Beekeeping in Hawaii - Honey Bee News, Tips & (not) Jeff Foxworthy

0:00 May I have your attention, please? The following is not the real Jeff Voxworthy If you wear gloves while beekeeping for no other reason than it's easier than picking the propolis off your fingers You might be a beekeeper If you talk to your bees more than you talk to your spouse You might be a beekeeper If you smell a newly opened jar of honey before tasting it You might love honey bees Welcome welcome to bee love beekeeping podcast presented by our good friends over at Man Lake And hey a special thanks goes out to the not real Jeff Voxworthy for that fun intro At bee love we're all about honey bees and of course the beekeepers and if you're on the beekeeping adventure We would love to hear from you if you're just thinking about it This is a great place to learn from real-life beekeepers bees beekeepers and fun beekeeping stories It's all about the love Before we go all the way to Hawaii for our interview today with Jasmine Joy I've got to mention this news story that keeps popping up in my feed. I

1:30 Don't know what to think of this. I welcome your feedback The headline reads artificial light found to disrupt the circadian cycle of vital ecosystems and economic pollinators Now they're talking specifically about bees here and let me just read you a few quotes from one of the articles Disrupted sleep cycles are a well-known concern for human health and function and now researchers have found similar impacts on insects a New study has found that artificial light disrupts the circadian rhythms of honey bees and poses a threat to their essential role as pollinators Now this study comes out of the University of California, San Diego And it found that light disruption is not only a health concern for humans But also for honey bees quote our research shows just how sensitive honey bees are to changes in their environment Particularly to something as seemingly benign as artificial light Honey bees generally prefer to nest in dark environments So let me just interject here because I don't really get this because Inside my beehives. It's pretty dark even during the daytime little little light comes in through the entrance, but at night Even if there's a little on beyond light It's got to be very dark in there. Doesn't it?

3:00 So this is what this whole study was about Now if you read really closely It sounds like the way that they actually did this study was to keep honey bees in a completely Lit environment so much much brighter than inside a hive So take this all with a grain of salt, but I Yeah, I mean how often at night even in an urban kind of setting Unless you've got a great big old spotlight on your hive or something. Are they really getting much light from outside? So as soon as I bring that up I read this Bees sleep outside when they swarm or when they form beebeards Outside the nest on hot evenings, which are increasing under climate change Now this part I thought was kind of interesting actually It says sleep is crucial for the health and fitness of honeybee colonies Since they depend on an intricate system of communication Known as the waggle dance that informs hive mates about the location of food sources in the environment Here's the interesting part bees dance more poorly and therefore do not communicate as well if they do not get enough sleep. I Don't know what you want to do with this information for most people I don't think it's going to make any changes in what you do keeping bees whatsoever If you find yourself in maybe a really bright place

4:33 Maybe you're in an urban environment You have a bee hive on the roof of a building that has spotlights on it or something I don't know maybe you put some kind of a shade canopy over the front or something So that they're not getting that direct light. Anyway, honeybees need to sleep too Maybe these days when the girls are just really grumpy. It's because they didn't have enough sleep Now let's go on over to Hawaii and find out what it's like doing beekeeping in a beautiful place I'd like to welcome our special guest today Jasmine Joy all the way from beautiful Hawaii Aloha Aloha Eric Mahalo for having me on your podcast be love. Well, you're so very welcome Yes, it's all about the love of bees and when I think of love of bees You're one of the first people that comes to mind because I visited your apiary about four years ago When it was in a different location, but it was so beautiful and so peaceful and you are someone so at tune with Your girlfriends the honeybees Oh, thank you. Yeah, it was it was great having you in the apiary You and Gil correct you and Gil came out. Yes the rolls of my girls Be rolls of your girls and Joey was our cameraman that day. Yeah, we had we had some good fun And he was brave Gil stayed about a mile away

6:05 Joey put on a B suit no gloves so he could operate the camera and he did a pretty good job Where my girls pretty nice to you guys. They were very nice. They were very well behaved But as you told me you had told them ahead of time these nice people are coming Be on your best behavior. You had a whole conversation and before we ever turned on a camera We sat down with them for about 20 minutes and relaxed and and it was it was a great experience So thank you again for that But we're not here to talk about that today. We want to know what it is like to keep bees in Hawaii because it seems like It would be so easy Because there's flowers everywhere and the weather's perfect and is that the case? You can be honest I wouldn't say anything a part of apaculture is easy It's very much blood sweat and tears, but good tears tears of joy. Yeah, so what kinds of pest problems do you have there?

7:10 well, we do have the varroa mite here and We have the small hive beetle We got the wax mop, but that's just that's not a big deal unless you just have old equipment in your hives already dead But between the varroa mite and this African small hive beetle those thrive here We can we can talk first about the small hive beetle because I have more enlightening news about the varroa mite Which is which is good to talk about on this podcast. Let's do it the small hive beetle I remember you were telling me or when you came to the apiary Eric that It was your first time seeing the beetles, correct? Well, yeah, I live in a cold climate and we just don't have them We have plenty of varroa and plenty of other problems, but yeah, the beetles are not there. So tell us how you deal with them I Like to call them the Darth vaders of the hive because they just look like little black helmets walking around their scavengers They come from the grasslands area right below the Sahara desert in Africa so it the climate there is pretty similar to here in Hawaii and so they thrive here and They were originally first found in Florida outside of Africa within the United States and then Just through I guess migratory beekeeping somehow they ended up here in Hawaii I can't tell you exactly how the beetles got here because the honey bee was introduced to Hawaii in 1857

8:42 So that's 167 years ago. We're talking about and the honey bee being an introduced species to Hawaii that we're talking about Hawaii is the extinction and I believe in most it has the most invasive and it's the extinction and invasive capital of the world invasive species and so the honey bees are great because although they're introduced they're not invasive they're beneficial and even though they're introduced here This is one of the most favorable places in the world to keep honey bees Canada and the mainland United States rely on Hawaii on our queen bee production here They would be nowhere at their stature of apoculture in either of those regions if it wasn't for Hawaii And that's mostly on the big island, right? Yeah, that's mostly on the big island and boy Eric I've learned so much in this past year We can kind of touch be on the big island We can kind of touch base on outside of Oahu as well on other islands because in spring next year, I'll actually be fully moving to Kaua'i the island of Kaua'i, which is the most Northern island that's habitable. I mean there's Ni'i Hau, but it's owned by the Robinson family and that's just neighboring it But what is up there and Kaua'i doesn't have mites. Yeah, they do not have mites Now I had heard that about Molokai also I was about to say Molokai is the other one that doesn't have but the rest of the islands have the mites

10:18 Finish small hive beetle. Do you have any magic solutions that other people can use? Well, you know, I'm going on 14 years of being a bee guardian attending to these beautiful sacred honey bees and I've tried many Many modalities. I'm a treatment free beekeeper. So that means I'm not using any pesticides What I do use though when I first started beekeeping and caring for honey girl organics hives, which is the organic skincare company It was my gateway into apoculture I go manage their creamery department and made manufactured their whole product line so they're making skincare from products in the hive the beeswax the honey and I learned how to rescue I did one structural removal in For bee rescuers or be removal specialists. We say cut out I did with the founder of honey girl organics and then I ran with it and started bee leave Hawaii in 2011 2012 I started beekeeping in 2011 2012 I started bee leave Hawaii Let me just take a minute here to thank our presenting sponsor man Lake Years before they became a sponsor. I was buying bees supplies from them Well, they don't have a store near me I've had great experiences with their customer service and shipping right to my home They're passionate about bees and dedicated to helping beekeepers. You can tell American made products with a commitment to quality craftsmanship and innovation

11:50 From woodenware to feeds you can trust man Lake and maybe the best part man Lake is offering a discount to be love beekeeping listeners Click on the link in the show notes and use the special discount code to get ten dollars off your purchase of a hundred dollars or more And at the time Exterminators were still allowed to kill honey bees here and then a few years after that They were deemed a threatened species and then now they're not allowed to kill them unless they're aggressive and they're considered a pest, right? So with the African small hive beetle They thrive here because like I said, the climate is very similar to the grasslands below the Sahara desert They can smell honey supposedly like miles away If there's like a thriving hive somewhere they can smell it miles away fly to it go inside of the hive They'll lay eggs inside of the hive and then so this is their life cycle The Beatles lay eggs inside of the hive they hatch now they turn into like little little maggots. They're really disgusting they look exactly like a maggot and In that form they see the light of the entrance of the hive and they're like, oh They get all intrat go to the light I think of like the minions with the big eyes you should and so So they crawl out and they pupate in the soil below the hives so one already one way of IPM is I have weed mat

13:27 I have one of my apiaries is on concrete like slabs. So that is already It slows down their prop there just the life cycle of that larva crawling out and crawling into Infupating in the soil right now in places where in apiaries where my hives are on They're on high stands, of course But then there's just dirt grass whatever below them I have weed mat before I even bring when I'm installing an apiary That's the first thing I'm doing is clearing the land and putting weed mat down to also prevent all the weeds from growing around the hives with and you know us beekeepers know Bees are sensitive to vibration and sounds so they don't like the weed wacker They're gonna come out all not happy and possibly stings and we're maintaining all our weeds and everything like that. So There's one one form of IPM already weed mat and then one one thing I learned along the years is There's this Spanish they either call it like Spanish or Cuban oregano. It's a pretty big leaf and it's fuzzy and it's and it's thick and and We were installing the that oregano below the You know making foals little pucas in in the weed mat and just installing it planting it right under the apiary and then we saw that The the beetle count started to go down So it must be something in the oils of that oregano that

14:59 That they don't like, you know, it kind of burns their exoskeleton or not the exo excuse me Not that it probably burns the the worms when they're trying to pupate in that soil. That's cool, right? All right out with the Darth vaders. Okay. Okay. You sounded excited about something you have for Varroa What are you doing there? Okay, so every year we have an annual beekeepers meeting at UH University of Hawaii at Manoa and And UH honey bee project hosts it a couple years ago. They had I want to say his name's dr. Steven Martin I don't have my notes on me, but I'm pretty sure that's his name and he's from England area like London England around that area and so Ethel dr. Ethel via Lobo, she's the founder and she runs the UH honey bee project So she's been working with him and she she had him as a like a guest speaker at our annual beekeepers meeting and it was so just refreshing and It filled my honey heart. I like to say To because I've been a treatment free beekeeper my whole my whole profession my whole career as a beekeeper now I think there's way more beekeepers that treat than do not and so at this meeting he was speaking about the studies that they've been doing is that bees over time because of all the might and

16:31 Their their own adaptability in in nature in the wild What they do is something called recapping and if you were if we're doing inspections in our hives and You look at the brood and you look at the cappings of the brood if it looks if they don't look seamless Like if that if that brood capping doesn't if it looks like there's small perforations in it There's a high chance that your bees are highly hygienic therefore the in the recapping process the bees are When there's mites in a cell the bees are able to detect it They reopen that that capped brood cell with the pupa in it and they cannibalize their own brood And what happens to the mite when they do that?

17:19 Well once they cannibalize their own brood that mites scurries out and it's just yeah You know, I guess the mite is still present, but at least they're They're they're uncapping it and then the queen's able to lay another egg in there and then they're recapping and supposedly there's There's no ice. Yeah, the mite doesn't have a host Right, isn't that crazy? But it's cool So how do we encourage them to do that more or or is it just a matter of Here's something genetic that I'm seeing and I want to keep these genetics going see That question If you were to ask somebody else that isn't a bee rescuer or a bee removal specialist as myself They would probably they would definitely give you another answer for me Every single colony I've every owned has been rescued and I'm proud to say I've never even bought a queen bee in my whole life Because having multiple hives, I'm able to if there's a weak hive I could pull from another hive and pump it pump up that weak hive again if that weak hive is just really on its way out and You know, I've in my beginning years of beekeeping I was crying when my hives got slimed by the beetles and just would lose hives and over time I've learned that the bees have really taught me Have how how to learn or to just transmute the grieving process and accept that They come and they go and I'm I'm a very spiritual person

18:49 And I do believe in reincarnation and I I do believe and so I pray to my bees and the ones that don't make it I always just pray that They come back and even more golden healthy holy pumping hive and or something else not be maybe they want to be something else Yeah, so it's part of the life cycle. It's part of nature and it's okay Yep, and and bringing it back to that Eric And that's where I was trying to say is the the difference is if you were to ask just a beekeeper That's just like a hobbyist or a backyard beekeeper versus somebody. That's a conservationist as myself Is that it's the bees in the wild here that have grown this adaptability of this recapping process And so what dr. Stephen Martin was saying is that what he specifically all awful Has the potential to be the first place with mites but to be mite free because Maybe it's more like mite resistant. Yeah, because this Adaptation I think that's it there can be mites, but if they don't bother my bees who cares Exactly and so toward the end of this meeting He made the suggestion to all the beekeepers in the room that if they are treating that they start weaning off their Bees from treatment. Wow because I've never treated my bees so they're already ahead of the game And I do believe in survival of the fittest so because I'm rescuing these colonies. I end up the strongest

20:20 Stocks and genetics of bees end up surviving in my apiaries So here in Hawaii since the honeybee was introduced in 1857. We only have two genetics The first the first bees that came They brought them First of all, they try to bring a hive all the way from the east coast and the hive melted Before it even got to Hawaii. So they're like, okay, that's not gonna happen So they decided to bring it from San Jose, California and they put the hive on a block of ice On the fanny major is the name of the ship And and then it came to Hawaii There were these brothers in new oanu area, you know the Pully area Yeah, that's why if you go to the lookout there, Eric You'll see a sign that says flying bees be aware Because new oanu was the first place that the bees when they were introduced to Hawaii They were situated in in a yard of these brothers that cared for them and from just I think there There were three hives those bees started to swarm And then I want to say a year or two after they brought More genetics and so the two genetics that we have here Are dark German and Italian The Polly is so windy. How do they even fly?

21:35 That's what I'm saying That's why the sign is there because the bees like they could barely fly around because it's so yeah, they're all erratic Okay, I'm gonna really notice that closer the next time I'm there Thank you for opening my eyes to that. Are there any seasonality issues? Are there any dirth times at all? You know, I've been observing climate change into crisis since Seriously since 2018 in my journals and my logs And there was a year I want to say it was 2021 around there 2020 2021. It was just like the beginning of the pandemic And I get a call from the Waimanala polo field And there's a lady that runs an equestrian program. I have so much respect for equestrians I feel like they're similar to beekeepers where horses are so special and intuitive If you don't have a relationship and a kinship with the horse that horse is gonna buck you off like the bees state new, you know So just like the bees always bring me to the coolest most magical places. I appreciate that so much So what was happening there?

22:36 She had a section in the polo field where she was running tours with like children adults too, but mostly children where it was like that building that relationship trusting I think it was bear back on the horses things like that And she calls me up one day and she goes hi. Do you think you could come assess a situation that's going on here? There's bees that are coming and eating the food that I'm feeding my horses and I said what? She goes yeah, and one of my horses got stung and won't eat anymore Because she knows that the bees keep going to the trough there where the food the feed is And she won't eat and I was like, oh no Four four horse. Well, then that's smart too. The horse is like check now. I'm not gonna go over there and get stung again Well, and bees don't eat horse food No, so check this out eric. What happened is I get there And I see the bees so the horses eat soy Little little pellets that literally look like pollen pellets And the bees are on the ground with the with the it's basically like edamame pellets, right?

23:44 And and so the bees are on the ground packing these soy pellets on their legs like pollen Which when you think about it if it's like at a moment, this is gmo because Soy is one of the four major gmo crops And the fact that I saw that I put it all together that there's not enough pollen in the trees and that year we had a drought Like we we did not get a lot of rain that season and we had just we were just coming out of winter going into spring And when I saw that I was like wow the flora around us isn't even producing enough Protein for the bees which is their pollen intake and they need that You know, they can't just live off of nectar. They need a balanced diet just as like us human beings That is really interesting and for those that don't know the geography around there Waimanalo is a is not a dry place. Yeah, there are dry parts of the island Waimanalo is green and it's near the mountains and well in fact, that's where your apiary was and it was Yeah, so so it was just dry enough that even though probably things looked green. They weren't creating pollen. Yeah Interesting. Yeah, and and to add on to Waimanalo. It is an agricultural area So a lot of our invasive species end up concentrated there like there's huge iguanas there right now And they're not anywhere else on the island and we're like, oh my god keep those iguanas there in Waimanalo

25:15 Those are not native to there by the way. No, we can the koki frogs which are from big island anytime they hear one Uh department of ag will will spend night and they find me it will they come out at night So they'll go listen to it and then just find it and spray it and And that's done. I have read about that and I get it where my daughter lives on the big island All night long you hear the koki frogs, but I love it to me. It is so relaxing But they're surprisingly loud And I know they don't want them to hit all the other islands. How are they going to keep um varroa mites from kawaii because They can hitch a ride on a barge or a boat and accidentally get over there Ask the people in australia. Yeah, it's we've it's been that this way for So many years now. I hope that we can continue that But like that's prohibited. We're not even allowed to be moving Bees island to island sure and as I mentioned when the bees were introduced in 1857 50 years after that they prohibited any more outside bees from coming in because within 50 years We were thriving already just By the bees were coming from those two genetics that they brought in and they must have been good genetics Yeah, like I had the honor and privilege of rescuing bees from eolani palace in august of 2020 and pandemic and They were concerned that those were africanized bees because there were there was a beehive at every tower corner of the palace

26:49 And they were coming down and stinging tourists and stinging guests and stinging even the security guards So they took They they they found a dead one or whatever grabbed a specimen and gave it to you a chinese bee project and dr. Ethel via loboskos No, they're just dark germans Oh, thank goodness. There's nothing africanized over there at this point. Tell me about some of the things that you do business wise So you mentioned removals? Yeah, and is that the majority of what you do? That's what the elite hawaii is founded on and I We are we are the lead bee removal Company on oahu at least the the type of work that we do is historical industrial commercial We do residential and that's how we started off. So yeah, we help the auntie and uncle and the the tutus and everything and I give them More of a personable. I'm very personable with all my clients but I like to give the kupuna our elders. I give them a little discount They're they're just living off of their retirement and they're so grateful for that, you know And I'm just grateful that them being At as elders they have the consciousness and awareness of keeping these bees alive because a lot of these older Generations are like kill the bees. They don't even think about it because they didn't grow up in in the time of this scarcity of everything kind of of it the whole natural world and And the pollinators and they're so important so I'm founded as a bee removal service

28:20 and then it was 2015 so three years after starting the bee removal business Was when I started to pivot and expand and then the full circle or full hexagon I like to say Of bili, hawaii is a rescue relocate rehabilitate and educate So the bees that I rescue I relocate them to my partnership farms bee sanctuaries and then I rehabilitate them with so much love and holistic methods of caring for them and then the education the last part is what I just did today I started the first my first outreach class of this of this school year and this is my seventh anniversary of doing it's called the pollinator outreach program. So I call it pop and I've been bringing my rescued bees to schools for over seven years now and it fills my heart to everything everything I do that bili, hawaii encompasses from saving the bees that and that's hard work. It's like being a demolition construction worker and cutting open structures and just using my infrared camera to even identify be established beehives inside of the wall and the reason I'm able to pick up their where they're at is because they have the same heat as a human body They're 97 degrees in a wall and that's why my thermal imager can pick them up So from there to that full hexagon or full circle in teap bringing these bees to schools

29:55 And then my latest program Eric and I started it after We you had come to the apiary is called believe university and it's a beekeeping school and I'm about to launch my first virtual course, but it will be my fifth cohort that I'll be teaching So I just this year were wrapped up my fourth in-person cohort I have 18 graduates out of these last four cohorts Each each cohort I max it out at at six students So I had five in my first one three in the second four in the third and five five in this last one And is that a one-time class or come all right? I had once a week or Or how does that work? It's a 16 week program And they would they would come every Thursday from 10 to 2 to my partnership farm Hoa, Aina, Omokaha in YNI on the west side 16 weeks. That's pretty thorough 16 weeks And so how I break it down I break it down quarterly I'll tell you the titles, but I break it down the first quarter is about spirit of the bee The second is mine the third is body and the last is environment And so in that first quarter it's called superorganism psyche I attune my students to tap into their intuition and And feel into their honey hearts And I have this formula that I channeled I tell my students when it comes to beekeeping

31:26 This is the formula. It's 3s before 2t The 3s stands for sight scent and sound Before 2t is taste and touch. So these are our five senses and we can smell We can hear and we can see We can watch the entrance of a hive. We can smell what's wafting out of the entrance and we can listen to Their hum their buzz before we even open that hive and touch a frame or taste that honey The inspection already starts there. Absolutely We have a good idea of what's going on. Yeah, I mean, I I get it commercial beekeepers They've got a thousand hives. They've got to just book through it all for those of us that are hobbyists Or like you that can take the time. I recommend take the time Spend some time Quieting yourself before you even get near the bees. So you can be more in tune We actually consider calling this podcast intuitive beekeeping, but we like be love better It's so much about being intuitive. I believe I'm not quite as into it I can't communicate with my bees as well as you can But there are plenty of times. Oh, don't don't tell some people that you're I'm saying this but Where I ask them, what do you need? I can tell you need something You've got a problem here and there's eight different ways that we can approach it What do you need? What's going to be best for you? And I really try to listen. I can't say I'm great at it

33:01 But I'm trying Just to hear you say that Eric it it makes me happy because you being a male beekeeper and In the world of apaculture there it's there's so many male beekeepers and I think a lot of them too are are on the more conventional side, right? and For me, there's this symbolism in the patriarchy, you know in this last decade We've all been watching this whole patriarchy just kind of like slowly crumble in in many facets And I look to the bees like I look to the world I look at the super organism of the hive and the matriarchy like if we as a human species Would honor mother earth the way that her daughters even even the drones like the drone passes on his I call them kamikaze king bees They mate with her in the sky. They pass on their lineage. They have an explosive orgasm and fall to the ground What a way to go. Come on. Don't feel sorry for him and Did you ever see the meme it said honey mat churio?

34:12 Yes four drones but Can you imagine Eric if like? We honored as a human race the planet as Her offspring honor her the queen How much more harmonious this this place would be All right, we're running out of time. You wanted to talk about the big island. What's going on over there? Is it just the queens? Yes, it has a lot to do with the queens and I am not going to throw any Organizations or companies under the bus by naming names But let's just say that I've learned so much this year about gmo bees genetically modified organism bees The artificial insemination of just queen breeding already. There's a dishonor just The the the way that it's done How they even take the queens before they ship them off and they put them like they gasp them in a bag so that they just kind of Basically fall asleep for a little bit and I'm just like, oh my god like If we have a queen breeder on the big island listening You're welcome to come on the show and give your side of the story yeah Yeah, and I have I have no daggers to throw at anybody in that I'm not doing those things. I'm just Representing myself and what I believe in and I come from a neutral stance. I'm not here to judge any other beekeepers I know we're all very quirky very eccentric and all very different And that's it. I'm just here sharing what I believe in is bono, which is righteous and just and balance and

35:46 and whoever feels inspired to learn from me. I I just hold the the deepest space for them and a very safe container of mentorship guardianship so that Really what it is Bee leave university and the way that I teach is is do or chip not just for the bees. It's for the whole planet. It's for All sentient beatings By the way, if people want to look you up you keep saying be leave with their whether it's university or hawaii It's be leave Hawaii calm. Yeah, by the way, they can find you it'll be in the show Notes To I have two more questions for you that I need to let you go One is I want to hear one wild and crazy beekeeping story from you Oh one wild Something that stands out that was like, oh, I can't believe that happened or it was painful or it was embarrassing or We all have them come on I mean there was one time where I was in an industrial place and there were at least four bee hives in the building And it was my handyman and I were just on the job site And we were on his truck and since it was a pretty big building He was like, okay, jump on and he thought I had like I was holding on to his truck And then he just started driving and I just like rolled tuck and rolled off the truck And he was like, oh my god, I go you're lucky. I'm a retired professional skin boarder and I know how to fall But I was okay. I just kind of stuffed my elbow, but

37:18 You didn't have any bees land on top of you or anything. Oh, they'll believe but no, that would have been even better Anyway, that's a good one. What Jasmine? What brings you joy of beekeeping? knowing that I can provide these Nature's true alchemists these little fairies these little devas that I can provide them beautiful sanctuaries to thrive in and that they're going out into the world creating these beautiful sacred geometric shapes all around like healing our world feeding us and I've always known that I wanted to make this world a better place since I was a little girl and and help humans and and animals And I get to do all of it through the bees by taking care of them and they're feeding us And that is what truly fills my honey heart and brings me joy all the time. Thank you Well, you even have joy in your name Jasmine joy Mahalo Mahalo and careful. Appreciate you being with me today. Thank you so much And our tip of the day is something that I was reminded of while having that conversation with Jasmine And that is take your time do whatever it takes to be relaxed Observe the bees smell listen I once had it described to me as Pretend like you're doing tai chi slow rhythmic movements your bees will love you for it And I also have a question of the day I recently was on a beekeeping social media site where someone posted a photo of their hives already for winter and asked if the ventilation looked okay

38:57 Trying to be helpful. I responded that in cold climates bees still need ventilation to control the humidity in the hive immediately of course Someone else slammed on me saying that bees self ventilate So close up your hives almost completely with just one little tiny entrance and that's it This is one of those beekeeping things where there are so many factors involved and there are so many different opinions So if you have some profound thoughts on winter hive ventilation in cold climates Please send an email to Eric at be love beekeeping.com Same with any other feedback that you have for the show Thank you so much for joining us here on be love beekeeping presented by man lake Please right now hit those follow or subscribe buttons And remember if you're not just in it for the honey or the money you're in it for the love. See you next week