[Bonus] Short - Inside Bee Culture Magazine: Medina’s Beekeeping Legacy

[Bonus] Short - Inside Bee Culture Magazine: Medina’s Beekeeping Legacy

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Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast Shorts, your quick dive into the latest buzz in beekeeping.

Becky Masterman: In 20 minutes or less, we'll bring you one important story, keeping you informed and up to date.

Jeff: No fluff, no fillers, just the news you need.

Becky: Brought to you by Betterbee, your partners in better beekeeping.

Jeff: Hey, everybody. I'm sitting here in Medina County in Medina, Ohio, talking to the production team of Bee Culture Magazine. Let's go around the table and introduce everybody.

Jerry Hayes: Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate that. I hate to see you use the word editor of Bee Culture, because we are a production team, and we all do multiple, multiple things. I like the term team, because we all work so hard together to turn Bee Culture into the best beekeeping magazine there is.

Jen Manis: Hi, I'm Jen Manis. I work with all the advertisers, all the subscriptions, customer service.

Stephanie Bayerl: Hi, everyone. My name is Stephanie Bayerl. I am the layout and graphic designer for Bee Culture Magazine.

Jeff: People don't realize, every month, they receive their issue of Bee Culture in the mail. I know I do.

Jerry: Really take it for granted and don't realize the amount of work that goes into each issue. I'm not talking about the authors who are lucky to only have to produce an article and then send it off by email. You receive all those articles, and then you have to make it-- Well, one, you have to make sure they sound good or read well, and then you have to lay it out so you can open up the magazine and find the article.

Jeff: Can we talk real briefly about how each issue is produced each month?

Jerry: I wish it were that easy, Jeff.

Jeff: [laughs]

Jerry: We have regular contributors, and some of them contribute appropriately. We start six to eight weeks before the following month. We're working on December, finishing up December now, and it just all goes so fast. Then, on top of the regular contributors, we look for other articles and other contributors to fill in these things that are happening in a contemporary manner within our industry as well. Then we share articles with different scientific organizations. Putting together all these parts and pieces is where Jen and Stephanie come into play, or our magazine wouldn't look anything like it does, how wonderful it looks.

Jeff: Describe who receives the article and then what happens with that article from the author.

Jerry: There, again, this is multifactorial, because I contact a lot of the contributors and say, "How about this," or they contact me and say, "How about this?" Then I'm looking, "Oh my gosh, I spent all my days looking for articles for Jen and Stephanie and our readers." Then I contact them, and then we have to get approval to reprint those. All this ties together. For there, again, Jen and Stephanie, because Stephanie has to lay out and design the stuff so it looks good. If it doesn't look good, then Jen doesn't get any advertisers, because it looks goofy. All these parts and pieces feeling like this is an octopus every month.

Jeff: Who receives the first arm of the octopus, the article? Let's pick on Jimmy Tew, because Jim Tew also produces content for Honey Bee Obscura. Jim sends in his article. Who receives it

Jerry: This is one of those things, too. It's all different. Sometimes I mostly just get it, and then I copy Stephanie on it. Then we have to ask Jim for photographs that meet certain standards. Then we're also doing audio for some of our articles. We have to ask Jim and say, "When are you going to do the audio?" Because Stephanie has to put a QR code in there so it holds the audio. This is not, oh, the contributor sends in an article and we print it. No, it's not like that at all.

Jeff: All right. Let's just take this one step at a time, just for fun, because there's a lot of complicated steps. People say, "I don't want to spend all this money on a magazine," but they don't understand the process that actually goes into creating a magazine. It's not an AI-generated magazine. There's a lot of human steps. Let's say that you have this collection of information that started with Jim, and you have the photographs that go with his article, and you have your set for the QR code. What's the next step?

Jerry: This is where we need to pass the microphone on to Stephanie, because we get all these articles and Jim's article, is it the right type font? Is the pictures big enough? Is the audio there? Can we hear it? Then she has to lay it out and put everything in a design mode so it brings readers' attention to the article. If we just had articles with all the same print and the same headline, nobody's going to read that. Have Stephanie tell you what's going on.

Stephanie: All right. To give a little more insight on what Jerry was saying, we have a giant stack of different articles. Each month, with the selection process, Jerry will go through and choose what articles we're going to produce that month. From there, once we receive an article, like he said, we have to format it so that they're all the same. We take it into Microsoft Word and we'll process it to have the same font, the same spacing, even the same color for the font itself, and then implementing that into Adobe InDesign and using that space to make sure all the columns are the same length and height.

From there, we have the pictures, like Jerry said, we have to format the size of those, make sure that they're in 300 DPI that are large enough for the printer. Then I get to go through and figure out the layout, which I love, because it's a way for me to be creative and see what's going to be featured the best, and again, working with different colors and what's going to make the composition look the best for our readers.

Jeff: Easy.

Stephanie: [laughs]

Jeff: You have to do that for how many contributors every month?

Stephanie: It really varies on article length. We've had quite a range. Every month is different.

Jerry: 20 to 30.

Jeff: 20 to 30. You have to do that for 20 or 30 different articles?

Stephanie: Yes. Also, like Jerry was saying, some of our authors have an audio component, too. Similar to that, we have to format it and make sure the audio is audible and can go together cohesively with the article, and producing the QR code. It's an entire process.

Jeff: I'm very familiar with the audio challenges. Kudos to you for what you're able to do. Jen, are you figuring out where to place those ads based on just space available? How does that work?

Jen: Basically, I start collecting ads before we start doing the next issue. In theory, I have all the ads collected before we've selected any articles. Based on how many pages' worth of ads, then Jerry can put everything in order. For the actual ad placement, we don't really have a set standard of where the ads go; it's just where they fit in, into the magazine. It just all comes together, like a puzzle.

We have all different types of ads, from full pages down to a one-column by two-inch ad. It varies. Advertisers, sometimes they change their ad every single month. It's just a lot of coordinating and making sure we're using the correct ad at the right time, and making sure it all goes together with everything else we're putting in the magazine.

Jeff: You have this collection of articles from a dispersed group of contributors, and I know quite a few of them. I know that not all of them are timely on their contributions. That's always a challenge. That's just human nature. I'm not trying to make fun of anybody, Jen. You have all these different contributors, and you have all the ads, and then you come together and you produce this magazine. How do you determine the cover image for each magazine?

Jerry: We'd like the cover to be seasonal. We'd like it to be inviting. I don't know if you saw the cover to our October issue with the pumpkins on it. Then we've had one with the honey coming out of a-- All these are different. Jen and Stephanie collect photographs that we have in a folder, and we go through there and look through that now. Now we're experimenting with maybe an artistic cartoon cover, just for something different. We don't want everything to look the same and be boring every month. We want something different to draw readers in. I'm being totally selfish here, but that's what we want to do.

Jeff: You have to. You have to get new readers every month. You have to look at trying to bring in new people.

Jerry: It's not only new people, but there again, and we all think this, we want to bring value to those readers. If they're beekeepers, how can they read Bee Culture and have that aha moment where, ooh, if I do this because this writer or this researcher said that they have data that shows that we can do that and then have all that data and research and opinions so that it is inviting, that it isn't boring, it's not six pages of charts and graphs and what have you, that we can actually make a connection in a real way, and then bring trust and relevance to the readers.

Jeff: Now, how many hours would you say it goes into every issue?

Jerry: I have no idea. Hundreds.

Jeff: Really?

Jerry: Yes.

Jeff: Not including contributors' time.

Jerry: Yes.

Jeff: The three of you, so 3x160 would be whatever--

Jerry: Yes. We do this all day long. Then we sometimes do that into the evening. I do it on the weekends sometimes. It's not only just collecting articles and what have you, it's making contact with people in the industry that let them know that we care about what they're doing and that we want them to participate with Bee Culture. A lot of this is just ambassadorial.

Jeff: Jerry, you've been managing the magazine for, we were talking earlier, five, going on to six years.

Jerry: I think so, yes.

Jeff: What do you see as the changes in the magazine that you've seen from the time you took it on till now, where it's pretty much all your team's efforts to make this magazine what it is today? What have you done to do that to bring it up, not bring it up to date, but keep it current with the current times? Where do you see the magazine in two years or three years?

Jerry: Basically, it goes back to Stephanie and Jen for this because there, again, if you're talking about a hard copy or digital copy, you're talking about something that's visual. We're all visual creatures. What is that visuality that brings a reader in? There again, we don't want just articles of text. We want photographs, and we want photographs of the right size or different sizes. Stephanie does a great job of doing that.

We've tried to make it more user-engaged and friendly, if those are the right words, and we want to continue doing that. We have talks about Bee Culture all the time among us of how can we make it better? What do you think about this? What does that cover look like? Should we do this? Oh, have you contacted him? Have you contacted her? Every day is juggling, juggling the balls to see what we can bring to the readers. It's not about us, it's about the readers.

Jeff: Where will you be this conference season? We have the winter conferences coming up, the big national conferences. Will you be at any? Will Bee Culture have a presence there?

Jerry: Oh, yes. I travel around a little bit, not as much as I did, but we have the Ohio State Beekeepers Association conference coming up, and then I go to Illinois, and then I go to Pennsylvania. I came back a few weeks ago from Alabama.

One, I enjoy talking to beekeepers about certain topics that maybe aren't just about Varroa, or small hive beetles, or wax moths, or something. We can always add those in there, but it's bringing some idea to those attendees about their value as beekeepers, their value, not only in selling honey or what have you, but their value to the economy, to the environment, and how important honeybees are and how important they are. I just don't want people to be sitting there and be lectured to by the pastor up on the podium there. I want them to be engaged and know that I want to be engaged with them.

Jeff: Before I go, anybody have anything you'd like to say to add to the conversation?

Stephanie: Something that I just wanted to highlight that is unique to our magazine is much like Jerry said, we're not just putting our information out there, but we're looking for involvement from our viewers and our readers. A lot of this comes into play with the honey price reporting that we have every month. That's a big deal where we get basically volunteers that will report their different honey prices and information and submit that to us so we can compute it all and put it back out there. We have good participation with that. We also have honey recipes that we feature every month, which is really fun because, at home, you get to not just read the magazine, but maybe try a fun recipe as well.

Then, we also have a social media presence through Facebook and Instagram, where we'll put out different surveys, different posts, article features, and that's just a fun way to get people involved as well. Also, we have a daily e-blast that goes out called Catch the Buzz, and just more informative news that might be up and coming that we want to get out there to our readers. Lots of engagement and just different opportunities that we have not just from the magazine.

Jeff: How much of a lead time do you need for the Catch the Buzz announcement?

Jen: [laughs] Honestly, that depends. Sometimes if stuff is scheduled out, it's usually scheduled out in advanced, but sometimes we can squeeze something in. Usually, we go off the timeline and when the date is for that.

Jeff: I appreciate everybody's willingness to let me talk to you. I just walked in, folks. I just walked in on Monday morning and interrupted their week. As you know, they're very busy.

Jerry: Thank you for coming by Jeff and having a relationship with Bee Culture for years and knowing the historical value of a 150-year-old magazine and the A.I. Root Company and how their leaders in the beekeeping industry and still are. We want to continue that trend.

Jeff: It's home week coming back here, and I enjoy A.I. Root and Bee Culture. Thank you.

Jerry: Thank you.

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