I will be helping you this year at 2027 honey Bee Expo. So stick around, we'll be right back Beekeeping is demanding work. The last thing you need is equipment that can't keep up. That's why Premier Bee Products builds every frame and hive body in our South Dakota factories with one goal in mind. Reliability when it matters most. From our beefy pure frames to our natural profile high bodies with rough interiors, we design for long life, in the field and in the colony.

24:51 Because we believe that in beekeeping, Details make all the difference. Premier Bee Products better for bees, better for beekeepers. Visit online at premierbeedproducts. com or call us today. Use promo code PODCAST for 10% off your Next online order. Beekeepers, if you're looking for a smarter way to support colony health, take a look at bee bites from strong microbials. Bee bites are a new protein patty made with spirulina, Chlorella and targeted probiotics designed to support nutrition without creating new problems in the hive. With 15% protein, bee bites are unique because they do not attract small hive beetles.

25:36 A big deal if you've ever been. Saddled infestations during feeding. Strong Microbials has been supporting beekeepers and farmers since 2012, developing high-quality commercial probiotics and nutritional supplements you can trust. Learn more about bee bites and their full line of bee nutrition at Strong Microbials. Welcome back everybody. I'm so excited, Kamon, that you're gonna help us answer this question. I really look forward to hearing what you have to say. Hey Jeff, do you mind reading the question for us? Sure, I have it pulled up right here. This week's question comes from Paul Dooley. He lives in the northeast, and I'll read it from here. He says I've allowed two colonies to requeen themselves in September.

26:18 Both queens made it and started laying in late September. However, one hive had dwindled down and died by November, and the other hive had its queen replaced by late March. Is this typical of late mating? His question is y how do you handle Lake Queens and beekeeping going into the fall? And I see actually he's from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I'm just want to clarify. So this happened last year? Yeah, it sounds like it it happened last year and going into this fall. How do you handle late season queens? Well that's really tough. I mean, especially for being as far north as he is. Even in Tennessee, September is late. It's not impossible. But there's there's a lot of things that can happen here.

27:00 And so number one is someone who's raised thousands of queens over the last twenty-something years and has buddies that are really skilled at raising queens better than I am and know way more about queen mating. percentages. I mean guys that are raising fifteen thousand queens a year and they know if this yard's producing a few percent too less or not, they cull the yard. They're gonna move it somewhere else. So I I don't have as much knowledge about this as a lot of people do, but I will say there's a lot going on here. So number one, Queen mating late in the season. typically is harder for a myriad of reasons. There's typically less drones, and what drones you have are usually much more highly infested with Varroa mites because Varroa mites greatly prefer drone brood.

27:44 And so if the mite population is higher in the fall or late summer, which it almost always is, then those drones aren't going to be as great. And typically, especially in Tennessee, I have a dearth period for two months between late June and the end of August. And sometimes in a bad year it'll go longer. So the nutrition quality and quantity has dropped significantly. So we'll have some drones, but there's there's going to be fewer They have a higher chance of being infested, and they're also going to be fed less copiously, as they would in spring or early summer And so the chances of having quality drones is going to significantly drop down.

28:25 Now for one or two queens, oftentimes that still not might not be a problem. But let's say that the queens did get mated properly. This is a bad time of the year to be re-queening. If the colonies are really strong and everything's really efficient, that doesn't mean they can't overwinter. But oftentimes losing that head of steam in a long winter reduces the cluster size. That can really lead to the colonies collapsing. Or the queen doesn't get mated properly. We've had some that'll lay good for a month and then they just go drone layer. They they've run out of sperm, so they didn't get enough. So it's really hard to know. This is one of the fascinating and frustrating things about beekeeping is that there's just a lot of stuff that happens with queen mating that we just don't fully understand.

29:11 It just they fly out, they go wherever they go, they mate with whatever drones that they run into, I suppose. And then they come back and There's just so many different things that can happen. But as far as the queens in the following season getting re-queened, I would think that she didn't get mated quite good enough. But it was enough to get the colony through We see that from time to time. I last year came out of winter with two beautiful clusters who I thought were fine. Opened them up. One had a a drone lane queen. She had run out of steam. About eight frames of coverage, but a drone laying queen. And then the other one was just a big cluster, and I don't even know what happened to the queen.

29:51 Queenless. This is why we overwinter nucs. We have two main reasons for losing bees in our operation. Number one is mite -related instances, and if as long as we do a good job controlling them, we really don't see a lot of losses from those. But that would be our number one reason for loss if we didn't really focus on the mites. But then the next one down the line is queen-related events. And it could be a colony swarms and the queen doesn't come back. Or the queen doesn't get mated properly, or whatever. Queen related events outside of Varroa mites are my number one reason for loss. And so we hedge against those losses by producing queens when it's easy in late March for us, April, May, and early June.

30:36 It's easy for us to get high quality queens mated at that time because that's when nature has made it for Tennessee for those queens to be successful. So we make extra nucs, usually around 50 nucs for our operation, so that at any time we have one of these issues, We plug a nuc into it with a high quality queen and we fix it. And I know for smaller beekeepers this is tougher, but whenever even if you're just wanting to run two hives of bees, Have those two production hives make you a nuc or two. Purchase a queen from somewhere else or use a ripe queen cell in the springtime when nature wants to produce high-quality queens. And have those backup insurance colonies. And if you do that, you'll find yourself in a position of being queen rich.

31:18 And when you're queen rich, you can fix those issues quickly, timely, so you get big clusters going into winter. And then if you end up with too many bees, because some years you'll you'll have too much survival, which is awesome. You can always sell those to somebody at your local B Club or expand your apiary because we love that. Kamon, that was so well said I I love where you ended up and I found the same thing in my operation that that it's the the queens are driving losses and so there's a lot of of combining colonies. in the fall, when especially when I was I was doing letting them raise their own queens, doing walk aways.

31:59 But what I found is that when I started keeping spare queens If I didn't need them in the fall, I could just winter single deep colonies. And so even in a northern climate that can be done. So it it is something for for beekeepers. You're right. They can expand their operations, but they can also use that insurance and and get them through to spring where they they might find that drone layer in the colony, which I definitely see that too. Well, thank you, Kamon. Thank you, Becky, for answering Paul's question. And Paul, I will reach out to you via email, get your shipping address, and I'll send you that beautiful, shiny, Hive IQ hive tool and uh you can look for it and use it this fall.

32:43 To help keep his spare queens next year. Exactly. Team and the North American Honey Bee Expo has been I think we've participated four years now. This will be our fourth year. We've helped out or we've been there. This year we're helping out. Tell me again, what are we doing? Jeff. This year in particular, I decided if I'm gonna have to deal with you guys, I'm gonna keep you busy. We've wanted to do this for a while and the problem with the Bee Expo, it's one of the the great things about it, but also one of the biggest logistical problems is this thing's way bigger than just a couple of people. It's a giant hive at this point.

33:25 And just like a hive has different jobs, you have some bees collecting water and some that are cleaning the nests up and some feeding the brood, we we need different people to show offering different things to different groups of young beekeepers, new beekeepers. They came in. I've got to interrupt you here. Does that make you the queen? Oh the colony. No, I I'm just the head drone. Laurel's the colony. Jeff. Kamon's already told us who's in charge. You know, that that was Laurel calls the shots. If we you know, and and I get to do all the talking because she lets me and she doesn't want to, but Laurel, whenever we have any big decisions I always talk to my wife about it.

34:08 She is so smart. She thinks through things so well in a different way than I do. And she often finds a lot of issues or holes in my reasoning. And so between the two of us, I usually am the ambitious one and she's the level-headed one. And so we balance each other out. This beekeeping foundations is what you guys and we have agreed to call it, and I love that name because we want to start with the foundation for these new beginners. And we have Always had a group of people that want to come to the show, but they're rank beginners and they don't know anything. And our show, because of our inability to be able to handle Everything under the sun, we've just tried to focus on a handful of things well.

34:52 I know to some people it may seem like that's not what we're doing, but there's been a lot of things that we could do that we just have chosen not to. But because Jeff and Becky have now agreed to help us with this. And of course, you guys have a beginner book coming out. And after reading through the uh the draft of that, I'm like, you know what, these guys Put this together, you guys would do a great job, and then you guys said, Yeah, we're we're gonna we're gonna do that. You guys have put a lot of work into scheduling out seven different sessions for rank beginners. So anybody that you know, any of you guys in the audience that is at your bee Club, they're they just started maybe late in the season or they're wanting to get into it this coming year.

35:33 If you're wanting to get them or if they're wanting to get really good education all in one spot and not just the beginner stuff when the classes are done, Walk out into the trade show and see the starter hive kit that maybe you need to get. Maybe you don't have a smoker. Maybe you don't have a bee suit yet. You can try on different B suits. Becky and Jeff will be able to walk you through not only the beginner stuff, but there will be time for questions that you can ask to help you get started properly and fundamentally so that you can be successful much quicker with bees and take off faster. And the difference between quality education and and poor education is massive.

36:14 I was one of those that didn't go through something like this. And I look back now and and go, if I would have gotten the proper education, I could have done what I did in the first ten years of my beekeeping experience in two to three, with the proper guidance. And so that's what the Beekeeping Foundations is about. And I think it's so well put together between all of us that not even Jeff can mess it up I would just like to say, Kevin, it it's such a such a great opportunity because I've I've taught a lot of beginning beekeeping classes, but to teach one within something like the Bee Expo, where we can not just talk about how to understand the connection between honey bee biology and management, but we can say, hey, go check out the honey show.

37:00 hay or the honey bar. Go check out the honey show and and see what what your actual entries could could lead to down the road when you when you start getting some experience. Let's go check out different types of ways to make comb honey when we can direct beekeepers to those hands-on resources where they can talk to real beekeepers and and really just they're gonna they're gonna be so good so fast because of these these close up experiences that they get to have during the class period. One of the things I really looking forward to for our attendees to the course Is often in a class, in a beginning beekeeping class, the speaker talks about whatever, a piece of equipment, or extractor, or a hive tool, or a frame of honey, or a A Langstroth versus a top bar, and it's just a picture and a PowerPoint slide.

37:56 And it's just it's 2D. It's on a slide in front of the person. At the expo, the attendees going to be able to go out and visit and touch and feel and pull frames out of a top bar hive or pull frames or open up an Apimaye hive. Or talk to the people who who make hive sensors and find out more about those. Or look at a propola hive and look at the rough interior of that hive and how that is different from a smooth interior. So it's just additional tools to make the learning experience better for the student. And that's that's the exciting thing I'm finding about preparing for this course.

38:37 I I agree. The whole goal of the North American Honey Bee Expo, there's many goals, but if there was one thing I had to say that this is what we want to do, it's we want to inspire. And I don't want to just inspire other people. I get inspired every year by new things or and some it's not always some big beekeeper. Sometimes it's a husband -wife team that run 10 hives and they've Created a new flavor of creamed honey that is a delicious organic mix of maybe orange and chocolate, which by the way is a great creamed honey combination. And the and then there's uh folks that won a blue ribbon at our show a few years ago where they figured out how to make turn honey into cotton candy.

39:20 And of course, they're selling it at their booth at the county fair. And some people will say, well, you know, it probably isn't as healthy for you that way. You don't go to the county fair to get healthy, okay? Have you seen kind of people? That's right. Those people who are saying they have never been to a Tennessee County fair, sometimes the the country boys are giving competition to the livestock on poundage. And so I think there's so much opportunities to be inspired with tools and techniques and and I run a more of a professional slash commercial style business because it's efficient.

40:00 And and that's why I have to do, but sometimes I've grabbed a long leg stroth hive or a top-bar hive and I've taken it home because there's so much fun to to do that. And so not everything will inspire everyone, but there's there's always this one or two th things over here that's you didn't know about like, man, I've got to try this in my B operation this year. And so For the beginners, I want to inspire them greatly. And it reminds me of when I went to Walter T. Kelly. This is what we're trying to shoot for, is when I went to Walter T. Kelly is a teenager and I got to see all of that. I was just like, man, I want to get to buy a lot of this equipment.

40:43 One day I want to have enough honey production. I'll need this. And it was just so cool to be a part uh see that piece of the beekeeping world. And that's what we're trying to do with the B Expo Whether it's coming from Canada, the UK, Australia, all over the United States, and way more, we want you to be inspired and just have a fun time. It I say a beekeeping party, that's what it is. It's a friendly atmosphere. And if you're a friendly person that likes to talk bees, holy smokes. But three days go by fast. I'll even say I I've talked to some shy beekeepers who who still love going to the expo because even if you might be a little bit on the uh less inclined to engage side, you can you can be a part of this experience and still gain so much information.

41:36 I think that's important that people know that you won't be forced to socialize. Hey, I I want to say also one of the cool things about this foundation's class, Kamon, is that you have let us invite guest speakers. So it will it will not just be the two of us talking bees, but it will be at least seven or eight of us talking bees. And so it'll be a great array of experts who will be sharing this information. We'll have uh links in the show notes, but for those who are not looking at show notes, where can people find more information about the North American Honey Bee Expo? So it's real easy and the the main website is n -ah -b-e-xpo.

42:18 com. So just Go to the website. There's everything that you could want in there. There's even videos on the front page that'll show you what last year's show looked like. Just whenever you see that video, know that we're Gonna be bigger than that. This next year so last year was it was good but we we can do better, so we're gonna do better. No our our videographer did a great job We have a Facebook group which is very interactive and it especially the previous three months to the show, it's hot and heavy. And so right now vendors are posting deals, people are asking questions, of course And we also have an app. So the app is exclusively for people who have purchased tickets.

42:59 But when you get your ticket, you can access this app and you, it's like a beekeeping forum in there. For about four months out of the year, 90 days before the show, and I think it runs another 30 days after the show. And so there's a ton of people who maybe, like Becky said, aren't maybe extroverted and outgoing, but they they they will meet their buddies maybe they're for the first time. They meet them in this forum and they talk bees and they find out, oh, there's gonna be a Iowa meetup at the B Expo. And so I'm going to go to that and you find other people in your state. Or maybe other people that are doing top-bar hives like you in that form. And of course there will be other information in the app as well.

43:40 You can even Create a schedule. So there's several different ways to learn about the expo. It's basically lim only limited by your the amount of Time and energy you put into it. But the Bee Expo can be really simple. You can buy a ticket, you can show up, and you can just peruse the aisles, chat if you want to, you know, poke fun at Jeff because it really is truly fun. And but there's there's so much unique people. When you have 4,000 people, and that's last year altogether we had 4200 people. and about fifty semiloads of product. Out of that many people, you have all kinds of folks. You have people who are beekeepers that are actually engineers or lawyers or they're doctors or they're like me and they're just a country boy And well then there's nothing wrong with that.

44:29 We're usually pretty good at fixing things with a little bit of duct tape and you know some chewing gum or something like that. So there's all types at the show. You can find which group you fit in with and some people are like my dad, they only need one buddy and they're good for the rest of their life. And so I that's not the type of guy I am. I have hundreds and hundreds of friends and and you guys are two of them, um especially Becky. So um I feel like I'm at home. That's uh thank you. Yeah, thank you, Kamon. I've I'm having fun. This is great. Jeff, it's all it's all good. It is like family and I appreciate you being here, Kamon.

45:11 Even the ribbon I enjoy. The twenty twenty seven North American Honey Bee Expo. It's gonna be a kickoff to a good year and I'm looking forward to it. And thank you for coming on the show today to talk to us about the plans for the show. And inviting us to be part of the foundation's program. I should say thank you to you guys and I just want to say real fast thanks to all of our team and staff and and individuals like you and Becky that really put a lot of energy into our show. There's a lot of good people in this industry and they just want to help others out. Our platform is quite large and we're able to offer a few things, but A a lot of what we need now is is is people like you guys to come in to uh the B Expo and and be creative like you are creative and and create new opportunities for a demographic of beekeepers we've never been able to to handle before.

46:04 That's really what makes the Be Expo special is there's many hundreds, if not thousands, of people that are really trying to just help support one another. And that's what makes the Bee Expo fun and exciting. Is you can feel that at the show. I have no doubt this Beekeeping Foundations is going to be a highlight for several individuals and I think uh folks will be really interested in in seeing what else is coming uh that we I haven't announced yet at the show. So you know Jeff I I like to tease you because in the South that's how we show affection. So that means I I don't hate you. If I if I get quiet, that's that's when you know I d I'm I'm upset. So I was so much fun hanging out with you in Washington.

46:46 We had a blast. I I really enjoyed that. So uh now I just need to hang out with Becky a little bit. You know, I've I've had the Jeff tour. It was all right. I'm sure Becky can do a better job. So Minnesota came in. I would just like to say that that I think well of course you s you said it well Kamon, but the Bee Expo is this great coming together of beekeepers who want to keep bees better and while they might have different ideas how to do it It is such a great resource for anybody who really wants to become a better beekeeper and have healthier bees. And so you you're making great space for that, as well as celebrating the hive and and product But I like the resources you're giving everybody as far as helping them keep these.

47:32 The one thing that we haven't mentioned, and I do want to say this before we came in leaves, is that the big thing about the show that everyone comments on is the positive energy. in the hall. There's not a frown amongst anybody. And everyone's smiling, everyone's walking around kind of glazed over especially by day three because it's so overwhelming and everyone's friendly, everyone's cooperative, everyone's learning. So it's thank you, Kamon, for making that available for beekeepers. It's wonderful I didn't mention this earlier, but you know, a lot of other topics like Corey Stevens, I know you guys have had him on probably That just shows you how desperate you guys are are for content.

48:12 But Corey and and a couple others will be talking like Dr. Crispin Given will be talking about might resistance. And so this isn't just how I keep bees. Th this is just a this is a g a big party and and the culture is important to us. Well, I think I said this earlier. The average beekeeper is a really great person. The majority of the people when I go speak are awesome. They're very just nice people. I don't know how sometimes these B meetings get a little cantankerous. I think it's because whenever you have a board in place, It just gets a little that way. We won't get too much into bee politics, but there's a lot to talk about there. But we we don't have any bee politics at our show.

48:54 Basically we have one queen bee, and that's Laurel. And as long as Laurel is happy Everything runs. She's there, isn't she? She's there in the room. She is. She is. Well played, Kamon. Well played. Well Kamon, thank you. I look forward to talking to you here in just a few weeks in the beginning of January. Until then, let us know if there's anything we can do and we'll be working hard to make sure the foundation works well. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Thanks, Kevin. Can you believe we're already talking about going back It seems like we just got back from there. Okay, so a lot has happened since the last expo.

49:37 I know, but it seems I don't what's going on with your bees. I would just like to say a lot has happened. But but I think it is exciting because it's it's such a kind of a fun filled It's like a reunion now. I mean I I absolutely love the listeners that I've met at the expo and and it's just so much fun to reconnect with the listeners and I can't imagine what it's going to be like this year because we are I mean we have real friendships with people and which I I think is is fantastic. So can't wait to see everybody. It's one thing to be sitting here in podcasting offices and talking into the microphone and talking to our guests and knowing intellectually that people are listening because we see the numbers But to actually be there on the floor and have people come up and talk to you and say, Hey, I listened to the show while I'm driving to the store or picking up the kids or working my bees or whatever, they're actually listening It makes it worth it as a beekeeper podcaster and I appreciate that time.

50:39 That is so well said because it's it is. It's one thing to to record a podcast and, you know, every once in a while hear somebody say something and we love it when somebody writes in and says something. But to actually be on that floor and have so many people engage with us is just Oh, that's exciting. And then the opportunity, the honor to teach new beekeepers. I I take that so seriously just to bring somebody into the beekeeping world. And okay, I like to influence them a little bit with my opinions. But it's so much fun, Jeff, to be able to to really give people a foundation for for keeping bees well and learning how to learn about beekeeping. And I think that's what we're gonna try to do.

51:21 And 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 Keepers 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 BetterBe, 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.

52:02 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