John Miller - Swimming with Piranha (346)

346 - John Miller - Swimming with Piranha

Morgan Juncal: Hi, everybody. This is Morgan Juncal coming to you live from NAHBE 2025. I am the owner and operator of Woodbooger Hollow in Maryville, Tennessee, and I am the treasurer for the BCBA Bee Club. Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

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

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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

Thank you, Morgan, for that wonderful opening from Maryville, Tennessee. She sounds like she's very busy being a treasurer. That's an important duty.

Becky Masterman: She's the responsible one in the group, right?

Jeff Ott: You hope so.

Becky Masterman: Usually, from what I see when I walk in, if I go to a beekeeping talk and somebody's going to pay me reimbursements or something like that, it's that the treasurer usually got it all together, they got their checkbook. I love our treasurer for the Minnesota Honey Producers. She just does such a good job. Anyway, treasurers are special beekeepers.

Jeff Ott: Yes, they are. Thank you, Morgan, for that wonderful opening from the North American Honey Bee Expo. It's middle of August, Becky. How are your bees?

Becky Masterman: The bees are doing extremely well. They look really good. I will tell you that our goldenrod opened up the end of July, and not all of it, but it started. It just felt really early. I could be wrong. They've had this nice, nice, nice nectar flow, and with the goldenrod starting with what felt a little bit early, it's been a good season for them. What about you? How's your goldenrod?

Jeff Ott: No goldenrod here. This area of the Pacific Northwest, we have this terrible drought this time of year. Everything dries up, so there's nothing really in bloom. I was walking down a trail the other day, and there was six flowers in bloom left over from the blackberry, and there were 20 bees fighting over those six flowers.

Becky Masterman: Fighting over that little bit of nectar and pollen.

Jeff Ott: Mine, mine, mine. I felt bad for them, but that's just the way it is right now. I pulled honey just the other day. Surprisingly, more than I thought, but I haven't extracted it yet, so we'll find out how much I actually.

Becky Masterman: You're not worried about small hive beetles, right?

Jeff Ott: No, fortunately, we don't have small hive beetle in this area.

Becky Masterman: One less thing to be concerned about when you pull your honey, but are you watching the weight of your colonies, and can you tell by the data you're getting that, "Okay, it's time to feed, or I have to think about this," they're getting too light?

Jeff Ott: I do monitor the colonies, and it's interesting that I'm kicking myself, but since I pulled it, I can see a little bit of increase in the weight of the hives. I'm not sure what's going on there unless there's a floral source that I'm not aware of. I'm planning on feeding them later in August and September. That's my expectation based on prior experience here. I'll see that also in the weight reduce over a period of time.

Becky Masterman: Can you also tell if a bear attacks your colony based upon the data you're collecting?

Jeff Ott: Yes, because the data will be all over the place, all over the yard, just in the frames, the boxes, the sensors.

Becky Masterman: It'll go away basically.

Jeff Ott: It'll go away. It'll suddenly go dark. I asked the landowner if they have any bears there, and she said no, so we'll find out if there are any bears there.

Becky Masterman: I have an apiary where I've had bears in the spring, and so I moved bees out, but I usually sneak bees in for the season and then sneak them out again. I got a call from the landowner that there was a bear walking across the driveway, and then a bear right by my bees. The problem with the bear fence is that it's all rock, so I can't get stakes into the ground. I don't know, maybe I should start monitoring those colonies. I've got them wrapped up. I've got them double-strapped. I've got alarms in the area. I'm tracking this bear on our DNR website, but I might have to move them out.

Jeff Ott: I was going to ask you how you sneak past a bear carrying a beehive, but that's a topic for a different podcast. Becky, we're welcoming back John Miller. He is an accomplished and longtime third-generation commercial beekeeper.

Becky Masterman: He might be fourth generation.

Jeff Ott: He might be fourth. I think his dad was third generation. No.

Becky Masterman: Was his dad third? That's our first question. We've got our first question that we're going to ask John. Which generation are we on?

Jeff Ott: Maybe his son is the fourth.

Becky Masterman: A generational beekeeper, is that what you're saying?

Jeff Ott: Thank you. John is a generational beekeeper. He's been on before. He's well established within the industry, has great insight, is able to look at the issues facing all beekeepers, not just commercial beekeepers, but those that impact the sideliners and hobbyists as well. It's going to be fun to talk to him about current events and the headwinds of the beekeeping industry as we have them right now.

Becky Masterman: John's always my go-to, one of my first texts if I have a question about the industry or something big or even something historical, because he's got such a great history of keeping bees. I see him as a wealth of information. I always love talking to him. Looking forward to this hour.

Jeff Ott: I'm looking forward to talking to him, too. He's in the green room. We'll invite him in right after these words from our sponsors.

[music]

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Jeff Ott: Hey, everybody, welcome back. Sitting around this great big virtual Beekeeping Today Podcastinterview table. Sitting in California, we have commercial beekeeper, John Miller, in Saint Paul, we have Becky, and I'm sitting up here in Olympia. Hey John, welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show.

Becky Masterman: Welcome back, John.

John Miller: Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Becky. It's always a pleasure to come back and visit with friends. Thank you.

Jeff Ott: Thank you. Becky and I were having a debate before we opened the door to the green room, and I said you were fourth generation.

Becky Masterman: No, I said she was fourth.

Jeff Ott: Oh, what did I say?

Becky Masterman: You said third.

Jeff Ott: I have to go back and play my tape.

Becky Masterman: You play the tape. I like how you did that, Jeff. That's a sin.

Jeff Ott: Becky was saying you're third.

John Miller: I'm number four.

Becky Masterman: Rewind. I said four.

John Miller: Jason is number five. Ollie is number six.

Jeff Ott: That's fantastic.

John Miller: If the girls decide to go into bees, they will be no less gen six than Ollie or Max. They're free to choose. Hadley Bee is so named.

Becky Masterman: Really?

John Miller: She's one of the granddaughters.

Becky Masterman: That's her middle name.

John Miller: Yes.

Becky Masterman: I love it.

Jeff Ott: Oh, that's cool. John, for our listeners who may not know who you are, can you just give us a real quick recap of your background, your family's background, and bees, and then we'll get into talking about today's current events.

John Miller: Sure. Thank you. My great-grandfather was N.E. Miller, pioneer in western United States beekeeping, put a lot of guys into business with a thousand colony stake that probably rode out of Southern California on a railcar in the 1920s and the teens. His son was Earl, and he had a number of sons. One of the sons was Earl, my grandfather. His son was Neil, my dad, there's me. Jason now owns and runs the outfit. He's got some summer help with my two grandsons and summer help from his business partner, Ryan Ellison. His kids sometimes show up and help in the summertimes too. We're pretty deep. We're 130-some odd years. Pretty much everybody else in the family found a respectable way to make a living.

[laughter]

Jeff Ott: Well, that's really amazing. That longevity in the business and that perspective on the business, it's a lot different from many, many other folks around. I know last time you were here, you were talking about tropilaelaps. Has there been any development in the Apis type approach to monitoring for tropilaelaps, and the preparations for that?

John Miller: There's a real good piece by Dan Oriole in this month's Bee Culture Magazine. I'm not giving a plug, but the industry needs to become familiar with this parasitic pest from Southeast Asia. The more they learn, and the faster they learn it, the better prepared we will be. I am deeply troubled by the potential for this. I'll share with you a letter I read. It was an email written by Dr. Eric Mussen, a highly respected bee researcher at UC Davis. In 2006, he wrote a letter to one of his colleagues saying we need better border protection, and we need to be more aware of invasive species like tropilaelaps mercedesae that he sighted in 2006.

Becky Masterman: I want to ask you this question. I was looking at my hive in the honeybee from I think 1975, and it talks about tropilaelaps as well as varroa. Why now are we worried about it?

John Miller: I think because it's so exponentially more destructive than varroa. If varroa is bad, and it is, Gordy Wardell, who went to study tropi 10 years ago, said this thing is five times worse.

Becky Masterman: Is it because we're more worried that they have an easier pathway to our borders?

John Miller: I think the beekeepers, the professionals, and the scientists are more worried because it spends virtually no time theoretically in the colony for treatments to effect control. It reproduces almost exponentially, five times faster than varroa, and we really don't have a handle on controlled materials. Outside of those three little things, it's fine. This is a real deal. The disturbing thing is the gossip has been talking a lot lately about ports of entry. There's 300 ports of entry in the United States of America. Some of these ports are allowing hobbyist beekeepers to enter the ports, hive swarms found on ships, and taking them ashore.

This is in direct violation of the 1914 prohibition on importing stocks. It is in direct violation of established protocols at APHIS and Customs and Border Protection. We have no idea what's going on in other countries that we share the continent of North America. It just seems that, I've used this term before, we're bobbing for piranha. I don't know what the outcome is, but 2025 seems to be a troubled time. Earlier this year, in March, we had a conversation about the overwinter losses. Your program first broke those numbers. We're coming off this deep bruise of winter losses.

The number one honey-producing state by about a solar system is North Dakota. We've had well above average rainfall and somewhat below average temperatures, and to drive a honey crop in the brief summer window of North Dakota, you need heat, and we really haven't got heat this year. There's a lot of concern. It just seems to fold on itself, Jeff. I'm sorry, but my son is selling honey in 2025 for less than I sold honey for in 1997. That's 28 years and a bunch of inflation. Beekeepers, they have deeply troubled spreadsheets right now. This is a tough time in beekeeping. These times come and these times go. This one seems to be persisting.

Jeff Ott: Just to make sure we state it, is that due to the imports of cheap honey that's driving down the domestic honey prices?

John Miller: We are in a global marketplace, and there are a few barriers to selling sweeteners into America. We've brought three actions in the past 20 years attempting to insulate the American beekeeper from the global trades. None of them have succeeded other than a temporary price spike. All three times we've reverted to or below baseline. It's unfortunate because we are the dumping ground of just about any other country with an impaired currency or a weaker currency seeking to create hard currency through international trade. We're importing 600-odd million pounds of honey. We're producing probably this year, 170 million pounds domestically. There's no relief. It's a mess.

Becky Masterman: It's also devastating, considering when you see how the market for honey has increased so dramatically in the country, that if only the supply wasn't coming from someplace else, beekeepers would be able to make money from honey once again.

John Miller: I've embarked on a personal indulgence. In my semi-retired state, I make a point of buying local honey wherever we go. I've been buying just some delicious local honey in Oregon in the past three weeks, and brought some home, and actually picked some up in Gualala in the north coast of California last week. It's delicious. It's $20 a pound, unapologetically $20 a pound. I'm more than happy to buy it because I know this is the local honey by a local, probably a hobbyist or a sideliner who's just got this side hustle.

For anybody that's bottled honey at the kitchen sink and cleaned up the mess, $20 a pound is not overpriced. It absolutely is not overpriced. This is delicious honey. It's from Aunt Shares or Grandma Shares Honey Farm in Gualala. It's delicious.

Jeff Ott: What's the industry doing about that now? Is there any bandwidth, any breath, any air in the room to even focus on honey prices, or is it being sucked out of the room for other problems?

John Miller: The industry seems to be distracted with economic pressure, and we've exhausted a generation of leaders, and a new generation of leaders is coming on board. You make a very sharp point on what is the bandwidth, what is the capability of beekeeping industry leaders and where is my replacement? Now there's a lot of people out there, a lot smarter than me. Don't get me wrong. The average age of any board of directors, whether it's California State beekeepers or North Dakota beekeepers or the Federation or Honey Producers, or Project Apis m., if you look into their leadership, it's like, "Where's the next gen? Where are the guys that are willing to make the sacrifices that the generation before made to make things happen?"

I was looking at an old picture of the 1986 Honey Board, the year it was founded. Those are some lions in the industry. It was like the chair of Sioux, and it was the president of Dutch Gold, and it was real leaders that devoted their careers not only to succeeding in beekeeping, but to help beekeeping succeed, if that makes sense. I see some talent in California coming up. It's just the great-grandchildren of the guys who founded the organization, so it seems to be the same 5%.

I would love to see grassroots growth from the hobbyists that are that are learning a lot of stuff the hard way and then applying those lessons. I'm more intrigued with hobbyists all the time.

Becky Masterman: I'm finding a really high level of understanding the threats of varroa and understanding beekeeping when I'm going out to local beekeeping organizations. I've found that it's really shifted in the last decade, but I'm also finding just by doing some national honeybee survey data collection and just being able to talk to people on the podcast is that there are some really sweet spots at 70 colonies, 100 colonies, 150, 200. These beekeepers have it down, and a lot of them are running two jobs, but their beekeeping operation is profitable, and the bees look really good. They're doing a good job and all of those beekeepers have so much in common with beekeepers who are running 1,000, 10,000, 25,000 colonies. Getting them in between their beekeeping and their second jobs or their first jobs to be able to be a part of it would be amazing. It's a lot of skill there.

Jeff Ott: Is there an issue with the way the current industry sees itself as commercial sideliner and hobbyist? Is the beekeeping industry big enough to actually divide itself into three?

John Miller: That's a really good question. Let me just observe. Bee Expo, I think, is breaking those silos down because you've got the commercial guys here, and sideliners here, and the hobbyists here. Then, mostly, we just throw our comments out of our silo into somebody else's silo, and then they throw a comment back out of their silo into our silo. I think having been there before, and I'm going back again because I was just getting a sense of Bee Expo last January, there's a lot of energy there that I think is capable of opening doors between the so-called silos and having a more collaborative thing, and some of the presentations that were just so good.

A lot of times, their comments were, "This works in my outfit. Now, it may not work in your outfit, and this certainly isn't going to work in all outfits, but I'm sharing with you what I have experienced that works in my outfit." I found that endearing, that we're willing to embrace our humanity. My way is not the right way for everyone. I can learn from a hobbyist who's figured out a whale of a hack to work his bees more effectively. I like that. I'm going back.

Jeff Ott: Many times, and I'm not speaking specifically about the beekeeping industry, but often you get groups, and they end up shooting themselves in the foot because they are stuck in their own ways and are unwilling to really adopt and expand to make the use of technology, whether it be digital technology or physical technology or social media technology, whatever. I think that's something that came and has done, and we referenced the North American Honey Bee Expo, tapping into the willingness and desire for people to connect through beekeeping and make a difference through beekeeping. You were there. The energy in the room was amazing. Positive energy in that room or in the expo hall was palpable.

Becky Masterman: It's a happy place.

John Miller: The rooms sat a thousand people, and a lot of those sessions had a thousand people in them. Unlike a lot of other bee meetings I go to, it's just infested with hall rats, we're all out there gossiping and doing all that, these rooms were occupied by people who were leaning forward in their seats because they were interested in the ideas being expressed. I haven't seen that for a while. It was really refreshing. It was really good.

Becky Masterman: It's honestly a lot of new energy. Even though maybe people have been beekeepers for a while, it's just giving space to those connections and sharing innovation. Also, people really like meeting their YouTube stars and seeing-- It's a thing. When you get a chance to meet that person who showed you that it wasn't scary to go into a colony, and maybe gave you some great tips, that's beekeeping rock stars. That's pretty cool.

John Miller: That's good stuff.

Becky Masterman: It's good stuff.

John Miller: I was interested, Jeff, you said something about using and applying technology. We've done a little bit of almond pollination since 1972. I would love to see more about their field yield because I know they're tracking the pods in their fields that are more productive than the pods in their field that are less productive. The question is, why are they less productive? Does it have to do with dispersion?

If it does have to do with dispersion of the beneficial in the field, whether it's plums or melons or blueberries or almonds or apples, you've got those rollers out in Wenatchee on the cherries and the apples. If we were able to open up some of that technology, we could perhaps provide a superior or an improved pollination service by knowing what they know. I haven't yet experienced that with an almond grower, and I've hinted around it some, but I'm not going to ask him for his field tear sheets. That's none of my business.

If they wanted to call me in in November and say, "We are seeing this on this 800-acre block. We are seeing pods of 20 acres here and there that are really exceptional. We're also seeing some 20-acre plots or a 5-acre plot where it isn't exceptional, and we can't snake it out, whether it's the soil or the application of materials, or pest loads. We're trying to figure this out. What do you think?" I would love to be able to take a dive into that stuff and improve our performance in our relationship with them. I just don't know how to do it.

I've been saying for a while a change is about to be imposed on us, the beekeeping industry. I'm more convinced of it than before, the change is going to be imposed on us. I'm questioning whether we as an industry are ready to embrace the changes that are going to be imposed on us. I hope we are. We have to be.

Becky Masterman: Are you talking about pollination services change?

John Miller: I'm talking about the changes in pollination services, but I think also in seed production, for example, alfalfa seed or sunflower seeds for seed production. There's a lot of seeds being produced that are pollinated by peas. I just think there's a whole new field waiting to be opened up there where we could enhance the perceived value of the beneficial pollinator. Nobody appreciates honey, tell you that.

Jeff Ott: A collaborative effort between the grower and the beekeeper to maximize the pollination efforts of the honeybees.

John Miller: Yes, save money, rent better bees, rent fewer bees, but also place them strategically where they would be most impactful.

Becky Masterman: The industry has their experts, but they have to be working with university researchers also. As far as testing, analyzing, there have to be really good university data, I would think, that would maybe give you some insight.

John Miller: It would be like the Texas A&M for melon production, UC Davis for-- Any really well-grounded Ag land grant would be a good place to start.

Jeff Ott: Hey, let's take this opportunity to take a quick break, and we'll be right back to continue our conversation with John Miller

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Becky Masterman: Welcome back, everybody. On the path of grim news for bees and beekeepers, which is the path that we're on, but I don't want people to shut the podcast off. I think we're going to get to some hope at the end. On the path of really surprising news was that the USDA Beltsville lab was targeted. The Beltsville bee lab has been targeted to be closed, with the facilities being moved to other labs across the country. This was really big news, John. Can you give us some comments on that?

John Miller: I think the industry views it as shortsighted. I am unaware of any member of the industry being consulted prior to the announcement. Here's part of why in February, PAm-funded, rolled, and emphasized the overwintering loss, and that the numbers were astonishing. We had a bigger response to the request than any response in beekeeping history in America. Two of the key people driving the February 2025 research was Zach Lamas and Jay Evans, both doctors, both researchers, and both housed in the Beltsville lab.

Those two people were instrumental in getting that document peer reviewed and published in literally record time, demonstrating factually scientifically the losses that the industry had absorbed. It seems that USDA could have more carefully measured the impact of these announcements because we don't have very many really, really good researchers and statisticians, and people like Zach Lamas and Jay Evans, a peer honored within USDA. Jay Evans is an award-winning researcher within USDA. It just doesn't seem like a fully informed decision. Is that fair?

Becky Masterman: I think it's scary when you're in an industry that keeps experiencing loss and threats. It feels like we're not quite there as far as being able to figure it out, and let's just have a great year, and then all of a sudden to take away some of that potential network. Even if people are relocated, I think we're risking losing some of that team that works together so well. We've interviewed Jay before, and Jay just talks about, "I lead a team, I lead a team." Those teams have connections to researchers across universities and beekeepers across universities. I think anything threatening that network is-- I think you're okay to think that that might be shortsighted.

John Miller: Your observation keys a thought. Here's the thought. Industries that are dependent on pollinators, from the blueberries of Maine to the avocados of San Diego, from Washington State apples to Texas melons, to this whole cohort of production agriculture that's dependent on the bees, primarily our bee, to get those crops produced, we're not engaging with them very well.

My observation is that we need not approach these industries with hat in hand, but rather as an effort to alert them to what is on the horizon. Not announced tropilaelaps after it's established and ubiquitous across America, but prior to, and seek to use their expertise, bringing attention to port security and taking the fight to tropilaelaps before tropilaelaps comes to us. Because I don't think the science is in question of how a mellifera colony experiences tropilaelaps, because I think globally, we don't have a single positive outcome with tropilaelaps in any jurisdiction it's entered, globally.

Like varroa or unlike varroa, varroa was here and well established, and within three years, it was ubiquitous in North America. We don't have to re-experience that calamity, but I do think we need to engage with the crops I was mentioning, because they also have expertise, and they also have expertise with unwanted exotic pests and pathogens in their industries. We just haven't tapped into that. It seemed to me USDA, the Department of Agriculture, is ideally positioned to help that work move forward, to be proactive instead of reactive. That's what I'm thinking about. That's where I think we've got to move before the next five years are out.

Jeff Ott: I want to ask a question that maybe many of our listeners are asking. What would be the impact for the person who has two or three or four, or five beehives in their backyard if the disruption to the research the USDA is doing, or even tropilaelaps? What's the impact in the backyard?

John Miller: I think the impact in the backyard is, those subscribing at ABJ and Bee Culture each month are recipients of some of the best thinking in those labs and the universities of threats and opportunities. That would seem a tragic loss. For the person who has six hives in their backyard and they provide hive inspection services for a community of 20 other hobby beekeepers who are on their path to either successful beekeeping, or they need that council to maintain their colonies, because they, for one reason or another, are not or cannot provide the husbandry to the colony, I think the information coming out of USDA and coming out of those magazines, the communications, seems to me so grassroots valuable, and programs like these that expose people to the ideas that are out there that maybe they hadn't tapped into before.

Becky Masterman: I think it's a good time to even say it, but John, it used to be a lot easier to keep these alive, right? [laughs] Share your fourth-generation expertise with us and bring us back in the way-back machine. What was it like to keep bees in, oh, do you remember the year, like 1988? Wasn't that a great year for bees? It used to be different, right?

John Miller: As a lad, I watched my dad heave five-gallon cans of honey from the basement in the Blackfoot, Idaho honey house out through the threshold of the basement window where another beefy guy picked up the five-gallon can and heaved it into the back of the semi. A load was 605-gallon cans of honey. Now, I don't know what kind of starch modern American beekeepers are made out of.

[laughter]

I was just so clueless, like, "Dad, what's wrong, man?" I am six or eight years old. I had no comprehension of muscle fatigue in doing this 600 times, but I did, eventually. Then the rapid innovations of-- do you guys know what a hay elevator is? It takes a single bale of hay and takes it up maybe 12 foot lift.

Jeff Ott: Yes.

John Miller: We repurposed one of those hay elevators to take a can of honey from the basement up the stairs up to the main floor. This was pretty revolutionary for a child of eight. It was like, "Dude, I can do this." I just had no appreciation for what was coming with barrels of honey and totes of honey and tankers of honey. I just had no insight, but beekeeping itself, the task of beekeeping, was really, really hard when there was no cure for American foulbrood. My great-grandfather killed those colonies and rendered out the wax in lye water, and he developed a permanent skin condition.

Prior to the miracle of antibiotics, beekeeping was pretty hard because there was no way back if you had foulbrood in the colony. Then we hit this really sweet spot post World War II, where we had antibiotics, we had no exotic parasites to speak of, we had no hive beetles. We had none of the things that globalization has imposed on us, including the exponential increase in imported honey and some of the pests and problems that have come from offshore. It used to be a lot easier to keep bees, and it used to be a lot easier to keep a hive alive.

Becky Masterman: The fourth generation had it good for a little while.

John Miller: You did it for 12.5 cents a pound.

Becky Masterman: No.

[laughter]

John Miller: I remember packing five-pound pails of honey, and we put a little sticker on the lid that said, "New crop, great flavor." We sold those five-pound pails of honey for 99 cents a pail. Five pounds, 99 cents.

Becky Masterman: Okay. That was fun. We've got to wrap it up, but I've got to bring us back. You mentioned how Zac Lamas and Jay Evans worked in conjunction with PAm, but PAm, which is Project Apis m., and you're a board member on Project Apis m. It was founded out of the need to support the beekeeping industry and research, and beekeepers. You can add to that, but it's a success story in all of this sadness because their response was so fast and comprehensive, and their network is growing. Could you just talk a little bit about PAm?

John Miller: PAm was founded 2006 or 2007 by almond growers and beekeepers who had watched this bad wreck of colony collapse disorder and realized that literally we were at risk and focused the attention of first, the almond industry and beekeepers. There was some pretty interesting stuff going on at the time. Paramount pledged $1 a hive. For every dollar that beekeepers under contract with Paramount donated, they would match it. It was 100% match, annually. It was like, "I'd never seen anything like that before."

Over the years, it's evolved into probably the leading nonprofit bee research organization in North America. We fund bee research. We have a terrific scientific advisory board populated by some of the best minds in the industry from academia. We have a pretty well-seasoned board of active, engaged, and 100% giving board members, but we're constrained, like every other of a million nonprofits in America, with fundraising. It's just that never-ending task. If you're going to fund good bee research, and we do, you're going to back it up with some money.

We've been really careful with our money, and we have a reserve. We fund current projects, and the projects that do get funded are good projects. It's a constant struggle to identify applied research that will be effective in the beekeeping community. You never know when lightning is going to strike. PAm was the first institution on Earth to fund Sammy Ramsey.

Becky Masterman: That's something to be proud of.

Jeff Ott: That's good.

John Miller: We were instrumental in the Auburn series and Auburn University's leadership in tropilaelaps research. I would be so happy for this industry if we cracked the nut on tropilaelaps before it got here.

Becky Masterman: I just have to mention, I noticed in my Facebook feed, a bee store in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, Hansen Honey Farm, had a Save the Bees fundraiser, including baked goods and honey, where all the proceeds go to Project Apis m.

John Miller: That's really nice.

Becky Masterman: It's awesome.

John Miller: There's some really enlightened people and organizations out there, and we've benefited from that. Thank you for mentioning Project Apis m. and the Bee Health Coalition. I think in five years, we'll be probably primarily known as the Bee Health collective. PAm is a little abstract. It's not being critical.

Becky Masterman: PAm sounds like you're talking about your Aunt Pam.

[laughter]

Jeff Ott: Well, John, it's definitely been eye-opening to have you on to talk about the current state of the bee industry. I think what our listeners can do is, if they're concerned about it, they get involved with their local organizations. They get involved and go out to the Project Apis m. website and see how they can contribute or help, and be a part of an active group of beekeepers looking to make positive changes in the industry. I think that's what we need. You stated that current leaders of the industry are fading out, for lack of better term, and we need someone to step up with the energy and a drive, and vision to carry it forward. I appreciate your words today.

John Miller: Well, thank you. We're in a storm right now, and it's not comfortable, it's not easy, and the spreadsheets are tattered right now, that the financial statements are tattered right now. This, too, shall pass because we're beekeepers and we don't give up very easy.

Jeff Ott: Some would say stubborn.

John Miller: In the words of my dear friend, Frank Pendle, he says, "It takes longer to go broke keeping bees than any other job in America."

[laughter]

Jeff Ott: Well, thanks again, John. We appreciate you being here, and we look forward to having you back.

John Miller: Thanks again. Always, thank you for your leadership, and thank you for the presentations you make. I just think that you are a national treasure. Thank you for the work you're doing. See you soon.

Becky Masterman: Thanks, John.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Boy, you don't have to look far to find someone who cares more about the industry than John. He brings so much generational knowledge to his vision, to his outlook.

Becky Masterman: Did you mean fourth generational knowledge, Jeff? [laughter]

Jeff Ott: Yes, not third. [laughter]

Becky Masterman: Actually, that was well said. I think that if John's concerns are not a sign to all of us, no matter if we keep one colony or 25,000 colonies of bees to come together, work together to support our scientists, our fellow beekeepers, and the industry, I don't know what would be.

Jeff Ott: Well, that about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcast or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you'd like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the Reviews tab along the top of any webpage. We want to thank Betterbee and our regular, longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books, for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping Today Podcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments on our website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:44:35] [END OF AUDIO]