Beekeeping Today Podcast

John Miller, a commercial beekeeper with Miller Honey Company in North Dakota, just finished his almond pollination season. In this episode, John returns to talk about the weather before and during his time in the orchards, the water issues almond growers are facing, the almond market and what might be in store in the future for this important part of the business. He also shares a bit about the c...

Today, we talk with Julia Mahood, a Master Beekeeper in Georgia. Julia is fascinated with drone honey bees and especially Drone Congregation Areas. To find out more about DCA's, she is on a quest to find as many as she can across her Georgia community. She started by reading all she could find, then went looking using an artificial queen lure on the end of a very tall stick. That didn't work. She...

There was one time when one mentioned YouTube beekeepers, the immdiate image was one of misinformation, mockery, and mistakes. But that is no longer the rule. There are great beekeepers producing great YouTube content, one of them is our guest today, Fred Dunn. Fred lives in Northwest Pennsylvania, with his many bee hives and numerous chickens, ducks and other critters. Fred joins us today to talk...

When you think of Arizona, beekeeping typically does not come to mind. On today's episode, we talk about beekeeping in Arizona with three Arizona beekeepers: Duane Combs, Joc Rawls, and Monica King. Duane has been on the podcast in the past talking about the Hive Heart line of bee hive sensors and as part of our Regional Beekeeper series. Monica is a third generation beekeeper and does cut-outs an...

Close your eyes and think of a gold course. We're pretty sure that when you think of the landscape and maintenance of a typical golf course, with lots trim flat greens, schedules of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other chemicals - a beeyard just doesn't fit, right? Jennifer Berry and Scott Griffith of the University of Georgia, are working to change that vision. They've placed a hive at t...

Today we talk with Nina Bagley. Nina lives in Columbus, Ohio, and has a profound interest in the role women have played in beekeeping in this country. She is a county bee inspector, runs about 50 colonies in and around Columbus, and is an officer in the Ohio State Beekeepers Association.  Plus she's a University of Montana Master Beekeeper, so all in all, she has a grounding in the science and art...

Today we meet up again with James Wilkes, founder, and Max Rünzel, CEO, of Hive Tracks. The people at HiveTracks have raised the bar when it come to gathering data about your bees, your bee yards, the environment in which they live. The data also provides a look at what role climate change may or may not play in how well they are doing now and in the future. The data entered by beekeepers using th...

Returning today is Dan Conlon, vice president of the Russian Bee Breeders Association.  Dan updates us on how the Russian bee breeding program, the status of the association and how the Covid shutdowns impacted the USDA Baton Rouge Bee Lab, which first introduced the Russians, and now provides breeding oversight to the group. The basics of the Russian bees is that the good traits tend to be gettin...

Density, Diversity and Duration. These are the three Project Apis m . objectives when selecting the best Seeds For Bees plantings. Today, Rory Crowley and Stetcyn Malonado join us to talk about the importance of planting ground cover in the fall so bees arriving to the almond orchards in the spring have an immediate food source. The program's goal is to provide seeds for bees to growers of almonds...

Joining us today is beekeeper and author, Andrew Bax. Andrew lives in the UK and has been keeping bees for decades. Like many of us 'older beekeepers', he has sought out better means of managing his colonies. Andrew switched from a UK standard hive of stacked boxes to a long hive so he didn't have to lift supers. A standard is the UK size for a large hive, very similar to a deep box hive in the US...

The last time we talked with Dr. Kirsten Traynor she had just started her new role in Germany. On today's episode we catch up with Kirsten and learn what research her students are conducting in Germany, at the University of Hohenheim, just outside Stuttgard. Of particular interest is the current research on the use of Lithium Chloride (LiCl) as a treatment against beekeepers number one foe - Varro...

Returning to the podcast in this episode is Marina Marchese. Marina is back from a recent trip to Italy taking advanced courses from the Food Institute there in both learning, and teaching the skills necessary to claim the title of Connoisseur. Marina is in charge of The American Honey Tasting Society, an organization designed to teach people the intricate skills necessary to become a honey connoi...

Joining us today is Etienne Tardif. Etienne keeps his bees in the Yukon Territory, where he works as a mining consultant. His data driven approach to keeping bees relies a lot on the technology he uses, plus his study of insulated hives, and thermodynamics of winter clusters. His overwintering techniques have been very successful with no top ventilation, lots of top insulation and insulation on th...

A vaccine for American Foulbrood? Really? Yes, really! We sit down with Dr. Keith Delaplane at the University of Georgia as he explains why his honey bee research lab is involved in this project, how this vaccine works, when it will be ready, and what it will mean to beekeepers around the world. The Dalan Animal Health Company , a private research firm, has figured out a way to deliver a queen hon...

Today, I welcome Danny Weaver to the show. Danny comes from a long line of queen breeders and beekeepers in the Navasota, Texas area. Danny's father, Binford, was instrumental working with Congress   to establish the National Honey Board in 1987. The Weaver name   is long established and trusted in beekeeping. Today, Danny talks with me about his current queen breeding operation producing varroa r...

Peter Nelson is a filmmaker, director and beekeeper. This combination of skills and passions lead to a documentary film about the business and lives of pollinators - both the two legged and six legged kind!  The documentary, The Pollinators is currently making its rounds through the film festivals where it has been well received and enjoyed by all audiences. In this Holiday Replay episode, Peter j...

Joining us this week is Northeast Ohio Beekeeper, Chris Bush. Chris was a contestant on an online series, kind of like - Survivor , meets SharkTank in Hell's Kitchen . Chris took his honey and queen rearing business to compete against other companies also looking to win and to learn. It was a very challenging experience. There were 49 other contestants - from the high tech startups searching for t...

Dr. Jeff Pettis returns to Beekeeping Today Podcast with an update of this past September's Apimondia Congress, in Turkey. Jeff was selected President of Apimondia when they last met in Canada three years ago. His goal was to hit the road running by planning a spectacular event in Russia for 2021. Between Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, lots of things got in the way of that plan and the...

If you don't already know about Kamon Reynolds and his YouTube channel with over 52,000 subscribers, it's time you check him out. You'll find it on YouTube under his name or the channel's name Tennessee's Bees . There he discusses a problem, a technique, a new product, a solution, chats with a guest and more, and it's all about everything you can imagine bees, beekeeping and beekeepers. His show i...

One of the largest and perhaps oldest honey shows in the world in the UK's National Honey Show. The first show opened in 1923 at the Crystal Palace, in London. While the National Honey Show took an understandable break during the second world war, it started up afterwards and is an established annual October event ever since.   The National Honey Show is a three day show highlighting honey and oth...

Today, we've invited Steven Coy back to the how to provide an update on the Chinese Tallow tree and efforts to eliminate them.  Chinese Tallow was brought to the USA in the 1700's as an ornamental. They have very successfully invaded much of the Southeast US, and are moving north and west at a slow but steady rate. USDA-APHIS has declared them invasive and have introduced two insects that feast on...

On today's show, Jeff talks with Rory Hu, the $10,000 winner of the Broadcom Foundation and Society for Science MASTERS® Scholarship for middle school students. MASTERS is an acronym for Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars. Rory's research is titled "The Effects of Pesticides, Caffeine and Tea Polyphenols on the Visual and Olfactory Learning and Memory of the Honey B...

On today's episode, we welcome back the good friend of the podcast, Dr. Samuel Ramsey. Also joining us today is Dr. Jim Tew, sitting in this week for Kim Flottum. Sammy joins Jeff and Jim to talk about his recent move from Maryland to Boulder, Colorado, where he is now the Endowed Professor of Entomology at CU Boulder's BioFrontiers Institute and the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department . S...

This week, guest co-host Jim Tew is sitting in for Kim and we have invited four beekeepers to the podcast to talk about their season just past. We call it our Regional Beekeepers show . If you have been a long time listener, you may be familiar with one or more of these beekeepers. Joining us this fall are Tracy Alarcon from Ohio, Ed Colby from Colorado, Duane Combs from Arizona and Paul Longwell...

Winter bees, those bees that emerge during the cold winter months when there is little to no exposure to the world outside, are very different from summer bees, which emerge during the hectic and exposed to everything bees are exposed to in their environment. In today's episode, we talk with Drs. Mohamed Alburaki and Miguel Corona, two USDA-ARS entomologists researching these differences and speci...