Rescuing Bees In Cornwall, England

0:00 in a world brimming with complexity few creatures embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless precision she dances from bloom to bloom each motion guided by millennia upon millennia of instinct each act in service to the whole and then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist, part poet, they move along their hives with the efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to the bees' needs as best they can comprehend, and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping presented by our great friends and partners in beekeeping. Man Lake. Today we're going all the

1:30 way to Cornwall, England for a discussion with a full -time beekeeper who specializes in bee rescue, also known as bee removals or cutouts. But first a couple of honeybee fun facts. As we know, bees are master builders. It's amazing to look at the hexagons in the honeycomb, but have you ever thought to yourself, why don't they use circles or squares or triangles? In 36 BC, Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Barrow was pondering the hexagon -shaped honeycomb and proposed an answer, which was dubbed the honeybee conjecture. The honeybee conjecture states that a hexagonal structure was the most efficient way to divide a surface into regions of equal area with the least total perimeter. I think what that means is the least amount of wax needed, but Vero was never able to actually prove this theory. Well, 2 ,000 years later, in 1999, mathematician Thomas Hales produced mathematical proof that Vero was right and the hexagon is simply the most efficient shape to hold the most amount of honey while using the least amount of building material. Are they architects? Are they geniuses?

2:58 Are they mathematicians? I don't know, but as always, like I say, bees are amazing. Now, if you're the type that wants to geek out on this, I'll put a link to Hale's 22 -page report down in the show notes. Okay, how about one more fun fact? We've all heard of the oldest profession in the world, but did you know that beekeeping is the second oldest profession? Based on Egyptian art, we can trace beekeeping back at least 4 ,500 years. In fact, honey was found in King Tut's tomb, and it was still edible. It's likely that people have been gathering honey from bees in the wild for at least eight to ten thousand years. All right, it's time to visit with our guest in beautiful Cornwall. We are going across the pond today to talk with our very special guest our new friend Molly Earl How are you Molly?

4:01 I'm pretty good Eric. Thank you so much for having me on Really? Yeah, just pleasure to be here talk about bees That's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about our mutual love for bees. Hey, before we jump into it, tell us where you are and what your business is called. Well, my business is called Bees Off. So I started that, well, probably like six years ago, live bee removals. So when they go into... Chimneys, walls, floors. You know, I see that you guys do it all the time in estates, bees in buildings. So I set up a company bees off to kind of re -home these poplar bees. And then off the back of that, as I got into it, so every colony saved through the colony kept. and it's snowballed so what started as a hobby 10 years ago with a couple of hives now I'm running kind of 300 hives across the middle of Cornwall and there's an amount of honey that comes with it so where I am today is in my honey studio and we're just about to start taking our spring crop off so that's gonna yeah that's hence everything is shined ready to go and I thought what better backdrop for a beekeeping chat than a shiny stainless steel honey room It is. It's beautiful. Now, when you clean it that much, does it still smell like honey? Absolutely. The floor is always sticky.

5:21 You can't clean that away. Oh, that's awesome. A hobby gone, I won't say gone wrong, a hobby gone a little bit crazy. A hobby gone right. Yeah. Yes. So when we talk about bee removals here in the States, mostly what you're doing is what we refer to as cutouts. Is that what you call them there? No, I call it a B removal. We don't really use the word cut out, but it does involve a lot of cutting bricks and walls and floors open. So for us a removal is it might just be a swarm that landed in the eaves of your front porch or something like that. And we're going to come and nicely take that swarm away for you. But if it involves getting inside a building, cutting open a roof, a wall, we just sort of call them cutouts. But we're more blunt here, and you guys are a lot more... You have the King's English. Yeah, exactly. The swarm, if it's hanging in a bush or a tree, and it's nicely bivouacked somewhere, you can just put a sheet down and shake it into a box. That's a swarm collection. So yeah, a bee removal is something. And you know, I always say... Every colony I remove is one kept. So that's the B removal. It's going on to a nicer life rather than the aggressive cut out with a big hacksaw that you see. So yeah, we do try and make it sound a little bit more like there's a finesse to it. I hope there is. I'll bet there is. Now,

6:52 after you do a removal, do you have someone that comes in and fixes, like if you're cutting open a wall? Do you have somebody that comes in and fixes that after or is the homeowner responsible for that? We do everything. So from the initial call and through like always going to do a proper survey first, they're using thermal cameras, probe cameras, drones. You like do a site visit so you can get a real feel for the place and you're looking at it near a school. Is there people that are going to need to be warned? You know, there's a there's quite a lot to take into account before you've even gone. And then after the removal. We take all the bees away, but then we'll also make good. We'll bee -proof as best as you can ever bee -proof a house. And we know bees. Bees need, what, like a five, six mil gap to get back in. So taking away the void where they've been is critical. And then bee -proofing as much as sensibly possible. But all the repairs, we always offer that service, so I'm quite lucky.

7:52 I've got friends that are really handy, so. We've got tree surgeons, roofers and a builder. So these are the guys that come and help me do the removal and we can do all the repairs afterwards. Sometimes if it's a listed building, then there's like a heritage work, then some people prefer to have their own contractors, which is always an option. But as the rule, I'd say 90 % of the time we do all the repairs as well. What made you want to get into that side of it? Honestly, I've always loved bees. Since I first took Hives on, we're talking, what, 10 years ago now. I started with a couple of colonies and they were really stingy. I didn't know what I was doing.

8:34 They died, but I wasn't going to be beaten, so I definitely got the bee bug by then. So I started through the British Beekeeper's Association, did a couple of courses, started going to the lecture circuit and Tom Seeley read his books, anything of like, you know, just... learning by osmosis, joined the bee club. So I just really got into it. And then as I wanted to increase my apiary from two to five, I'd start being a swarm catcher. So you can go, you've got a limited insurance in the British Beekeepers Association to go and catch a swarm in a bush, shake the bivouac into a box. Nice. But the amount of times I'd get to places and they say, it was my own fault for not asking the right questions. that swarm has been in the chimney for 13 years or the bees came with the house so we don't know where they are but this is they're coming in and out through this air vent you know these aren't swarms that you can just catch these are what you'd call a cutout so I'd call it a bee removal I'm quite handy I did a lot of landscaping and carpentry and they say I've got friends that are roofers and builders there's no reason why we couldn't do it we just need a van full of an awful lot more tools, much better insurance, and yeah, and it's sort of built from the ground up, really, but I just love the idea of it. Really, you know, if a house or a homeowner's been had a real problem with bees all this time, and sometimes you'll see it, and the only option they've had is to kill them, so they've had them killed, of course, it doesn't solve anything, does it?

10:04 Because you've got... not just contamination for other colonies. You've got all the wax that's still in the wall. You've got all the honey that's going to run out. You've got all the other pests. But at the end of the day, you've still got the same attractive colony to bees. So the next time it swarms these and another one will move in. You know, we've been to places and they've had sort of four different ages of dead out where they've used poison. And then finally they found me and we can open up the wall and take them out and everything else and bee proof it. So, you know, to help the bees. It's fantastic, but it is kind of nice just to give people the option because save the bees, nobody really wants to be killing them. So this is definitely a much better option. Are there any laws there to protect the bees? Some of our states and counties here have laws where they've told exterminators, if they're honeybees, you can't kill them. No, we're not there yet. They're endangered, but they're not protected. But you can't buy a pesticide.

11:01 that's got bees on the label, which tells you everything you need to know. That's the way it's going. Eventually bees will be protected. You can buy pesticides for wasps and flying insects, but nowhere on a label over here will you find that you find a pesticide for bees. The British Pest Control Association, their advice to pest controllers is if it's bees, you can kill them if it's a threat to life or not. There's kind of a few little reasons why you can do it. But if you do use poison, you're supposed to seal up every entrance. Completely impossible if they've gone into a chimney, because you can't seal up a chimney that comes down into a live fire. And then once the colony is dead and you've sealed up the entrance, go back in, take out all the poison, all the comb, all the dead bees and make good. If you're going to do that anyway, why not do it before you poison them and do it with a live colony and you get, you know, the same level of work, but a feel good factor and the bees are saved. So, but no, there are no laws, unfortunately, to protect them yet. Yeah, what are some of the most difficult places to remove from? You keep mentioning chimneys. To me that sounds really difficult. Actually, I don't know, chimneys... We've done so many from chimneys now. If you think about it, it's the most logical place for a bee to go, okay? They come from the wild. They like a tree cavity. They especially like beech trees. You've got these huge great trees with a nice sort of... one foot, sort of one and a half foot cavity. I don't know what your American equivalent of the foot is, but it's a decent, you know, you're looking at sort of 70 litres, aren't you? We have cut down, well, not just us, but where are all these tree cavities

12:32 now? They're just not around like they used to be. So up at the flight zone, you've got chimneys, they're a foot or so wide, they're nice and tall, they're usually capped off, so it's usually disused ones. So yeah, it's perfect for bees. But they'll drop down a metre or two inside a chimney, even longer. Some of them have been huge that we've dealt with. But there's ways to do it. I think over the years, my neighbour's a welder and I've got him to weld me up some pretty special devices to be able to do long reach comb catchers and dragging out combs as long as your body is always... quite a good, quite good fun when you get a really long one. Yeah. So give us an idea of some of the tricks of the trade. What kind of a device do you have to get down in that chimney to pull the comb out? But the first thing really is to get underneath it because if you say it's a chimney that goes down to an old bedroom or somewhere that's an abyss that you're not going to get that comb, you can't risk dropping the comb.

13:32 because if you can't retrieve the comb you've just got another swarm trap waiting for the next one. So I always get underneath the colony so you can use a thermal camera to see exactly where the brood nest is and then you can drill down the chimney stack. Sometimes they go all the way down into the loft before you get to the bottom of the colony. So you can drill a hole in, make sure you're underneath it, take a brick out and then block the chimney underneath the colony. Or once the chimney stops that nothing can drop though then you can work from the top. And the honey is a sticky nightmare, as you know, to try and deal with and lift. So once you've cut the honey, which is usually at the top, and you're just left with those brood combs that are a lot stiffer, then you can just kind of cut down the side. My neighbor, as I say, has made me this really long comb catcher. It's kind of like a hook, I guess. It can go down, slide down the side of the chimney and catch underneath it. So when you cut the sides down, you can pull the whole thing out. Yeah, it's a... Wow. I just remember once doing one in Perranporth, which is a little seaside town, and it was opposite a bus stop, right, so... We were up there and all the people are waiting for the bus and they're watching and watching what we're doing. And finally, the two of us now have got our arms deep in the chimney, one's on the knife and one's on the comb catcher. And when we stand up almost on tiptoes on the top of the scaffolding and pull this comb all the way out, the people's mouths like gaped open at the bus stop. I think they would have missed their bus to see that thing through. It was a crowd puller for sure. How long was that comb? I've got a photo of me holding

15:02 it up to my eye level, dropping all the way down to my feet. So, you know, by the time you take the honey off the top, you're talking two meters, it would be dropping into the chimney. Yeah. Wow. Is that some of the biggest ones you've done? I think chimneys are always, because chimneys are kind of confined to the foot's width, then it makes them go long. But some of the ones where you get them hanging internally in the eaves of houses, they can get absolutely huge just because they've got the space to go. Or flat roofs, you probably have the similar thing. So a flat roof has got maybe a six to eight inch timber. Right, so you've got a nice kind of what you'd call a Langstroth. medium, I suppose, kind of size. But those timbers run the length of the building. So when bees crawl in underneath the fascia board, they can just go in and in and in. And, you know, again, they've been really long. But it's just, it's just really good. It's just fascinating. Everyone is different. You know, they all we all know bees build comb, but the way that they build comb, I see it getting an opportunity to actually look at wild colonies and see how they're well, just how they live.

16:13 It's a It's just a real, it is a pleasure to be able to learn from them really. Like the hot way versus the cold way. Have you heard of that? No. Okay. So, you know, if you have your, you've got your hive and you've got your door. So the, the, the hot way is the combs running once way and the cold way is when you have the combs running across the door because tents, it shuts the draft. So if I'm ever doing a flat roof, almost 100 % of the time, the combs always start the cold way. So where they come in, they're kind of... come onto the face of the comb to stop the draft. And then after maybe four fins, then they'll change and they'll run the warm way. So they have this kind of draft stop and then the fins change and they run long ways because it's, I guess, just easier to go when you're building comb straight down the tunnel. But they always shut the door first. And the same in a chimney, like if you've got an open chimney, for example, they'll build, I call it snake comb, but it's like... a really wild comb, such a really twisted mess. There's no like two pieces the same, but once you get down maybe like a foot, so they've closed the door with all this twisted comb and then the fins open out and then the fins just drop down straight. So they always kind of do a front door system, if you like, with a comb as a blocker, a draft excluder. Yeah, they're amazing engineers. Yeah, absolutely. Thomas Seeley, all of his research on swarms and where they like to and their environments that they live.

17:41 That's why I get the sort of the 70 liters. That's what they're looking for. But it can be a 70 liters as a box shape, as a square, as a circle. It can be inside a cavity wall. So they've only got kind of two or three inches depth, but they've gone really, really wide because they haven't got the depth there. Everyone is different. It's really good to see. Give us an idea of your technique. Once you pull this comb out, how do you get it into a box? We'd all start, as soon as the colonies opened up and you can start to get into it, of course the bees all come out on a flurry. We don't have any of these crazy Africanized bees. It's really rare to get a super defensive one. We've had maybe really only three, four that I would consider actually aggressive for the duration. So usually they come out on a flurry.

18:30 We've got a bee vac that a friend of mine has made up. So that's good for taking the bee numbers down. It's a ventilated wooden box. ventilated on the top, a smooth bore hose so it doesn't damage the bees and then as the colony is open you can take the bee numbers down by gently backing them off into this kind of bee safe box if you like. Quick break to discuss what just might be on your mind right now. Come on admit it you're imagining the upcoming honey harvest. because no matter where you live in the world it's either here now or it will be in the near future and man lake is making it so easy to plan for click on over to man lake's website for an amazing selection of extractors filters bottling supplies uncapping knives supplies for a comb honey everything and i mean everything you'll need. But if you aren't there quite yet and the honey flows right around the corner, make sure you have extra supers on hand. You never can have too many or be too prepared. And right now Man Lake is offering podcast listeners $10 off your next order. Just enter code MLBlove10 at checkout. That's manlakeltd .com. Discount code MLBlove10. Now when you're working with the comb you kind of assess it so usually you get wax moth damage and some comb that just nobody would want not even the bees so you've got a waste bucket you've got a honey bucket to separate out the honey because it's

20:02 just so sticky and it doesn't transport well but when you get onto the brood combs you're just looking I'm looking for well, what we'd call bias, brood in all stages, eggs, larvae, sealed brood. And if it's got either one of those, now I'm looking for disease. So is there loads of sap brood, chalk brood? Does it look like riddled with furoa? Maybe I'll uncap some drones just to have a little look. And if I think that that brood is healthy, I have empty frames into a hive that's up there with me, and we'll just cut it out to a frame size, set the comb inside the frame and hold it in with elastic bands. once I'm back at the apiary, over the next couple of weeks when they're in a hive, they're back with their brood, feeding them, always feeding them, but you can tell the ones are doing well because they chew through the elastic bands and it's like spaghetti coming out of the front of the hive. So just a quick drive up to the quarantine site, you can see the ones that are on the uptick because they're dragging the elastic bands out, it's like... It's so good, you know, you sometimes you'll see them and they'll be working together to Really pull like a couple of bands and maybe we've got snagged in the door and they're pulling the whole bands out together There'll be it's fantastic, isn't it? Yeah, and before they do that, they're gonna connect that comb up to the top and bottom of the frame So it usually fine Yeah, that's why I've always feed them just anything to make life easy Usually all the ones that come back they get a pollen patty and they're good feed. And then I'll take the comb, but I like

21:34 to let all of that brood hatch and then swap out all of that for clean foundation that they'll draw because they're being fed. So once the next generation is hatched, I don't want to really be taking comb from the colony because it could be harboring any sort of bacteria. You don't know, but I like to take the young because the bees like to be with them. At the end of the job, that bee back I've got, it's got a sliding floor. So I've got my hive with the brood in. and then I can put the bees on top at the end of the extraction, open that sliding floor, obviously strap the two together, but now the bees can go straight back onto their young, onto the brood, so it keeps the brood warm and it keeps the bees happy, but you can, it's audibly, they'll chill.

22:16 The second that you put them with their brood, it's like a switch is flipped and they're just calm again, it's really good. Is part of your process then finding the Queen and then that's also going to attract and calm the worker bees down? Honestly, I like to find the Queen. Sometimes you don't, but you always know whether you've got the Queen. I would never leave a job without getting the Queen. You know what bees are like. The first thing that the queen will do if you're looking for her in a hive is she'll run around to the dark side. So if you pick up a frame, you always want to check the reverse side. Well, first, when you pick it up, you look in the box to see if she's running to the dark side. Then you look at the flip side of the frame because she doesn't like to be visible mostly. It's the same in a bee removal. You know, as you're working through the comb, if you lift up some floorboards and the whole thing comes out, then you might find her on the comb. But if you're picking carefully through, you might see her on the comb, but inevitably she'd have run into a corner somewhere that's dark and the bees will bivouac around her. So if you're kind of hoovering out the bees in a larger group, the chances of you seeing her, if it's not kind of her running around individually, are slimmer, but you... You can tell by watching the bees where she is really. They think they're keeping her covert, but you can always just tell because they face her and fan. Or worse, they run after her. One of the things that I saw on your website, and I thought this was very cool, and this might be a good idea for some beekeepers

23:47 that are trying to... look for alternative sources of income through their beekeeping. Or another way of branding is what you guys have done with your hive products, honey, wax, etc. Would you explain how you have branded them that is in conjunction with your bee removal business? Well, the rescue bee. When I started the removals, honestly, it was to boost my numbers and obviously I found a niche. which is brilliant. I loved it and it snowballed from there. So I know that I'm really, really lucky just to have found that, well, to stumble into something, A, that I love, B, that there's a market for, and it keeps me and my whole family with dinner on the table and things to do in the day. Doing the removals to increase my numbers meant that I've ended up with quite a few hives. When I started, I was doing all my honey processing in the kitchen and the kids were nappies and the dogs were puppies.

24:44 It definitely wasn't food hygienic, but it was really good fun. I get the time hops on my phone and I think like, wow, it has changed a lot in those few years. And then when COVID hit, although, you know, everyone can remember that, but we'd just had quite a big harvest. We had four tons of honey sitted in what used to be the office room in the garden. So I was like, we really need to do something. We need to focus on this. So my partner gave up her job and came across, set up the Rescue Bee and so there was a lot of going to markets, a lot of the branding, starting to sell to shops. And honestly, it's really the Rescue Bee has come on in the last couple of years, but we can barely keep up. Like now I'm here now and they extract it in the honey room.

25:31 itching to get out into the yard tomorrow to start putting in some honey because we're down for the dregs. It's been really good. So just to give an overall picture, let me make sure I understand it right. So all of your hive products are marketed under the, what did you call it again? Rescued Bee? The Rescued Bee, yeah. Yeah, the Rescued Bee brand. So when people come and buy, whether it's at a farmer's market or online or wherever, they're seeing that and they can feel good about this honey came from bees that were actually rescued instead of exterminated. It's a lovely story but it is a true story and although I've got jars there but each of the jars has got a little bit of our story on the side. I've got people that I've taken bees out of their roofs and they'll come and order honey.

26:23 They won't go to anywhere else. They just love the story that it's from bees that have not been... They have been rescued, haven't they? You know, what were the options, really? You can't live with bees if they're in your house causing damage or you're having your roof replaced. The bees have got to go. So to know that they can go on to live in the countryside in little apries that are managed 24 -7 all year round. You know, honey is not the focus, but it is a product of just keeping a lot of bees and everything, you know, whether it's a candle. all the wax that we get from removals. It's disgusting, some of it, it's just you, most people would look and just throw it away, but I know that there's gold in that. If you just can steam it, go through a water bath a few times, it's sieved like endlessly through J -cloths, and the blackest, dirtiest wax that you just don't think, there's anything in it apart from casings, it will come out this gorgeous golden colour, and the smell is unreal, and that all goes into... all of the like lip balms, wax wraps, candles, cosmetics, soaps, all those things. It's all from our own hives and it's all just because of the bees. You know, there's so much more to a bee than making honey.

27:34 One of the things that I love about your approach, I'm going to read this from your website here. We take a gentle, bee -first approach to colony management, creating environments where our bees can truly thrive. Stand by that. I stand by that. The main apiary I spend time there every single day. That's the one I've got the most control of. A lot of the outfries are at the generosity of other companies. Some of them really industrial. There's one at a power station. So it's a huge diesel power station. It's on these gigantic electric pylons, a 40 ,000 volts substation. I find an electric fence because the security is pretty intense there. And then there's my bees. Now, anybody would tell you that bees and electricity just don't mix and I would stand by every day and say it's wrong, but just the other side of that fence is, I'm not sure how many acres, is miles and miles and miles of SSSI, so that's like site of a special scientific interest.

28:33 It's all moorland and heathland. Now they're the lucky ones. Back at my apiary, a friend of mine's got a digger. Every year we go and scrape back of a swathe of the ground and put down wildflower seeds, but unless it's for cilia, the bees. tend to go off into the hedgerows and I get hundreds and thousands of bumblebees and solitary bees and all the other pollinators as all the hobbleflies come but you'd be hard pressed to find one of my bees because they like to go out think oh yeah that looks nice and then off they go and find a sycamore tree. It's sort of like when we set up a really beautiful water source for them, right near the hives. I don't know if you have this experience. Beautiful, you know, rocks and pure water and everything, and they'll fly right over it and go to the neighbor's chlorinated swimming pool or something, or a mud hole in the road or, yeah. It's true. The cow yard, like one of the acreages, they're a farm and the farmer will get in tucks. Sometimes you'll think there's a swarm, but it won't be. It'll be run off from where the cows, especially if they've just mucked out. It's the water and cow manure. They love it. So yeah, they can be grubby little things, really. I won't tell them that you said that.

29:48 It's all in the macronutrient. Hey I'm curious what is it like beekeeping where you are? Give us an idea of the weather and how harsh the winter is and things like that so we know what it's like beekeeping there in Cornwall. Okay so you know all English people love talking about the weather so you're really playing into our hands with that one and beekeepers love to moan about the weather so our seasons are... it's a funny one really you know six months of the year you don't look in a hive. really from October through to March, the bees are left to their own devices. So I would say we've got a relatively short season. And it honestly depends year on year. Like last year, the spring, which was sort of April, May, was outstanding. For the spring crop last year, the weather was just right. Everything was giving.

30:39 We get a lot of Hawthorn, Blackthorn. Such a stone fruit lives in the hedge. Really, really good for nectar. Sycamore is a It's a type of Acer, big yellow pinnacles that hang down. That's another massive honey crop, if the weather plays nicely, which it did last year. This year it's been a little bit more hand -to -mouth. I know we've had prolonged periods of rain. It's just felt like forever rain, really. And the bees have eaten most of the honey, but now we're just coming into summer. So we've got all the blackberry to look forward to. I'm pretty lucky with some of the ivy crops and Himalayan balsam and fireweed, you'd call it. Yes, so there's still plenty to come and the weather, hopefully now it's been nourished with the rain, will be sunny for a while. But it's very, it's very turbulent. Cornwall, I think, is probably the wettest part, or maybe the Scottish and the Welsh would disagree. But I feel that Cornwall gets its, definitely its fair share of, of rain. But then, you know, like it was surprising. The other day it was raining and there was bees hanging all around the swarm trap. And in fact, I had stellatext on top of the swarm trap. It's like an insulation. Maybe it kept the water warmer, who knows, but the bees were all around the cellotex or around the cut edge having a little drink. And that's like eight o 'clock at night in the rain. So. Yeah, go figure. How cold does it get? And do you get any snow? We'll occasionally get snow. It's very mild down here, really. It's more wet than anything else. Sometimes we'll get snow, but it will be the kind of mushy snow that doesn't hang around.

32:10 None of this kind of Michigan snow that covers houses and makes everything look like a lovely cake. No, we don't get anything. Nothing lucky like that, I'm afraid. We'll get the kids pray for a day off school, and so the finest little misting of snow, and they'll be all playing like, oh, is the school shut? No. And, you know, we have pretty nice summers. Cornwall's a bit of a hotspot as a tourist destination coming down because it is really pretty. We've got surrounded by coast land, all the central sort of swathes of moorland and heathland. So in terms of bees, there's plenty of forage around, definitely. It's just getting the weather to play ball, really.

32:50 But all in all, they don't do too bad. All right. Let's talk about pests for a second. Is Varroa a big problem for you? on Defro, which is our kind of government site for agriculture. You have to mark everything down as having Varroa now. So unless you actively say you don't have it, it's just assumed that they're everywhere. I'll always treat for Varroa, pretty much regardless, actually. But yeah, it is definitely around for sure. But I try and keep on top of it before it gets a hold. You know, doing the removals, you'd think for a resistance, well, they're not going to stay there if they've been wiped out by Varroa. If a colony's been wiped out by a Varroa and then it dies out and then a swarm moves straight into that old comb and picks up and the homeowner's been on holiday, they're not going to know there's been a transference of ownership inside their roof colony, are they?

33:39 They just think they've still got bees there. So most of the time, if we're doing removals, the bees will have deformed wing virus. If you don't see the Varroa actively on the comb, you'll see the size of it. So deformed wing virus, maybe a little bit of sack brood, very rarely chalk brood, actually. But yeah, a little bit of bold brood running around. A swarm can even take some of it with them, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, well, it's the best time to treat. If ever I get a swarm before, well, it's in that broodless state. I've got oxalic acid, the instant VAP, so I'll give it a couple of goes with that while waiting for the brood to kick in. But it's a really good way, kind of natural, if you like, to knock down any varroa before it. before it gets a hold. But no, I'm always really mindful of pests and diseases and all of my removals go into kind of a strict quarantine. Anything that is even questionable has a double strict quarantine. And then especially if there's ever a really, really sick one, it just comes home.

34:40 So I've got kind of three stages of biosecurity because you just can't, you know, it would be terrible for me or for anyone to bring disease into an area. So I'm pretty hot on biosecurity as much as I can be really. Very smart. And I've read that you're starting to get a few Asian hornets there in England. We are. Yeah, we are starting. Honestly, I think it's unfortunately inevitable. I really do. Not to be pessimistic, but it's tracked this far, hasn't it? It's tracked so far. all the way from Asia is not going to stop in France or Jersey. So, you know, look at Brittany is a similar sort of place, isn't it? They've got one. What's their statistic now?

35:26 I forget, but it's something staggering, like 11 nests every kilometer or it's just kind of got absolutely a mega hold. And we've already had some sightings here, but we're still in the track and trace stage. We've had a couple down in Cornwall. Definitely, we even had one on the Isles of Silly, which is a tiny little island off the coast of Cornwall. But, you know, you're talking about an insect is going to come over in a camper van or on a boat or in a handbag or in a plant or one of our supermarkets had a rhinoceros beetle and a lavender. A rhinoceros beetle is about four inches long. It's not a cross that was for sale in a supermarket. So if you can sneak a rhino beetle into a supermarket, I think a little insect on the wing is not going to have too much of a problem. All right. Last thing before we wrap up, Molly, I want to hear if you have had at least one or two wild and crazy beekeeping stories. And anyone doing cutouts or swarm removals, as you put it, has had plenty of them. But are there one or two that stick out to you that might be fun for us to hear?

36:31 I mean, there's one I could admit was a warning for everyone. And there's one it was just the most the most ferocious one, really, like, I have such good fun doing it, honestly, I really look every one I do. I honestly look forward to seeing what the bees have been up to, how it's going to be what the colony is going to be like, like this. There is a joy to it. And I am lucky there, I know. But as I said to you before, very rarely you'll get a really mean one and it'll be mean throughout the whole thing. And there was one, again, they told me it was a swarm that had just gone in, but they had had bees there previously. So when you're doing the inspection and you can see bees on like a little bit of old comb, you're like, OK, well. It's a dead out and they've moved into a dead out.

37:15 So it all sort of figured with the story. It was never a swarm moved in. It was the most aggressive colony of bees. So we're up on the scaffolding now beside a railway line. And the bees are just, as soon as we cracked that fascia board, they're absolutely wild. They're covering us. But it got to the stage that... You just really have to, there's no one else around. It was a farm in the middle of nowhere. So we carried on, but I had to have two suits on. Now I've got a 3D printed mesh suit, which is Hornet proof. And they were still getting me through the elbows, all the places that they love to go. Face, wrists, elbows, armpits, and crotch, unfortunately, if we're honest, that's just where bees seek you out, isn't it? So I had double suits on, double gloves, taped up to the wrists, taped up to the ankles. But we just have to do a bit, go and take a breath. go and do a little bit more, but I'm just not set up for pesticides and I just won't really nearly use pesticides. So you just have to carry on methodically and calmly and just carry on and kick our way through and then requeen it. Obviously I didn't take any of the broods. I didn't want drones in the quarantine at all. They went somewhere miles away because I didn't want those genetics mixing with anything of mine. And yeah, I did manage to requeen it, but it was a really long day and it was a really long time getting it just manageable afterwards, actually. That was a real commitment to the job, that one. And my warning for other people, smokers,

38:45 how many times do you tell people where your out aprons are? Probably never. I know I'm really secretive with mine. So not even probably my partner knows exactly where half of the aprons are. It's like a general area. And I was trying a new smoke of fuel, but now I've got it pretty well set up. I have wood chips, oak pellets, I have floor scrapings, because a friend of mine's a tree surgeon, so it's all mulched, it's nice, it's perfect. And I was trying hessian. I couldn't get the stuff to go and it was kind of going and smouldering and then going out and I got fed up a bit so I tipped out on the grass went to get my smoker tub to light it again and my leg is killing me like the bees are why are they stinging me all over and I looked down but my leg was on fire and as I tipped out the hessian the wind had blown and just caught the hessian and just clicked the yeah just clicked my Trouser leg really but it had gone up like a rocket.

39:42 They've gone through my b -suit my trousers and stopped at my sock Like how that is pretty dangerous and now I carry a fire extinguisher and I do let people know exactly Oh, I'll let my partner know at least What three words like a GPS is where the apries are because it could have been serious Sounds serious. Oh absolutely. Oh Man, you don't think about it though. Do you really you know no and We'll do a little survey here with our listeners. Madda, shoot me an email if you've had your bee suit catch on fire. I'm curious how often it happens. I don't hear about it very often, but I'm glad you're okay. I'm fine. Yeah. I'm glad it doesn't happen very often.

40:23 I hope it never happens again, because it is pretty painful. Definitely worse than bee stings. Yeah. All right. Any other wisdom you want to share with us, Molly? Just have fun. Honestly, beekeeping is supposed to be fun, relaxing. It's like, personally for me, I just love sitting by the bees, you know, whether it's running a swarm, if that never gets old, does it? You guys do that, you have a little ramp and put a white sheet on and then you've got your box of bees and you knock them out and you just sit there and amongst these cloud of bees it's absolute kind of like bedlam, it sounds fantastic and you're just watching them march up the hill, seeing if you can see the queen, like what's she gonna look like? Is she a big ginger one? Is she like really dark? It's just... Just never let it get tired. Always enjoy it. Take those moments when you can. I can tell you love bees.

41:13 I really do. Molly, thanks so much for being on with me. I'm going to put a link to your website in the show notes if anybody wants to find you and learn more about what you do. But it's been fun having you today. Thanks ever so much. You take care. Thanks again for joining us on Be Love, Be Keeping presented by Man Lake. Another big thank you goes to V2B Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control Ranger products includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acid Strips. Hey, thanks a lot guys. And if you haven't yet, please subscribe to and follow the show, tell your friends about it, and click on over to BeLoveBeKeeping .com to sign up for our free newsletter. If you have a guest suggestion or topic you'd like discussed on the show, shoot me an email, eric at BeLoveBeKeeping .com 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.