Chemical-Free Varroa Treatment, Honey Bee Dad Jokes & More!

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Welcome, welcome to Be Love Bee Keeping presented by our great friends over at Man Lake.

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We're going to start off with something just a little bit different today.

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We've given a little vacation to our buddy the not real Jeff Foxworthy,

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and we're going to try something today I think we'll probably only do it once because it may

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fall flat on its face. But here we go. We're going to do a lightning round of honeybee jokes.

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Maybe call them dad honeybee jokes. Are you ready? Here we go. Why do bees have sticky hair?

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Because they use honeycombs. What's a beekeeper's favorite type of music? Bebop.

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Why did the beekeeper go to therapy? Because he had too many un-be-lievable issues.

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What do you call a bee that's having a bad hair day? A frizz bee. I should apologize now.

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And by the way, Man Lake does not endorse or think these are funny.

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Why did the bees get married? Because they found their honey. What do you call a bee that can't

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make up its mind? A maybe. Why do beekeepers stay so calm? Because they know how to handle a buzzkill.

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Why don't bees apologize after stinging you? Because they're too busy to care.

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Ha ha ha ha! How do bees celebrate a victory with a hive five? Why do bees hum? Because they

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forgot the lyrics. What's a honeybee's favorite type of relationship? A long-term honeymoon phase.

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What's a bee's favorite novel? The Great Gats Bee.

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What's a bee's least favorite weather? Cloudy with a chance of fly swatters.

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And my friend said, if you get stung by a bee, just rub mud on it. I said, okay, but what if it flies away first?

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If you love those dad jokes, send an email to eric at belovebekeeping.com. And if you didn't,

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go ahead and send an email to no such email address at belovebekeeping.com.

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Today we're headed over to France to have a discussion with multi-generational beekeeper

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Pascal Brunner to discuss his new chemical free way of treating Varroa mites. I know there are a

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million different philosophies on treating or not treating Varroa, but I say to everybody out there,

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keep it up. The more people working on this problem, the better. All right, let's jump right into it.

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I would like to welcome our very special guest to the show today, Pascal Brunner,

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all the way from Switzerland. How are you today?

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Hello there. It's great to be here, Eric. Thanks a lot for the invitation, and I'm really looking

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forward to this podcast session with you. Well, you're welcome. What part of Switzerland are you in?

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We're in the German speaking part of Switzerland, close to Zurich.

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I bet it's beautiful. I just picture a winter wonderland. And before we started recording,

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we were talking skiing. That's for another podcast someday, but I've got to get over there,

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and you've got to get to our Utah mountains where we have the greatest snow on earth.

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Exactly. I think we share a lot with that. And indeed, Switzerland is a very small country.

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So within two hours, you're in our mountains. And yeah, I'm not sponsored by Switzerland

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Tourism, but I have to say I love the mountains. It looks absolutely beautiful. I have not been

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there yet. It's on my list. But I'll tell you what I do picture is the summertime with the Green

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Mountain Valleys and the cow with the big bell. And that whole thing that I'm sure is very cliche,

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but we'll have to hook up there sometime. Yeah, sure. I mean, you can definitely find that as well.

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And if you're lucky, you even find some wild bees flying around in the alps. That's always amazing

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if you're up in the alps. And then you see, you know, sometimes they're a little bit bigger,

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like the bumblebees. Sometimes they're a little bit smaller, really specific to the specific area

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they live in. So that's always a highlight, not just, you know, seeing honeybees, but also the

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wild bees. So the flora and fauna is quite interesting. And there's a lot of diversity.

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Well, today we're going to be talking about a product that you and your team have developed

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that is correct me if I get this wrong. It is a chemical free way to treat Varroa mites.

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That's absolutely correctly. And I'm excited to hear about it, because I have found for the

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vast, vast, vast majority of people, we are incapable of controlling them without some kind

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of chemical. So I can't wait to hear what you guys are doing. But first, let's talk about beekeeping

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for a minute. What is it like keeping bees in a mountainous place like Switzerland?

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I myself have been on quite some farms all over the world. So I've seen beekeeping in various

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areas, in various forms. And I think the main difference is that, especially like in the

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in the German speaking area where I live, we tend to keep bees in little homes, basically.

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So we put up a little, you can imagine it like a trailer or like a cottage. And we then put our

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hives inside there and give them like a really good, really good, especially in the wintertime,

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or when it's becoming a bit colder, we give them really good warmth to make it through the winter.

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And I think that's as well one of the successes why our loss rates are still relatively low,

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around 15, 20%, compared to other parts of the world where we see losses being way more up,

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up to 45, 50%, than I've seen in a recent episode you spoke about. Another spike in yearly losses.

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So yeah, I think giving it or that's that's probably the major difference. We have as well,

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obviously, different bee races. We have the Melifera, Melifera, we have the Karnika,

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which is very popular. So this is rather, I would say, commonly shared among different

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countries. But the beekeeping style working in a in a home, this is a little bit special to Switzerland.

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Well, that is something that looks so cool to me. I've looked at the Slovidian AZ hives.

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Are you similar to theirs? Yeah, it's quite comparable. There are obviously as well some

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differences. Like, you know, in the Slovenian hives, normally you're able to pull out each

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in every frame directly, because like they are put in a way that their direction phase is the

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the hive entrance. While in most of the Swiss hives, it's like perpendicular with a 90 degrees

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angle to the entrance. So if you want to grab your brood frames, you need to remove all of the frames,

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which is a little bit more work to do. However, I think for the hive climate within the hive,

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it's it can be quite beneficial for the bees, because they really have a very, very easy time

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to manage their hive climate, because there is not much air flowing through. However, if they need

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air, they can bring the air in. So it's really, I think it's a good concept, a little bit work

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intense. So I wouldn't recommend doing it as a, if you're doing it professionally, you spend a

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little bit too much time on your hives, but especially for hobbyists or small mid scale

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beekeepers, it's a it's really beautiful keeping bees like this. And they're very calm, you because

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you open them from behind. So there you have the nurse bees and they don't sting. So you can always

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go there with the t-shirt without getting stung. Oh, I love it. All right. I need to see some pictures

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of your hives. I want to do something like that here, bring, bring some of that to the states.

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Anyway, tell me about how big of a problem are Varroa mites over there? I mean, all over Europe,

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Varroa mites is as well the number one problem. And so many beekeepers fear Varroa or a beekeeper

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struggle to manage Varroa properly. And we've seen as well over the past 15, 20 years, we've seen a

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constant increase of the loss rate. So even though we are not as bad yet as North America, as USA and

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Canada, we still see an increase of mortality of colonies due to the Varroa mites. And this is

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concerning for many beekeepers around here. And especially what's concerning for most of them is

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the chemical treatments. This is really something a lot of them don't like to do or as well like

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or it is more regulated. So for example, amitrestrious is not allowed treatment here. So a lot of

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beekeepers just rely on formic and oxalic acid. And whoever has applied those chemicals in a hobby

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environment knows this is nothing for, for, for cool and nature loving beekeeping. This is quite

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the contrary of that. And that's why a lot of beekeepers are as well struggling with managing

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Varroa mites properly. Yeah, I don't know anybody that actually wants to use chemicals

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in their beehives. We just often feel like we have to, like we don't have a choice. So I love

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looking at every kind of natural or chemical free way to do it. So let's jump into that. Let's talk

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about life hive. Give me the basic concept of how it works. Yeah, sure. So life hive is a Varroa

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treatment that uses the natural principle of heat. We go to 108 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours,

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which kills the mites and the bees survive. And this concept is called hyperthermia.

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And it's been known since the 1970s, 1980s, where scientists have found out this heat

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tolerance difference between the mites and the bees. But what makes life have really special is

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that we have a heating element in each of the foundation of the brood frames, and we can target

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each of the frames individually. So instead of heating the whole hive at once, we only heat up

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one frame at a time for three hours periods. And this is enough to kill the Varroa mites that are

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in those kept brood cells on the frame, who are right at that moment reproducing. And we kill those

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reproducing mites while keeping the bees safe. And this is what really what makes life hive very

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special because through this machine learning algorithms that detect the kept cells on a frame,

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we can then apply the treatments in a fully automated way so that, you know, even in remote

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areas, it is solar powered beekeepers can just install life hive on their hives, and then it will

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keep the mite levels low throughout the whole season. Let me make sure we're not confusing people here,

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because we started off talking about these Swiss hives that are different for our listeners in

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North America. They're different than the regular Langstroth hives. But you have developed this for

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both kinds of bee hives? Yes, I mean, we have had in the past, we've worked on all different types

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of bee hives because there we were very adaptive. But the product life hive that we are launching now,

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this focuses on standard Langstroth bee hives. So we're using Langstroth deep 10 frames where the

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product will be featured in. And just to pull out a few things that you already said, because you

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said a lot in a very small space, you mentioned that this will kill Varroa under the kept cells,

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correct? Exactly, yes. Capped brood cells. If somebody is using an oxalic acid vaporizer,

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my understanding is that does not go beneath the cappings, which is why you have to have a cycle of

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roughly every seven days for three weeks or so to take care of all that brood that may be hatching.

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Am I on the right track here? Yes, you're on the right track. But with what you have, and it's

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called life hive, but you're not selling in a whole hive system like a box with all the frames.

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What you have is individual frames with foundation that's heated up from a solar heater to 108 degrees.

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So that heat is going from actually the inside out instead of the outside in. Does it hurt the

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brood at all? No, the brood does not get hurt, but I think I'll quickly need to specify here,

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we actually do sell one brood box as part of the package. Yeah, please correct me if I'm

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wrong on any of this. I'm just trying to clarify all of it. Sure. Yeah, I think that's very good.

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Okay, so you sell a whole box with these frames in it then? Exactly, yeah, because what's very

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important is we have this connection mechanism that makes sure the current gets delivered to the

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inside of the foundations. And therefore we have this connection mechanism that makes sure that

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electricity can flow into the frames and therefore the treatments can actually happen.

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And that electricity is coming from a solar panel? Exactly, yeah. Where does the solar panel sit? On

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top to the side? Where is it? Yeah, we leave it actually to the beekeeper where they want to

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place it. So there are some beekeepers that put the solar panel right on the top of the

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hives or off the top of the supers actually. Or there are as well some others who would rather

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have the solar panel next to the hive standing next to it and then put it as well in an angle that

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you know it catches a little bit more sun. That really depends on where your hives are located,

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how sunny it is, whether you're under a tree or not. So that really depends on the beekeeper

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and we keep it very flexible. We have just a cable where you can plug into the box

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and which will then power the unit. If somebody is listening and goes, holy cow, that sounds

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really cool. I want to try that. Unfortunately, they can't even buy one of these yet, can they?

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Tell us where you're at in the life cycle. Yeah, exactly. So over the past 10 years,

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we've put a lot of efforts into making this product, developing it and bringing it to the market.

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So we have already been on the market in the early years of our company, where we sold it

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mainly to the European market. We sold 3,500 units, so we were quite successful on a commercial

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level. Got as well a lot of clients, got as well some feedback. We have clients that are still

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using these first versions of the product. So with some clients, the versions have been in use now

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for seven plus years, which is pretty cool as well for us to see that the products have an impact

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and are really positively influencing the bee's health of these clients. Let me just take a minute

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here to thank our presenting sponsor, Man Lake. Whether you're a season beekeeper or just getting

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started, Man Lake has the equipment and the expertise that you need to set your bees up for

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success, including my new favorite woodenware, Man Lake's Wax Dipped Hive Kits. They are absolutely

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beautiful with a natural finish and they're made to last. In fact, for up to 25 years, no painting

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necessary. And don't forget your discount code MLBLOV10. It's in the show notes for $10 off your

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first $100 purchase. Now, back to the guest. But we had as well some challenges which were mainly

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on the mechanical level because it's very hard to make or to build a system that reliably connects

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while being very user-friendly for the beekeeper in the day-to-day operation. And that's why we've

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put a lot of development and efforts into developing our mechanics in a way that, first of all,

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we fit the standard dimensions. So you can throw our frames into standard boxes or you can take

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standard frames and put them into our boxes. Both ways work. That was one of the big things or as

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well making sure that we have this connection mechanisms that all of the frames who are in a

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live hive brood box actually get treated and get the right temperature, which is very, very

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crucial for our technology to work. So that's where we put a lot of efforts in. And over the past

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four years, we have as well demonstrated that on larger commercial farms where we really tested

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whether the usability is on that level that those guys who are cracking a hive in a minute and then

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closing it again, they can work with it. And now that we've validated that, we're opening back

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to the obvious beekeepers, to the backyard beekeepers with a validated technology that,

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yeah, they can use for their own hives. I know I'm jumping all over the place here,

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Pascal. I apologize for that. You mentioned that you're going to heat up a frame to 108 degrees

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for three hours. How often does that happen? And how does it know when to heat? Yes, that's a very,

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very good question. It's probably one of my favorites to answer. Because it took brains

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for you to figure it out. That's why you should feel very proud of yourself on this one. Oh,

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thank you. I mean, you know, it's I'm coming from a four generation beekeeping family. And we've

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spent so much time with the bees trying to understand them. And I think we still don't yet

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understand them, not yet even half the way. So I think, you know, there's a lot more to do. But

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every every little bit that we can contribute to understanding the bees is is just cool. And if you

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develop something, yeah, this is this is this is really cool getting something out for the bees.

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And I think that's where this joy of answering this question is coming from. So coming to the

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point, we apply an algorithm that can sense when the frame has a majority of kept cells. And we do

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this by inputting a little, little heat into the frame from time to time, like four times a day.

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And then we sense how quickly the heat dissipates. And with test with this algorithm, we can basically

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detect the biological pattern of the bee brood. Because when the the egg is in, there is almost

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no mass right on the bottom of the cells. And then those eggs, they get fat heavily, and they swim in

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this little protein shake, basically. So there's a lot of mass then. And once they become poop,

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they move away from the cell and move up. And this biological pattern, we can detect with our

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algorithms. And therefore, we can then using machine learning algorithms detect, okay, this frame is

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has a majority of kept brood in it. And this is the right moment for us to treat against the mites.

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It's hard to believe that it isn't going to hurt the brood or the bees at all. Do you have any kind

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of numbers on how efficient the treatment is, and how safe it is? Yes. So on the efficiency level,

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it's, especially on the Varroa offsprings, is very, very efficient. We kill, I always say more than

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95%. But it's probably closer to 99%. What we kill, I've hardly ever seen any Varroa offspring

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coming out of a treated cell alive. So on that level, that's that's that's pretty easy. I think

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on the level, you know, how safe it is for the bees, this is a more or this is the one where we

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had to put in a little bit more of our resources, because we realized very quickly that depending

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on various factors, which is queen, colony size, and as well the, you know, whether it's fall or

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spring, that can have quite an impact on the on the survival rates of the larvae, especially on

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the eggs and the young larvae. So those those two stages of the bee brood development, they are more

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sensitive to heat. And that's why we need to be more careful. So besides increasing the efficiency

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against Varroa mites, our algorithm as well protects the bee colonies for being more secure.

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And that's actually quite interesting. We've released a paper for those listeners who are

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really interested in, you can find it. It's called Efficiencies and Trade Off of new hyperthermia

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device. It is linked as well on our website. So those who are really interested in finding out

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more about that can read the paper and it's published, it's open source. So you know,

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that's as well one of the findings that was never published before. And when we found that out,

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that was really interesting for us and was as well driver behind us developing this brood detection

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algorithm. So it's killing the little baby Varroas. The adult Varroas, it's not going to kill because

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they're not getting in the cells under the cappings, right? Yes, I mean, they are as well

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in the in the cap cells, because I mean, there is always a motor mite and sometimes as well.

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Yeah, that's where they lay. Yeah. And sometimes as well, you know, the first or the second

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daughter mites might as well be already developed because it depends a little bit on the treatment

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timing. We've seen as well an increased mortality rate of the adult Varroas. However, not yet not

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at the level of 100%. So this is more at the level of 40%, something like that. And what we have not

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yet investigated is whether, for example, the fertility of those of those mites might be impacted

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by heat. This is suspect or this is subject of more research to be ongoing. But for us, it's not

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really crucial because if we can if we can break the Varroa reproduction cycle, we keep the

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mind numbers low. So we don't really care about the adult Varroas who survived. We care about the

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three to four offspring Varroas that cannot escape to sell alive. This is this is where our impact

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happens. All right, I've got an oddball question for you. Now, my queens are not normal. They don't

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take a brood frame and just lay across the whole thing, edge to edge, top to bottom in every single

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frame. But instead, they lay in a whole bunch of it in the middle. And then there might be a little

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bit of honey up in this corner and a little bit of pollen up in this corner. 108 degrees is going

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to melt honey. Am I going to have a mess? You see what I mean? Is that going to be a problem at all?

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Yes, I know what you mean. This is not going to be a problem at all. Because normally,

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the the feeding areas are a little bit more on the outside of the frames and the brood is more

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in the central part of the area. And we have as well a very normal heat distribution. So in the

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center of the frames, it's a little bit hotter than on the outside. And 108 degrees Fahrenheit is

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not critical for food or pollen. Since the honey is only stored for a very short time

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on the brood frames and afterwards the bees, they put it up into the honey supers, you will not feel

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any difference in the honey that you produce. Yeah, makes sense. And the wax will not melt. The wax

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needs 20 degrees Celsius more. I think that's like 12 degrees Fahrenheit or something like that.

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So it won't even get close to melting the wax. Good. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about winter.

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Now, if somebody lives in a warm climate, I would think that they want this working all year long.

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If somebody is in a cold climate like you and I, there's a natural brood break going on during

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the winter. Do I want to not use this box during the winter or do I just keep using it year round,

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but it's not going to heat up? No, I mean, during wintertime, a treatment does not

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have any positive effect on the bees. That's why we decided that we can detect when there is wintertime

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when no brood is present and then we switch off the treatments. And once it's spring again,

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we'll switch it on again automatically. So as a beekeeper, you don't even have to do that. But

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the unit is meant to be in the field as well for overwintering. So if you have a hive in the spot

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where you overwinter, you don't have to transfer the frames out into another box and overwinter,

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and then in the spring, transfer them back in, you can just leave the hive as is. And the system

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will switch off the heating for the broodless period overwinter. And then once it's spring and the

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bees fly out again and start breeding, then we'll switch it on again. When you say we'll switch

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it on again, does that happen automatically or is that something is a beekeeper? I need to go

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turn it off and on. No, it happens automatically. I mean, you as a beekeeper, if you want to feel

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safe, you're going to have a power button. So you can also switch it off and then in springtime,

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switch it on again. This is up to you. But the use case is that we detect it automatically. So

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it's really like, you know, from our perspective, we're on around 80 hives in our operations. And

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even though like, this is nothing compared with commercial beekeepers, but taking care of 80 hives

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and making sure you have been at every apiary and taking care of every hive is a little bit of a

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challenge. Making sure that your management is fine. That's why we have decided we want to build

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this system in a way that it's really, it keeps the beekeeper safe and sound about what's happening

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about the varroa levels in their hives. And therefore we do as well, you know, those little

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extra things like switching it on or off. This is a very small task for us while I think adding a

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lot of value to the beekeeper. Oh yeah, that's no big deal. Flipping a switch. Yeah. So as a fourth

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generation beekeeper, you personally, what's the joy that you find in beekeeping? I think the coolest

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thing I always love when I go out in spring and hear the bees for the first time again, you know,

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after that winter break, because it, you know, just this buzzing, this humming of the bees.

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It's just very relaxing. And especially in spring, when you open them first time,

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they are oftentimes so calm and kind of really looking forward to spring as well, like we humans

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do as well. So I think, you know, there's a lot of parallels. And I think there is a lot that we

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can learn. I mean, this super organism, colony, peak summertime, one queen, 50,000 bees, all being

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organized, communicating, going out for, for harvesting, or for pollinating crops and then

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bringing back pollen. This is just fascinating, you know, how on that small space, everything is

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organized and thrives and really explodes. So if you see that, I think, man, that's,

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that's something we human can learn a lot from the bees. Yeah, it's totally amazing. They continue

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to amaze me. There's so much to learn. And just when I think I've learned it, then there's 10 times

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more to learn again. Exactly. Exactly. That's half the fun of it, though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

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my father is now, he's now 67. And he's been, he got his first hives at the age of 10. So he's been

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doing it for 57 years. Wow. And it's just amazing, you know, like, I mean, whenever I'm with him at

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the hives, he's just, he sees the things that no one else can see is like, you know, going into the,

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just having a look at the hive entrance and seeing how the bees fly. And then he normally goes around,

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takes a one minute look and then he said, okay, we'll open this, this and that. All the other hives

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will leave untouched. And the way he sees these things. Yeah, like, this is really amazing for

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me as well. You know, I love being at the bees, but I think I'm, I'm just not that experienced as he

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is. And maybe I as well don't have that much patience as he has. And as we all know, patience

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is important in beekeeping. Whenever you're stressed, it's not a good time to open up a hive,

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because they come at you and whenever you're relaxed, it's just a different way of working.

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So yeah, there's so much to learn. And I think one never stops learning with the bees.

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That is so very true. How do you relax when it's time to get into the hives?

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Oh, well, our question, I mean, I, I try to tell myself, okay, it takes as long as it takes. I

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as well try to organize, you know, not that I go and I know I have exactly half an hour and then

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I need to jump off because I have another meeting coming up or whatever. So I try to organize my

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days a little bit accordingly. But it's not always easy. It happens that we are at the hives and then

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we get a phone call and we see, okay, there's some something in the company that we need to take care

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of, but as well the bees and then it happens that, you know, you kind of lose a little bit of that

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level of relaxation and then yeah, you normally get stung.

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They will teach you. Yes, exactly. The one day that I got stung up, the worst was a day that I did

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exactly what you're talking about. I was in a big hurry. I was stressed. I've got to take this hive

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apart, get this treatment on. I've got five minutes. I'm going to do this and oh man,

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it got me good. Yeah, you don't help the bees and you don't help yourself. I like to walk out to the

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hives, stop maybe 20 feet away, put my veil on and just breathe and just close my eyes,

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just breathe for a few seconds or however long it takes until I feel relaxed and then I approach

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them very slowly and I make sure they can feel my relaxation somehow and it is amazing how much

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better it works. Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, it's a pretty good exercise. I think maybe next time

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I have a business meeting coming up next afterwards, I'll do exactly the same as you just said.

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And there's other days where hey, either the bees are in a bad mood or I'm not quite in a right

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place and I'll get out there and I'll go, no, not today. Turn around and go back and save it for

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the next day or something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and they appreciate that, especially when they're upset

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for some various reasons because we can't fix all that. All right. No. I want to hear, you've been

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keeping bees for a long time. Give me some kind of a wild and crazy story that's happened to you

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in your beekeeping journey. Well, I thought about that and I think the craziest story was actually

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not happening to me, but it happened to my grandfather. So he was as well a beekeeper

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pretty much all his life. And at some point he was out at the apiaries and it was a hot summer day

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and he got a little thirsty. So he drank a lot. And then at some point he was like, okay, after I drank,

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I'll probably need to go and pee. And actually a bee thought, well, let's follow him. And then

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she actually, or he actually got stunned right in the middle there. And yeah, this, it happily,

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it never happened to me, but I think this must be quite painful if that happens to you. So yeah,

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this is my crazy beekeeping story. And probably uncomfortable for a few days, I imagine.

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Yeah. I mean, I didn't ever speak with my grandmother, but it could as well be that she liked it,

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you know, I was trying not to go down that path. All right, Pascal, appreciate you very much.

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Next time you're over here in the States, come see me. We'll go do a little skiing.

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Absolutely. Looking forward to that. Thanks a lot, Eric. It was a pleasure for being on the show.

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Hey, one thing before I let you go, Pascal, if people want to find out a little bit more about

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Lifehive, where do they find it? All right. That's a very good question. So people who are interested

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and want to learn more can visit get.lifehive.io and our Kickstarter campaign will launch in April

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2025. So yeah, we're really looking forward to increase our community and welcome you

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to become a Lifehive member.

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Thanks again for joining us here on Be Love Beekeeping presented by Man Lake.

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Another great place for more information on everything related to this podcast is in our email

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newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at belovebekeeping.com. And remember, if you're

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not just in it for the honey or the money, you're in it for the love. See you next week.