Beekeeping Today Podcast

You've spent hours preparing your honey show entries—but how do you get them safely to the judging table? This month on Winning at Honey with Stephanie , Stephanie Slater tackles the challenges of transporting competition entries by car, shipping, and air travel . She shares her own techniques along with advice from experienced honey judges who regularly travel with competition honey. You'll learn...

Steven Coy returns to Beekeeping Today for a wide-ranging conversation about the challenges facing American beekeepers—and the role genetics may play in building more resilient colonies. Steven is president of the American Honey Producers Association and a longtime commercial beekeeper and Russian honey bee breeder. He begins by explaining how the AHPA represents commercial beekeepers through advo...

Norroa brings a very different approach to Varroa management. In this installment of the Beekeeping Today Podcast Varroa Treatment Series, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman welcome Dr. David Peck of Betterbee to explain how this new treatment works and, just as importantly, when it may—or may not—fit into a beekeeper's management plan. Unlike treatments designed to quickly kill mites, Norroa uses RNA i...

What does honey bee health look like when researchers examine it from the inside out? In this episode, Jeff and Becky welcome three scientists from the USDA-ARS Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona: Dr. Vanessa Corby-Harris, Dr. Kirk Anderson, and Dr. Mark Carroll. Their work spans insect physiology, nutrition, microbiomes, chemical ecology, Varroa, and the complicated ways multiple...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly finding its way into everyday tools—but where does it fit in the bee yard? In this Beekeeping Today Podcast Short, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman begin exploring how beekeepers can put AI to practical use without treating it as an unquestioned authority. Jeff and Becky discuss using AI to organize colony inspection notes, create spreadsheets for mite monitoring, an...

What can nearly two decades of beekeeper-reported data tell us about colony health—and what can it not tell us? In this episode, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman welcome Dr. Geoff Williams, Dr. Nathalie Steinhauer, and Dr. Agostina Giacobino to discuss the 2026 U.S. Beekeeping Survey and its continuity after the closure of the Bee Informed Partnership. The team explains why annual colony-loss rates fu...

Why do we smoke honey bees—and how much smoke do they really need? In this installment of his Bee Science mini-series on Beekeeping Today, Dr. Dewey Caron sends an audio postcard from Portland, Oregon, during a wildfire smoke advisory. He uses the smoky skies as a starting point for a discussion of the beekeeper's smoker, the behavior of honey bees, and the challenges wildfire brings to the bee ya...

What happens when a spacecraft engineer becomes fascinated with honey bees? In this episode, Jeff and Becky welcome Dan Seitz , an engineer from Los Alamos, New Mexico, whose career designing instruments for spacecraft eventually led him to tackle a very different remote-sensing challenge: understanding what is happening inside a honey bee colony. Dan began experimenting with commercially availabl...

The Varroa Treatment Series continues with another oxalic acid option: Api-Bioxal RTU , a ready-to-use liquid formulation designed for dribble application. Dr. David Peck of Betterbee joins Jeff and Becky to explain what makes RTU different from the traditional oxalic acid and sugar-syrup dribble beekeepers may already know. Instead of weighing, measuring, and mixing oxalic acid, RTU arrives premi...

Beekeeping challenges rarely stop at national borders. This week, Jeff and Becky cross the Atlantic for a conversation with Dr. Andrea Quigley and Norman Carreck , co-editors of the UK-based Beekeepers Quarterly . Norman, a longtime beekeeper and bee scientist, introduces listeners to the UK's extensive beekeeping education system and his work conserving the native dark European honey bee, Apis me...

What does it look like when beekeeping equipment moves from an idea in the bee yard to full-scale manufacturing? In this Beekeeping Today Podcast Short, Jeff Ott takes listeners onto the production floor at Premier Bee Products in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Premier founder Jeff Johnson explains how the company approached woodenware manufacturing with a clean slate, borrowing technology and techniq...

This month on Winning at Honey with Stephanie , Stephanie Slater turns her attention to a honey show category that doesn't appear at every competition: pollen . Preparing pollen for competition requires more than simply collecting it from a pollen trap. Stephanie walks through what judges look for, including cleanliness, proper moisture, aroma and flavor, consistent fill levels, and a colorful var...

Four hundred episodes. What started with a conversation between Jeff Ott and the late Kim Flottum in Medina, Ohio, has grown into hundreds of conversations about honey bees, beekeeping, research, management, and the people who make up the beekeeping community. For this special 400th episode, Jeff and Becky Masterman are joined around the virtual Beekeeping Today table by three familiar voices: Dr....

What will a healthy beekeeping industry look like five or ten years from now—and what needs to change to get us there? Recorded live at the Tri-States and Minnesota Beekeepers meeting in Fargo, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman moderate a wide-ranging conversation with  Randy Oliver of Scientific Beekeeping, Dr. Izzy Hill of Project Apis m., and Dr. Brandon Hopkins of Washington State University about...

What does it take to make beekeeping look authentic in a Hollywood movie? In this BT Short, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman talk with Adam Hickman of Foxhound Bee Company, who served as a bee wrangler and beekeeping consultant for The Rivals of Amziah King , starring Matthew McConaughey. Adam's involvement began when a member of the production team visited his Alabama bee supply business looking for...

Do you listen to your bees? Beekeepers rely heavily on sight when inspecting a colony, along with touch and even smell. But in this installment of Bee Science with Dr. Dewey Caron , Dewey asks us to consider another source of information—the remarkable world of sound and vibration produced by honey bees. Honey bees live in an acoustic world that extends well beyond the familiar buzz we hear around...

What if carbon dioxide could offer beekeepers another way to control Varroa mites? In this episode, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman talk with award-winning high school researcher Aakash Manaswi, whose multi-year research project investigates using carbon dioxide (CO₂) as a treatment against Varroa mites. Aakash traces his interest in honey bees back to a childhood visit to an apiary, where a beekeepe...

What is the current state of honey bee health in the United States? Recorded live at the Tri-States Beekeeping Conference in Fargo, North Dakota, Jeff Ott and Dr. Becky Masterman moderate a lively panel discussion featuring Randy Oliver, Jackie Park-Burris, Dr. Katie Lee, and Dr. Rogan Tokash . The conversation explores the biggest challenges facing beekeeping today—from Varroa mite resistance and...

Preparing extracted honey for competition may seem intimidating, but according to Stephanie Slater, success comes down to patience, attention to detail, and understanding what judges are really looking for. In this episode of Winning at Honey, Stephanie shares practical advice for preparing award-winning extracted honey—from bottling weeks in advance to achieving the proper fill level, eliminating...

What happens when a beekeeper with a zoology background, a manufacturing business, and a tendency to question conventional wisdom starts redesigning beekeeping equipment? In this episode, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman welcome Michael Mahar of 21st Bee, an Arkansas beekeeper and manufacturer who has spent years developing his own approach to bees, equipment, and even value-added honey. Michael expla...

Education remains one of the most powerful tools available to beekeepers, and few people exemplify that mission better than Amy Vu. As Extension Coordinator for the University of Florida Honey Bee Lab, Amy oversees one of the country's premier Master Beekeeper Programs, co-hosts Two Bees in a Podcast , develops online educational resources, and helps translate university research into practical in...

Sometimes the most memorable beekeeping stories have very little to do with honey production. This week, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman welcome Nehemiah Ray, a Georgia beekeeper whose family's everyday life inspired the Sundance Award-winning documentary The Boys and the Bees . What began as a pest control assignment to remove honey bees from a home unexpectedly launched Nehemiah into beekeeping, li...

How can a honey bee with a brain smaller than a sesame seed communicate the exact location of food to thousands of nestmates? In this episode of Bee Science with Dewey , Dr. Dewey Caron explores one of the most remarkable discoveries in honey bee biology—the dance language. Beginning with the evolutionary pressures that shaped honey bee communication, Dewey explains why efficient foraging became e...

What can beekeepers learn from Australia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Georgia, and Thailand? This week Jeff Ott and Dr. Becky Masterman welcome Dr. Robert Owen, beekeeper, educator, researcher, author, and international consultant, for a wide-ranging conversation about honey bees, beginning beekeeping, queen breeding, honey bee genetics, disease management, and global beekeeping practices. Robert...

Honey bee nutrition is more complex than simply providing protein. In this episode, Jeff Ott and Dr. Becky Masterman welcome Dr. Vincent Ricigliano to discuss emerging research exploring algae-based supplemental diets, functional feeds, RNA interference technologies, and new approaches to supporting colony health. Vincent explains how microalgae such as spirulina and chlorella may help improve sup...