Importance of LOCAL Beekeeping With Guest, Mr. Ed (Jeff Horchoff)

0:00 May I have your attention, please? The following is not the real Jeff Fox review. If you have lost more than five hive tools and your lawnmower has found two of them, you might be a beekeeper. If once a year your kitchen becomes sticky from floor to ceiling. You might be a beekeeper. If you think that Varroa mites were created by Satan himself, you might be a beekeeper. Welcome welcome to Be Love Beekeeping presented by Man Lake.

0:58 We have a really fun show today as we'll be joined by guest Jeff Horchoff or as he's affectionately known by the nickname Mr. Ed. He's a beekeeper in Louisiana, a YouTube star and someone who really loves honey bees and knows how to find the joy and fun in beekeeping. And we're excited to announce for our listeners that right now are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, iHeart, et cetera, that this is our first episode that's also a full video episode. So if you want to see Mr. Ed as well as hear him, check out the episode on our YouTube channel, Be Love, Be Keeping.

1:41 But however you prefer to consume your podcasts, hey, we are just glad you're here. Before we chat with Mr. Ed, let's check some honeybee headlines from around the world. Coming to us from the BBC, bee attack injures dozens in France. Several dozen people were injured, with three rushed to hospital in critical condition in an unusual bee attack in a French town. Local authorities said 24 passersby were hurt when hundreds of bees suddenly attacked people in the central southern town of Irelac on Sunday morning. The three that were in critical condition are now stable. According to local media, one of them was a 78 year old woman who was stung 25 times and had to be resuscitated after cardiorespiratory arrest. Police and firefighters fenced off the area and a beekeeper was called in to save the day. He came in, he got a lot of smoke going, I'm not sure what all else he did, but he saved the day. Eventually he moved the beehives completely out of that area. So the question is, what caused the bees to go crazy and be attacking people?

3:01 They don't have Africanized genetics there. According to the mayor, Pierre Mathonnier, Asian hornets threatening a beehive may have been the catalyst for the attack. But Christian Carrier, the president of the regional beekeepers union, was really skeptical of that. He said that bees generally avoid leaving their colonies altogether in the presence of Asian hornets. Instead, he said that the unusual incident may have been due to the bee colony becoming too large for its beehive and becoming quote, overactive when the beekeeper handled it. It may be that the bees didn't have enough space and that their colony had no intention of swarming. This can trigger strong aggression, he said. However, he also said that bees could be stressed because of a problem with the queen, or could have been reacting to external factors such as heat waves, early blossoming in May -June, and subsequent lack of food in July, or a sharp drop in temperatures. So, it could be anything from hornets to heat waves to drop in temperature.

4:16 Nobody really knows. What we do know is the causes of the incident will be analyzed and that the beehives have been moved outside of the town. This next brief story would be funny if it weren't so sad. A beekeeper and grandmother who keeps her bees in a private woodland in Dorset, England, said that her beehives were vandalized last month. She believed that it was bored teenagers who kicked over 23 of her beehives. With a lot of effort, she fixed the broken boxes, settled down her bees, and eventually got things back to normal. But then it happened again. Here's a quote from her. My hunch is that it's a fellow beekeeper.

5:04 It just smacks of jealousy and somebody with a grudge against me. The first incident we put down to mindless vandalism. Everything that was on stands was now on the ground. It was in all directions, so I know it wasn't the wind and it wasn't animals because nothing was chewed. I was gobsmacked. But if kids had done it, I don't think they would have risked or been bothered to go all the way back to the middle of nowhere to do it again. The area has never been an issue before for bored kids, and this is the first time that we've had such trouble in over 20 years of beekeeping. I believe whoever's done it had a motive for doing so. I think it's someone with a grudge. Alright, enough of that. Let's get to our guest. I'd like to welcome to the show today, one of the funnest beekeepers out there, Mr. Ed, how are you? Just doing great. Great, Eric. Thank you for inviting me on this evening.

6:05 I really do appreciate it. I am a huge believer that beekeeping should be fun. And when you and I were talking the other day, I could tell you've got the same philosophy. In fact, I even wrote something down. You said beekeeping should be fun first. Yeah. Explain I make that a big point in my presentations because There's there's a lot of people who have never been beekeepers becoming beekeepers and There's some something Inspired them to want to become to keep bees to have bees something inspired them and A lot of people are very much aware of what was the impetus to begin being a beekeeper. But I think that the underlining reason that people do it is because they think it's going to be fun. That somewhere inside of them, they say this is going to be fun. Regardless of why you become a beekeeper, a particular element of that reason why is in your heart, in your mind, you said this is really going to be fun. So I stress that point of beekeeping should be fun all the time because all too often

7:38 we get caught up in the particulars of keeping bees and that can be making you more aware of what has to be done instead of the fun that you should be having while you're doing it. And many beekeepers will lose that aspect of fun because they are so caught up with the particulars of being a beekeeper. People get so serious. I don't see many people having fun doing it. Oh yeah. And you know what? If you really love the bees, it really is fun. Yeah. But some people just put on their straight face and like, I'm not going to get stung no matter what today. And I've got to do this, this, this, this, and this.

8:26 And the bees are going to cooperate either that, or they've got to have a PhD to do everything exactly right. And then it's easy to lose some of that fun aspect of it. So that's exactly right. That's exactly. Do you like to be called Mr. Ed? Oh yeah, that's definitely my name. Okay. By the way, for those of you listening that don't know Mr. Ed, He's like a god on YouTube. No, don't say that. 150 million subscribers or something? No, no, not 150 million. Okay, 150 plus thousand and that's really impressive. Right. but that's because you have an addictive personality and people just love you. So I appreciate you taking a few minutes to be with us today. Oh, Eric, I'm happy to be there. Like I said, I like to, I like to talk about bees. Just ask my wife.

9:16 I like to talk about bees almost every chance I can because I find them so fascinating. I belong to two bee clubs and I go to the meetings every month, both, both of me. Cause I just like doing it. I like being around people. who are interested in bees, and I like hearing their stories of their experience of keeping bees, because each beekeeper's story is unique. We may follow same procedures, but the experience of that procedure is unique to the individual beekeeper. And those are what are so interesting to hear. Somebody's perspective, their perspective of the experience.

9:59 That's... It's a great feeling to be around that, because when you hear it, when I hear it, it relives my experiences. So it's kind of like a drug feeding, you know, you're feeding your addictions, in a sense. Another thing that's amazing to me, speaking of unique, is how every colony can be unique. In what sense? Well, they have different personalities, they do things at different times. You may have two colonies that you brought up side -by -side, treated them exactly the same way, and all of a sudden one is swarming and the other's not. Or one is just happy to be there and practically give you a kiss when you do a hive inspection and the other not. And they're just all unique and different.

10:50 And I'm sure they have a zillion similarities, but I love the uniqueness too. Right. I agree with what you're saying. It's true. I don't try to categorize bees in particular. It's generalized with them in the sense that how they behave. But I would say that every time I open up a wall or a ceiling or a floor or whatever where I have access to this colony, There's no doubt it is unique because I see something brand new every single time I open up an area to expose a beehive.

11:33 And without fail, once that hive is exposed, I always, always, always just pause, just to take it in. It'll never be that again. And so this is the moment. That's, that's one of the things I also, another thing I talk about in my talks is Beekeeping gives the beekeeper the opportunity, the chance to live in the moment that you're on. That when you open up your box, there it is, right here. Well, you know, it's not going to do you any good if you're in your mind, you're back there worried about what you ate for lunch or how are you going to pay for your car note or your house note. If you're not present in the moment, you've already lost that uniqueness that you talk about. Keeping bees affords the beekeeper the opportunity to practice a lost trait that is living in the moment. Because that's where life is lived. It's not lived in the past. It's not lived in the future. It's in the present. It gives beekeepers the chance to train themselves to be present to what's in front of them. The whole rest of the world can disappear. All that your being is, is right in front of you. And this is one of the sayings I say quite often as my experience as a beekeeper

13:07 is I lose myself in the wonder of the bees. So it's not, it's not I'm no longer Jeff, Mr. Ed, I'm present with the bees. And so in the sense, there's a communal thing going on that you're there with the bees and you can take all this stuff in and it happens in a blink of an eye. It's not like this is like some prolonged half an hour experience. It's a very quick thing because there is business to do at hand, but that pause to take this in and to live in that moment, there you go, that's beekeeping right there at its fullest, right there. That's great advice. Do you think that's why it's so therapeutic? For sure. It can be. You know, if they choose that, it can be. You know, like you said, people keep bees for varied reasons. You know, some people want the science of it. Some people want the honeys. You know, whatever their reason, it still doesn't change that there is the opportunity for that beekeeper to experience what is right in front of them to the fullest. That opportunity is there. Yeah, absolutely. You and I could talk for hours about everything with beekeeping. When we were chatting the other day, we kind of narrowed it down of what our topic is going to be tonight.

14:37 And that is the importance of how to keep bees where you are. And for example, You're in Louisiana, deep south, I'm north in the mountains. We're doing things completely opposite. Our experience I should say is completely opposite although the bees aren't. Right. So we do need to learn about bees but we need to learn about beekeeping where we are and bee behavior where we are. Let's start it off by please explain what it's like where you are. So I live in southeast Louisiana. And like I told you when we spoke on Monday or the other day, I always think that this particular part of the United States, the Southeastern part of the United States, in some way we are isolated.

15:28 We live like in a bubble because we aren't afflicted with a lot of the issues that are prevalent in other areas of the United States. in particularly the mite count, and it may be due to that mite count being lower than in other areas. We have a tremendous feral bee population in our area. That is due to habitat. We have tremendous expanses of marsh areas, lowlands, areas that are high in food. sources, resources for the bees, as well as habitat, water, protection. And so these things facilitate the growth of the feral bees, because for us here, particularly in my area, we're prone to flooding, high waters due to just because we're so low as our elevation. New Orleans, which is 50 miles from here, is their elevation is five feet below sea level, where my house is right here in the beta springs, I'm 27 feet.

16:36 So we're very low. And we're very flat. So people tend to build houses elevated. And these elevated houses are just ideal situations for bees swarms to to find and then move into. And so Consequently, I'll probably do, I'd say I'll probably do about 50 or 60 removals a year. And so many of them are in elevated houses because that's a great place for bees to find a new location. Quick break here to thank our presenting sponsor, Man Lake. Whether you're a beekeeper or not, you know that nutrition is key for healthy honeybees, native bees, and other pollinators. The Man Lake app is a great resource for determining pollinator -friendly plants that thrive in your area, and its plant identification feature is super helpful and fun. When I see a plant covered in bees, I fire up the app, find out what it is, then plant them in my yard. If you haven't already downloaded the Man Lake app, give it a try today.

17:50 Oh, and did I mention it's free? And if you're shopping for beekeeping supplies, don't forget your discount code MLBlove10. It's in the show notes for $10 off your first $100 purchase. And plus we have with our climate of warm weather, almost subtropical weather all year round. our bees fly. The coldest months are always January and February. Other than that, even our winters we might get four days of temperatures below 20, maybe, but it's not all the time. So it's very mild temperatures and so our bees fly almost all year round. So of course you need to have a lot of stores for your bees to be able to let them do that. And with the food resources in our area, that's generally not an issue. You mentioned mite count. Do your colonies have small mite counts, just naturally? Like I told you before, I don't treat. I'm treatment -free. I've never treated. I know that the only time I really go into my hives is to when I split them and when I collect rent. So when I split them, I check the drone brood because that's in the burr comb. When I separate the hives, I look in there and I'm gonna find some mites in there, but two,

19:24 three, it's not overrun by mites. And I don't do mite washes. I don't check. I allow the bees to take care of themselves. I lose hives, but our losses, this last year we had about it wasn't bad last year about 20 21 percent uh hive loss you have so many swarms and do so much splitting it's easy to make that up oh yeah i i always whatever my losses are i make up with splits over what i lost you called yourself to me a hands -off beekeeper oh yeah i am and i have to get this out there okay And even though I totally respect everybody's different beekeeping style or approach or philosophy, what you do, hands off, doesn't work everywhere. I just want people to know that. If you try that where I am, your bees are dead. That's just his life.

20:25 Okay? I've tried, it doesn't work. It is hard enough when we're really keeping track of Varroa to get your bees through winter when they can't fly for a few months and the temperatures are below zero every night and there's two or three feet of snow on the ground. Okay but I'm jealous. I wish I could be more of a hands -free beekeeper because I could do a lot more of it that way and it just I don't know just sounds a little more fun and carefree versus some of the worries we have here. I think it is just the area that I'm in allows me that freedom. And I also add on to every time I say, you know, I'm a hands -off beekeeper, that I don't recommend you doing that. You know, that's the way it works for me here. I'm not gonna say it's gonna work for anybody else where they live. It works for me. And that's really, like you said, just when we started, you have to learn how to keep bees. where you live. It's that simple. You can't expect to have your bees survive keeping your bees if you live in Minnesota the way that I keep them here in Louisiana. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. I'm blessed. I don't have to do all the things most beekeepers have to do to keep our hives going. They just do it by themselves.

21:52 Let's address newer beekeepers for a minute. How do they learn? I mean, you're saying you got to learn how to do it in your area. What is your recommendation on how they learn to do that? I think that basic tools that every beekeeper needs to be aware of to have particular successes doing bees. The first one is they have to know bee biology. They have to have an understanding of bees and how they operate, how they grow, how their life cycles are, the particular aspects.

22:33 Because of all the different ways of keeping bees, of all the varied ways of keeping them, bee biology does not change. It's the one constant of everything, bee biology. So as a new beekeeper, that would be paramount in becoming successful. learning bee biology, followed closely by learning what is the nectar sources, what is blooms in nature, at what time, so that you can coordinate what you need to get done in your bee hives, so that they can stay in pace with what's going on in nature. Because it's all in all of beekeeping, particularly with raising nukes to sell or honey processing, building up a honey production, it's all about timing. If you're not aware of a time pattern in your beekeeping, you're not going to ever really go beyond a certain point. You may always have bees and they may always be in a yard, but you're not going to get the growth, the potential of doing it. So you have to...

23:49 You have to be aware of biology. You have to be aware of the growing on what's in nature. And you have to be aware that it's all in timing. You have a very, very, very, very small window to get your bees up and going. And then then you can kind of like slack off. But it's very intense in those that early spring time. And you better be ready for it if you want to have success. Give me an example. For example, you do splits at what time and why? What's the nectar flow going on? I start our splits. So for us in Louisiana, and again, it's very unique, our red maples and willows are blooming and it can be as early as early December to mid December.

24:41 Our first food sources for the bees are in December, December, January, right? So And I talk about this in my talks. And again, this aspect of what beginning beekeepers should be aware of, it all starts with the winter solstice. So the moment, December 22nd, which is the shortest day, the shortest amount of daylight hours in a day, after December 22nd, it incrementally gets longer. Daylight becomes longer. So as the daylight becomes longer, then nature starts coming alive at that point. So if you, as a beekeeper, can understand this concept that what's going on in nature is going on, it's going on in your beehive as well.

25:37 So as this daylight hour is increasing, photosynthesis, the trees are making leaves. photosynthesis getting ready to happen, the bees are now starting to build up. Our queen is laying in December. In early December, she's already laying because once that willow pollen starts coming in, boom, she's going to start up again. So with the start of the daylight hours increasing, then the start of the whole process of splitting our hives begins because I'm already mid -February, I'm going into my hives, inspecting them to see if I've got swarm cells in there. So it's interesting.

26:25 There's a few things that I go into a hive to tell me what's going on outside of the hive. And so I go in that hive and I can see, yeah, well, we're starting to get brood production. We're getting a little bit of pollen, a little bit of nectars coming in. But it's just a buildup. It's a very, very gradual, slow buildup. And I don't even start worrying about anything until I see drone brood being produced in the hive. Because once you see drone brood production starting, it's getting ready to start. You're still two weeks, three weeks away from it happening, but it's getting ready to happen. So, this is the time as beginner beekeepers, you need to have everything set up in preparation for what's coming.

27:22 Now, for me, it's February, but where you are, that's probably not until April probably, right? Yeah. Yeah, we're lucky if we see bees flying if they have a few warm days in March. Otherwise, it's April before they can even get out. Yeah, so again like what you said before you have to know keep bees specific to your area and And I preach this all the time at our clubs that you know if you want honey if you're not Haven't made your splits by the middle of March You ain't gonna get no money you get some but if you want honey production you had better have your hives split before March 15th, because if you're not split before March 15th, well, at least the ones that can be split, then more than likely, your hives are gonna swarm on you. You gotta be ahead of them so they don't swarm on you, because if they swarm on you, there goes your honey. That's the biggest fear for me is losing that primary swarm, because that's my old queen, and that's where my honey is. with my old queen. Yeah. And where beekeeper A is, maybe a couple of weeks behind you or maybe a couple of months behind you. I have found that it's also really interesting.

28:46 It's made me a lot more observant of things like nectar flows because when I first got into beekeeping many years ago, I read all this stuff about the dandelions are going to be the first thing that they're going to be able to forage on. Right. Well, We have lots of dandelions around here. I never see bees on them. Well, why is that? Because they found something they like better. That's exactly right. Something easier for them to get than dandelions. So then I'm like, okay, well, there's nothing else down at ground level. It's got to be these trees or those trees. Even though they don't have flowers, bright flowers like an apple tree or something, they have flowers and that's where those bees are going or some shrub or something which is what i said earlier about learning what's in your area and when it blooms because you're going to be a better beekeeper if you know those things absolutely hey i don't think i warned you about this uh ed but everybody that comes on the show gets to tell their favorite wild and crazy beekeeping story Now this can be something that happened to you that is painful or embarrassing or just super, super unusual.

30:07 Can you think of anything like that? Well, you should have told me that before where I could have thought of it. I'm guessing you have a thousand of them and the hard part is narrowing it down. There's not a lot of real things that man, it's like a well actually like catching that Mark Queen. That was a big deal. That was. Tell everybody about that. That was before we were recording. It is it's a great story. So I have been keeping bees since 1978 and As I said, I'm a hands -off beekeeper. So I don't mark Queens. I mean, I know what they are I've seen them in other people's hives my theory on Mark Queens is if you mark you Queen if a beekeeper marks their Queen particularly a new beekeeper Gets a mark Queen The only thing that Mark Queen does for that beekeeper is say, I'm going to go into my hive and see if I can find my queen. And I think that's the worst thing you can do is to open up your hive just to go find your queen. It's terrible. So it's like she's got this mark on it and you can find her.

31:16 Well, it makes it easier. Well, I don't agree with that philosophy. So I don't mark my queens. And I've been doing removals For 15 years, I've been doing removals, going to people's houses, taking them out, catching swarms. I've been doing that 2011. So it's 14 years. 2009 is when I started doing that. And two weeks ago, we did a removal across the lake about 40 miles away. And it was a apartment complex in a big metropolitan area. removing the comb. And I take a lot of care when I'm removing the comb to locate the queen because I think it's very important to make sure she is safe when I do removal. So I take a lot of care to locate her. And I probably find her 85 % of the time when I do a removal, I'll locate the queen and cage her. So I'm doing the removal, open up the wall, start cutting out the comb.

32:22 I cut out a huge piece of comb. and I start vacuuming the bees off of it and there's the queen running around and she's got a big blue dot on her and so I was I said look at this I got a marked queen I've never ever seen that and I know that 2025 is is blue supposed to be blue so there's no way that this was a 2025 queen that swarmed and then was developing so it was just somebody had marked the queen With that color cuz that those bees had probably been in the wall since probably February or March they've been in that wall based on the comb age of the comb. So It was not a 2025 queen, but it was a marked queen and that was very very unique That absolutely is. All right before I let you go if anybody's wondering Hey, where is the fun in beekeeping? Where has it gone? Hey, give us some advice. Where is it?

33:26 And with that, why do you love bees? So, I keep the bees for a group of Benedictine monks here in Covington. I'm their beekeeper, right? Before we even had bees at the Abbey, I was discerning to become a monk myself. So, I was going to be a monk. Part of the... the work of monks is, you know, you, you have jobs and I've always been a woodworker. So I was already involved in their, in their casket building and the bees would then be a further job that I would be assigned to as a monk. So I developed the bee program over there. And with the aim of that being my job when I was a monk and So one of the things that happened, and the question is, so you have to know that part about me, that I had aspirations and desires of becoming a monk. In that monastic life, prayer is a very, very, it's like half of being a monk is a prayer life. And what I learned through the prayer life of the monks is a spiritual relation with bees. In other words, The bees were no longer just these bugs in a box, but rather they were the creation, the work of God. And in bees, I see the hand of God. And

34:58 for me, because you asked me what it is, this is the fun of beekeeping, because when I work bees, I'm not doing work, I'm doing prayer. Because for me, it's a very spiritual experience, not just a physical act that's going on. It's a twofold part and it becomes, beekeeping becomes more meaningful through this act of offering of, it becomes prayer. Your work becomes the prayer. So why would I want to make my prayer anything but the best it can be? So I want it a good offering so when I work bees this is the best I'm at my best I want to do my best because this is how I praise God through this work so that for me is the fun part and that that is what keeps my aspect of why I'm a beekeeper for so many years alive because every time I'm doing it it's new every time I open it up it's new I don't see the same oh, same oh, even though it is, because I see it as a prayer, as offering, and as such, it's a beautiful thing, and I'm part of that.

36:25 And therein lies also my joy, my happiness, my fulfillment, because I am fulfilled in doing this. Each beekeeper has their own philosophies on why they keep bees, but It is the individual philosophy that also gives the beekeepers longevity of being a beekeeper, purpose, and direction. It goes way beyond just bees. Many, many, many, many of my friends, fellow beekeepers, it is an experience of prayer, of seeing God in the bees. I don't talk about it a lot, but it's just a very, I think, unspoken thing in Beekeepers, because we have a hard time putting the exact words to why we do it. But for me, it's very specific why. And I try to portray that, even though I don't talk about it in my videos, that's what I try to portray, that if you can see the joy that's inside of me when I'm doing this, the reason behind that joy is because it's an offering, and I'm praising God by what my work is. That is so beautiful. Wow, best answer I've ever had to that question by a mile. You'll get better. They'll get better ones. Mr. Ed, Jeff Horchoff, thank you so much for being with me

37:56 today. Oh, thank you so much for inviting me, Eric. Thank you. God bless you, brother. Thanks again for joining us here on Be Love, Be Keep being presented by Man Lake. Remember right now to follow or subscribe and share this podcast. Also a shout out to Vita B Health for their support of the show. Vita's Varroa Control range of products includes Apistan, Apigard, and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acids Trips. Hey, thanks guys. We really appreciate it. Enjoy this beautiful summer, enjoy your bees 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.