September 9, 2023 • 19 mins
Honeybees play a vital role in keeping our plants and crops healthy, but experts say they're facing an increasing number of threats, both human and environmental. The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources has its very own program to help residents and professional beekeepers alike boost honeybee health! Chief Apiary Instructor Dr. Kim Skyrm is a hive full of knowledge about bees, and he joins Nichole this week with tips on how you can protect these special insects.
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(00:07):
From w BEEZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend. Each
week we come together and talk aboutall the topics important to you and the
place where you live. And likeevery week, it's so good to be
back with you. I'm Nicole Davis. While the calendar would have you thinking
otherwise, but it is true.We are getting into fall and it's that
time of year where you can headout and go apple picking, bring some
(00:30):
home, cut them up, putsome honey on them. Maybe have a
tasty cup of hot tea with honeyin it. Make a tasty caramel apple
honey crumble. All right, Yeah, we're talking about honey, and we
do love honey in all its forms, even the bees wax that comes from
bees, soap and candles. Youcan find all sorts of stuff. The
(00:51):
thing is, the pollinators who makethe honey forests don't really get a lot
of love. Honey bees play sucha huge role in pollinating crops and plants,
but experts say they're in danger formore than a few reasons. Now
you might not have known this,but here in Massachusetts we have our very
own state program to help boost honeybeehealth. Doctor Kim Skerm heads up these
(01:11):
States apiary program, and he joinsus now on the show to talk all
things bees. Doctor. It's sogood to have you and to start here,
let's get a little bit deeper intothese threats that bees are facing.
What's going on with the bees?Oh my goodness, the call. I
wish I had a quarter for everytime I got to ask this question.
I would be so incredibly rich.It is amazing just how many people are
(01:33):
interested in bees and bee health,and it's so exciting to have the ability
to have these conversations. You know, really what we're dealing with, I
think as far as the honeybee world, we've been dealing with also for the
native or wild bee world as well, which is we're really a deficit of
forage. You know, we don'thave enough resources, one have plants available
for these organisms. We've taken alot of habitat out for human activities and
(01:57):
functions and it's greatly impacted their popularAnd then of course with that, we've
also incorporated things into the habitat tomanage it, you know, things like
pesticides. We've also brought in beeshave come in you know, through our
trade system across the globe. Andso some of them are now out competing
some of our native bees, someof our wild bees. So it's just
kind of an interesting dynamic out therebetween You've got invasives that are there,
(02:19):
You've got again pesticides in the system, You've got habitat that's being degraded by
our need for other human like things. And then also you've got a series
of pest and pathogens and parasites thatare just following right along. So it's
it's it's a perfect cocktail for areally bad time for bees. Yeah,
you're not kidding, and bees arereally important to everything we do, so
so let's talk about why they're importantto keep around. Obviously, they're pollinators,
(02:43):
but for people who might not knowtoo much about honeybees, what are
the key things that they do tobenefit humans and wildlife in general. Well,
you know, the honeybee has reallybecome the poster b you know,
for what we consider to be thepollination unit for our world, and a
lot of days, especially as faras agriculture is concerned, they do they
do much of the heavy lifting foragricultural pollination services. And even here in
(03:06):
Massachusetts, we're estimating almost fifty percentof our agricultural crops that are being produced
are pollinated by these honey bees,so they have a huge contribution to pollination
services. And then on the flipside, they actually are and then themselves
their own agricultural commodity. So folksthat manage bees or honey bees specifically are
called beekeepers, and these folks arevery passionate about honey bees obviously, but
(03:29):
they also are able to glean fromthem harvest agricultural commodities such as honey and
wax and propylus and a lot ofThat has been a big, big economic
boom for some of the folks thathave been getting into beekeeping in addition to
these pollination services. So it's areally nice bang there for the buck as
far as getting honey bees in inyour field to pollinate, and then also
(03:50):
has a beekeeper being able to harvesthoney and get all these extra commodities off
of them and have a business doingit. Oh sure, I mean they're
helpful for farmers. And I wasactually just at a farm yesterday and they
had all sorts of honey products.You can get soaps, and you can
get candles and all this other stuff. It seems like there's really no end
to what the bees can produce.It's pretty amazing, And I think what's
really neat about it is people arereally getting creative with the way they're thinking
(04:14):
about how these products are produced,and more importantly, really working with the
honey bee itself and thinking sort ofwhat are they using these products for in
the hive and how can we beable to benefit from them, and a
lot of this. I mean,obviously, indigenous folks were using a lot
of different things in the environment longbefore we you know, we're ever using
honeybees for things like this, Soyou know, it's really neat to see
this come full circle, especially withinour own population as humans. Yeah,
(04:38):
for sure, I feel like beesget kind of a bad rap though.
I feel like they often get kindof get caught up with the hornets and
the wasps and the yellow jackets ofthe world. It says, what do
you think are some of the biggeststereotypes about bees? You know, I
think that it's tough because we dofolks do encounter what they think are bees,
typically at picnics or outside gatherings,and most cases those are actually different
(05:00):
species of wasp or yellow jackets.All in that wasp family and honeybees are
quite a bit different than that.So you know, obviously they produce honey,
as their name was suggest and mostfolks really love the ability to be
able to have access to that,but wasps do not. They don't produce
anything any remotely close to anything likehoney. Definitely not that could be exploited
for, you know, for humansto be able to consume. Also,
(05:21):
honeybees in general, they are veryspecific. Even in the bee world.
They have a barbed stinger and sothey can only sting in essence one time,
whereas wasps do not. They cansting you multiple times. And then
a little bit more morphologically between thetwo, Wasps do not have these branched
body hairs that honeybees have, andthey're really important for honeybees because they allow
(05:44):
them to visit a flower and sortof zap up that pollen through electrostatic what
we will considered you know, theelectricity there and touching the flower. So
that's really important for them to beable to visit and collect the plant material
pollen and nectar when they do pollinationservices. Now, wasts were also really
important. I want to be clearabout that. They don't provide pollination services
(06:04):
to the extent that a honeybee would, but they do. They're very critical
for the ecosystem they do. Theywill pollinate somewhat when they visit flowers.
They don't sort of primarily feed onthat pollen and nectar like honeybees do,
but they have a very vast dietand they will eat other insects, and
so you have a really nice systemthere for them to basically eat the bad
(06:24):
bug, so to speak, theinsects that might be consuming your garden.
They will actually eat them and keepthem pretty well under control. And then
finally, a lot of wall specieswill nest in the ground, very few
of them. Some of them willnest above the ground, but honeybees always
a nest above the ground. Andthen obviously they're they're something that's managed by
humans, so they obviously are nesting, typically inside of some sort of receptacle
(06:46):
that we've given them a box ora hive or in this case, I
hollowed out tree. So you know, you will usually find those waltz nest.
Unfortunately, sometimes people encounter those lostnests in ground where they're mowing the
grass or whatnot. So there's quitea bit of differences there. In general,
you know, they are all underthat umbrella as a pollinator though,
because they do both these groups doprovide pollination services, just you know,
honeybees tend to be more focused onthat pollen and nectar driven for plants than
(07:10):
these walls do. They might pickup a few insects along the way as
a snack, you know, insteadof just going straight to the flowers.
Well, and that's a really goodanswer, because honestly, I've always wondered
that, like, you know,I'm chasing a hornet around my house or
something, and I'm like, whatpurpose do you possibly serve? Like why
are you here? Like I realizedthat bees are you know, puffy and
happy and they're just out there tootingaround to flowers and pollinating things. But
(07:32):
I've always had this question, likewhat on earth does a wasp do?
So I was not aware that theywere pollinators as well. Yes, and
I agree with NICOLEO a lot ofpeople it's a really good point. A
lot of people do get real concerned, you know, around wasston the danger
of them, and obviously folks canhave allergies to both of these organisms,
but you know, we do tendto see anything that's black and yellow with
(07:53):
stripy you know, maybe concerning topeople, and a lot of animals have
those pilar patterns as of warning.But yeah, wsper really for ecosystem.
So please, if you're anti walls, please listen and do your best to
look the other way. And Ipromise you they will go and do their
thing much better than they are abuzz around you or around your soda.
Can I promise I will not whackit with a newspaper next time. I
(08:15):
will do my best to not freakout and run around the house. See
you know you were talking about hivesand how a lot of people are setting
up hives at businesses and even intheir residence as if they've got a lot
of land. How is how popularhas this become and how beneficial is this?
Two bees in the end, youknow, beekeeping is really just it's
absolutely amazing the amount of interest thatpeople have taken into this. It's been
(08:39):
about a little over a decade nowwe've had sort of a beekeeping boom or
the buzz i guess of beekeeping hasreally taken off, and it's quite a
phenomenal to see. I mean fromjust from a perspective of people getting really
excited about the natural world and usinghoney bees as a conduit to be more
connected to nature. I mean,now, you couldn't ask for anything better
than that at Cole. I mean, if that's your you know, if
that's going to be that way thatyou can really connect with the world around
(09:03):
you, then by all means,please use the honey beehive and become a
beekeeper for that aspect. But theother piece of this is really unique as
far as beekeeping goes, and whatwe've seen in our work with beekeepers is
a lot of them tend to bevery avid gardeners, and so you have
people that have that very focused lenson how important the natural world is,
but then also broaden that to howimportant the natural world is with a focus
(09:24):
on how do we provide more environmentfor these organisms that they care so deeply
about, right these honeybees that they'remanaging, and a lot of people find
it very soothing. Obviously they're verycaptivated by it. I know myself,
I've always been extremely captivated by honeybees. And I think, you know,
one of these days they call,we'll have to get you in a hive,
and I think it catch the buzz, They're pretty quick. They're just
(09:46):
really marvelous organisms, and I thinkthey have such amazing social activities that we
as humans just gravitate towards that.We really love this social kind of connectedness
and woven the way this community worksto support each other altruism in this colony.
And then of course people figure itout along the way. Hey,
I can make some local honey,and maybe I can put it out,
you know, on a road standin front of my house, and my
(10:07):
neighbors will buy it. Or maybeI can give it as gifts to my
family members and I'll become the coolestaunt at the Christmas party, you know.
So it's a great way to stimulatethat I am always striving to be
the cool aunt at the Christmas party. So that is actually really good to
know. Just have to bring localhoney. I can do that. And
you know, you bring up areally good point because I think people believe
that if they want to be abeekeeper, they have to have a lot
(10:30):
of training, and they might bescared because they don't really know what they're
doing. But it seems like there'sthese companies out there. There's the State's
Apiary program that you're a part ofbeekeeping is more accessible these days than it
ever has been before. Yes,and it's it's quite phenomenal. Really,
It's amazing how beekeeping itself has becomealmost the exact replica of the organisms that
(10:52):
people have sought out to keep right. It's this interwoven connected community collaboration of
interest and passion about keeping this thissocial organism alive, these honeybees alive.
So it's you know, a lotof people really love that aspect of it.
There we have a lot of countyassociations here in our state that will
meet periodically, most of them oncea month though, all for even b
(11:13):
schools what they call be school,which is really cool where you can actually
go and become a student and andlearn about honey bees and how to keep
them and basically become the best beekeeperthat you can possibly ever be before you
even get any bees of your own. And and even further than that,
you know, there's a lot ofactivities around keeping bees of hope and hive
events and even here within our ownAPIER program here at the Department of Ague,
(11:37):
we offer bi monthly to monthly eventsand also for the public as well
to come in and get into beekeeping. So it's an awesome conduit for for
conversation, for loving and and theyou know, the community of exploring the
natural world. And then quite frankly, I think honeybees represent the best of
what we would like to see inour own world. You know, this
this this way that these organisms worktogether for this bigger calls of you know,
(12:01):
this colony, health, the survivabilityof this organism. So it's it's
really quite a beautiful network to witness, and I think we really gravitate towards
that as people. Yeah, welove community just in general. And honestly,
local honey is so good. Ilove buying local honey. And you
know, people think, oh,I'm just gonna go to get the bear
at the supermarket, you know,the little plastic bear or whatever. Tell
(12:22):
us about the benefits of buying localhoney products as opposed to that bear or
whatever you would buy on like anational scale. Yeah, So we're really
very fortunate here in Massachusetts and actuallythroughout our entire northeastern region of our country
here to have what has actually beenconsidered by numerous awards a lot of different
things that these folks put their honeyin by the way, there's a contest
(12:45):
and the coal. So if you'rea beekeeper, you can actually earn a
badge just having the best honey,and so you can get it at the
local level the national level. Sothere's some brag and rocks that come along
with this, which is really cool, but you know, just from a
health perspective, we actually have whatis considered some of the most tasty as
honey. A lot of our beekeeperswin will go and do a complete sleep
of these awards and both of theregional and national levels, and really as
(13:11):
far as the human benefits of honeyare concerned, you know, it is
it's local, So it's it's opportunityto get access to different exposure to these
plants that you may have allergies to, or maybe they just to have some
of that build up immunity to someof these organized these plants that flower throughout
the season. Because every teaspoon ofhoney that you consume has pollen that the
bees collected inadvertently when they visit theflowers, So you're actually getting a one
(13:35):
two punch there. You're getting alittle bit of protein in there, a
little bit of exposure to those thoseplant pollens, which is great for our
immunity. And then also this reallyamazingly sweet, very nutrient rich substance that
is made by bees. And Iwon't tell you, know call how they
make it, because you may nevereat it again, but I can say
that it's delicious. Sometimes I justdon't need to know the process as long
(13:56):
as it gets to the plate.Sometimes it's kind of better off not knowing,
right, And I'm fine with that. I love it. I love
it all right. So you're partof the state's apiary program. You essentially
head it up, and you aredoing so much incredible work around the commonwealth
to protect our bees, to helpour farmers. Give us kind of a
rundown of what you do over there, Well, we're really fortunate. So
here the Aperior program, I workwith a team of inspectors. We provide
(14:18):
services from both a regulatory hat,so we ensure that we have laws and
regulations in our states. We wantto make sure those are followed and support
folks in the process of following those. And then we also were an outreach
education hat, and so we doa lot of programs like these. We
visit schools. We had students cometo this We actually manage to state apiary
(14:39):
locations that are managed by the stateand are used as vessels for educations,
and we bring in, of course, beekeepers there. We offer programming like
I mentioned schools, and we're tryingto get more into that area as well
to offer that. But are thebig focus on our program is to support
beekeepers and support stakeholders. So thepublic or anyone that has questions about honeybees
and or beekeep and or managing behalvesand that process to be really the conduit
(15:05):
there to help them get both localinformation and then if they have any problems,
you know, help them kind offigure out how to manage that,
because it can be really hard tokeep bees. To be honest, it's
a really tough thing to kind ofget a hold of. It's easy to
sit in the classroom and learn aboutit, and you know, I always
think about it like cooking. Ican watch a cooking show, but boy,
oh boy, you better believe youdo not I'm not going to be
jolia child or done. I'm notgoing to make you anything that's edible.
(15:26):
But I can wash a mean dish. And so you know, it's really
easy to watch their shows and sayoh, I can be a beekeeper now,
you know, but it actually takesa lot of work. So our
focus here is to really support peoplein their efforts and of course to make
sure that if they you know,if anybody's not following the rules, that
we get them on the rat path. We are making our way into the
fall, right and so we haveto switch things up, I guess when
(15:48):
it comes to our bees and wehave to start getting ready for the cold
winter months. Speaking of that education, do you have any tips for people
who might be listening to you know, how can we better protect our bees
as we make our way out ofthe months. Yes, definitely, this
is our you know, we prepare, We start preparing for fall and winter
in Massachusetts and really in the entireNortheast as soon as spring starts. That's
(16:10):
kind of our mindset. Really sometimeseven before the new year, because our
season has showed so short here inthe coolst We always have to be mindful
of the bees have enough food.So if you're if you have a hive
right now or colonies in your apior, you want to make sure that they
are have enough food to get intowinter. So if they don't have enough
food, some areas of our stateare just getting into a big bloom for
various plants that are blooming in thefall. But you want to keep that
(16:33):
an eye out to make sure thatthose frames are getting filled with enough food.
And if you don't see enough food, then you're gonna have to supplementally
feed these bees because there's nothing worsethan going into winter with not enough food.
They will not survive. There's noway they can make anything in the
dead of winter with snow on theground. And then the other big piece,
especially this time of year is gettingprepared for winter, is that all
the bees that are being produced aregoing to be your winter bees, and
(16:56):
so you want to make sure they'refat, they're very healthy, and you
have plenty of them so when wintercomes they can take care of all those
immature bees. And of course ourqueen while she's going through the winter months
just waiting in anticipation for that springspring bloom and those really nice weather to
hit. So in order to dothat, a big part of that management
is making sure that you do aRoyal Might alcohol wash to see if you've
(17:18):
got a number there that exceeds thethreshold. So if you have three to
six mites or three to nine mitesI apologize per three hundred bees or a
half a couple of bees. Thenyou do want to think about taking your
your integrated Pest Management plan, yourIPM plan for royal mites out and figure
out what's that next thing on yourbox that you can imply this year as
an addition to whatever things you've beendoing, hopefully in that plan. So
(17:41):
just don't want to make sure thosebees go in the winter fat. They're
very healthy and you got plenty ofthem. So that's kind of the big
the big pieces there, And ifpeople have questions, we're more than happy
to help. And of course weoffer inspection services as well, so we
come out as part of our programand we'll go through the bees with you,
so we can even show you livein person. You know what to
look for and what things to watchout next even better because I know there's
(18:02):
going to be questions. I'm surethere's a lot of questions about what ipms
are and all this other stuff.And if people do have these questions,
if they want to learn more aboutthe bees, how can they find you?
So we have a website through ourmass dot gov, so m Ass
dot go ov. You can searchfirst there an apier program. You can
also always shoot us an email.We're at bees at mass dot gov,
(18:22):
so that's B E. E.S. Bees at MSS dot goov,
so you can shoot us an emailthere. But yeah, those are kind
of the best ways to reach us. And if you want to go on
our website you'll get access to allthe resources we have and then you can
also request an inspection on there ifyou want us to come out and visit
you. Again, those are partof our program, so there's no fees
associated with anything that we do.Nicole, This is all part of our
(18:42):
state program through our Department of bagAll right, beautiful, this is great
information. Doctor. Thank you somuch for your time. I would love
to have you on again at somepoint. And thank you so much for
all you do for the bees.Oh my god, thank you so much
to call your the bees knees.I like, thank you. All right,
have a safe and healthy weekend,Stay cool out there. Join me
(19:03):
again next week for another edition ofthe show. I'm Nicole Davis from w
Beezy News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From w BEEZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend. Each
week we come together and talk aboutall the topics important to you and the
place where you live. And likeevery week, it's so good to be
back with you. I'm Nicole Davis. While the calendar would have you thinking
otherwise, but it is true.We are getting into fall and it's that
time of year where you can headout and go apple picking, bring some
(00:30):
home, cut them up, putsome honey on them. Maybe have a
tasty cup of hot tea with honeyin it. Make a tasty caramel apple
honey crumble. All right, Yeah, we're talking about honey, and we
do love honey in all its forms, even the bees wax that comes from
bees, soap and candles. Youcan find all sorts of stuff. The
(00:51):
thing is, the pollinators who makethe honey forests don't really get a lot
of love. Honey bees play sucha huge role in pollinating crops and plants,
but experts say they're in danger formore than a few reasons. Now
you might not have known this,but here in Massachusetts we have our very
own state program to help boost honeybeehealth. Doctor Kim Skerm heads up these
(01:11):
States apiary program, and he joinsus now on the show to talk all
things bees. Doctor. It's sogood to have you and to start here,
let's get a little bit deeper intothese threats that bees are facing.
What's going on with the bees?Oh my goodness, the call. I
wish I had a quarter for everytime I got to ask this question.
I would be so incredibly rich.It is amazing just how many people are
(01:33):
interested in bees and bee health,and it's so exciting to have the ability
to have these conversations. You know, really what we're dealing with, I
think as far as the honeybee world, we've been dealing with also for the
native or wild bee world as well, which is we're really a deficit of
forage. You know, we don'thave enough resources, one have plants available
for these organisms. We've taken alot of habitat out for human activities and
(01:57):
functions and it's greatly impacted their popularAnd then of course with that, we've
also incorporated things into the habitat tomanage it, you know, things like
pesticides. We've also brought in beeshave come in you know, through our
trade system across the globe. Andso some of them are now out competing
some of our native bees, someof our wild bees. So it's just
kind of an interesting dynamic out therebetween You've got invasives that are there,
(02:19):
You've got again pesticides in the system, You've got habitat that's being degraded by
our need for other human like things. And then also you've got a series
of pest and pathogens and parasites thatare just following right along. So it's
it's it's a perfect cocktail for areally bad time for bees. Yeah,
you're not kidding, and bees arereally important to everything we do, so
so let's talk about why they're importantto keep around. Obviously, they're pollinators,
(02:43):
but for people who might not knowtoo much about honeybees, what are
the key things that they do tobenefit humans and wildlife in general. Well,
you know, the honeybee has reallybecome the poster b you know,
for what we consider to be thepollination unit for our world, and a
lot of days, especially as faras agriculture is concerned, they do they
do much of the heavy lifting foragricultural pollination services. And even here in
(03:06):
Massachusetts, we're estimating almost fifty percentof our agricultural crops that are being produced
are pollinated by these honey bees,so they have a huge contribution to pollination
services. And then on the flipside, they actually are and then themselves
their own agricultural commodity. So folksthat manage bees or honey bees specifically are
called beekeepers, and these folks arevery passionate about honey bees obviously, but
(03:29):
they also are able to glean fromthem harvest agricultural commodities such as honey and
wax and propylus and a lot ofThat has been a big, big economic
boom for some of the folks thathave been getting into beekeeping in addition to
these pollination services. So it's areally nice bang there for the buck as
far as getting honey bees in inyour field to pollinate, and then also
(03:50):
has a beekeeper being able to harvesthoney and get all these extra commodities off
of them and have a business doingit. Oh sure, I mean they're
helpful for farmers. And I wasactually just at a farm yesterday and they
had all sorts of honey products.You can get soaps, and you can
get candles and all this other stuff. It seems like there's really no end
to what the bees can produce.It's pretty amazing, And I think what's
really neat about it is people arereally getting creative with the way they're thinking
(04:14):
about how these products are produced,and more importantly, really working with the
honey bee itself and thinking sort ofwhat are they using these products for in
the hive and how can we beable to benefit from them, and a
lot of this. I mean,obviously, indigenous folks were using a lot
of different things in the environment longbefore we you know, we're ever using
honeybees for things like this, Soyou know, it's really neat to see
this come full circle, especially withinour own population as humans. Yeah,
(04:38):
for sure, I feel like beesget kind of a bad rap though.
I feel like they often get kindof get caught up with the hornets and
the wasps and the yellow jackets ofthe world. It says, what do
you think are some of the biggeststereotypes about bees? You know, I
think that it's tough because we dofolks do encounter what they think are bees,
typically at picnics or outside gatherings,and most cases those are actually different
(05:00):
species of wasp or yellow jackets.All in that wasp family and honeybees are
quite a bit different than that.So you know, obviously they produce honey,
as their name was suggest and mostfolks really love the ability to be
able to have access to that,but wasps do not. They don't produce
anything any remotely close to anything likehoney. Definitely not that could be exploited
for, you know, for humansto be able to consume. Also,
(05:21):
honeybees in general, they are veryspecific. Even in the bee world.
They have a barbed stinger and sothey can only sting in essence one time,
whereas wasps do not. They cansting you multiple times. And then
a little bit more morphologically between thetwo, Wasps do not have these branched
body hairs that honeybees have, andthey're really important for honeybees because they allow
(05:44):
them to visit a flower and sortof zap up that pollen through electrostatic what
we will considered you know, theelectricity there and touching the flower. So
that's really important for them to beable to visit and collect the plant material
pollen and nectar when they do pollinationservices. Now, wasts were also really
important. I want to be clearabout that. They don't provide pollination services
(06:04):
to the extent that a honeybee would, but they do. They're very critical
for the ecosystem they do. Theywill pollinate somewhat when they visit flowers.
They don't sort of primarily feed onthat pollen and nectar like honeybees do,
but they have a very vast dietand they will eat other insects, and
so you have a really nice systemthere for them to basically eat the bad
(06:24):
bug, so to speak, theinsects that might be consuming your garden.
They will actually eat them and keepthem pretty well under control. And then
finally, a lot of wall specieswill nest in the ground, very few
of them. Some of them willnest above the ground, but honeybees always
a nest above the ground. Andthen obviously they're they're something that's managed by
humans, so they obviously are nesting, typically inside of some sort of receptacle
(06:46):
that we've given them a box ora hive or in this case, I
hollowed out tree. So you know, you will usually find those waltz nest.
Unfortunately, sometimes people encounter those lostnests in ground where they're mowing the
grass or whatnot. So there's quitea bit of differences there. In general,
you know, they are all underthat umbrella as a pollinator though,
because they do both these groups doprovide pollination services, just you know,
honeybees tend to be more focused onthat pollen and nectar driven for plants than
(07:10):
these walls do. They might pickup a few insects along the way as
a snack, you know, insteadof just going straight to the flowers.
Well, and that's a really goodanswer, because honestly, I've always wondered
that, like, you know,I'm chasing a hornet around my house or
something, and I'm like, whatpurpose do you possibly serve? Like why
are you here? Like I realizedthat bees are you know, puffy and
happy and they're just out there tootingaround to flowers and pollinating things. But
(07:32):
I've always had this question, likewhat on earth does a wasp do?
So I was not aware that theywere pollinators as well. Yes, and
I agree with NICOLEO a lot ofpeople it's a really good point. A
lot of people do get real concerned, you know, around wasston the danger
of them, and obviously folks canhave allergies to both of these organisms,
but you know, we do tendto see anything that's black and yellow with
(07:53):
stripy you know, maybe concerning topeople, and a lot of animals have
those pilar patterns as of warning.But yeah, wsper really for ecosystem.
So please, if you're anti walls, please listen and do your best to
look the other way. And Ipromise you they will go and do their
thing much better than they are abuzz around you or around your soda.
Can I promise I will not whackit with a newspaper next time. I
(08:15):
will do my best to not freakout and run around the house. See
you know you were talking about hivesand how a lot of people are setting
up hives at businesses and even intheir residence as if they've got a lot
of land. How is how popularhas this become and how beneficial is this?
Two bees in the end, youknow, beekeeping is really just it's
absolutely amazing the amount of interest thatpeople have taken into this. It's been
(08:39):
about a little over a decade nowwe've had sort of a beekeeping boom or
the buzz i guess of beekeeping hasreally taken off, and it's quite a
phenomenal to see. I mean fromjust from a perspective of people getting really
excited about the natural world and usinghoney bees as a conduit to be more
connected to nature. I mean,now, you couldn't ask for anything better
than that at Cole. I mean, if that's your you know, if
that's going to be that way thatyou can really connect with the world around
(09:03):
you, then by all means,please use the honey beehive and become a
beekeeper for that aspect. But theother piece of this is really unique as
far as beekeeping goes, and whatwe've seen in our work with beekeepers is
a lot of them tend to bevery avid gardeners, and so you have
people that have that very focused lenson how important the natural world is,
but then also broaden that to howimportant the natural world is with a focus
(09:24):
on how do we provide more environmentfor these organisms that they care so deeply
about, right these honeybees that they'remanaging, and a lot of people find
it very soothing. Obviously they're verycaptivated by it. I know myself,
I've always been extremely captivated by honeybees. And I think, you know,
one of these days they call,we'll have to get you in a hive,
and I think it catch the buzz, They're pretty quick. They're just
(09:46):
really marvelous organisms, and I thinkthey have such amazing social activities that we
as humans just gravitate towards that.We really love this social kind of connectedness
and woven the way this community worksto support each other altruism in this colony.
And then of course people figure itout along the way. Hey,
I can make some local honey,and maybe I can put it out,
you know, on a road standin front of my house, and my
(10:07):
neighbors will buy it. Or maybeI can give it as gifts to my
family members and I'll become the coolestaunt at the Christmas party, you know.
So it's a great way to stimulatethat I am always striving to be
the cool aunt at the Christmas party. So that is actually really good to
know. Just have to bring localhoney. I can do that. And
you know, you bring up areally good point because I think people believe
that if they want to be abeekeeper, they have to have a lot
(10:30):
of training, and they might bescared because they don't really know what they're
doing. But it seems like there'sthese companies out there. There's the State's
Apiary program that you're a part ofbeekeeping is more accessible these days than it
ever has been before. Yes,and it's it's quite phenomenal. Really,
It's amazing how beekeeping itself has becomealmost the exact replica of the organisms that
(10:52):
people have sought out to keep right. It's this interwoven connected community collaboration of
interest and passion about keeping this thissocial organism alive, these honeybees alive.
So it's you know, a lotof people really love that aspect of it.
There we have a lot of countyassociations here in our state that will
meet periodically, most of them oncea month though, all for even b
(11:13):
schools what they call be school,which is really cool where you can actually
go and become a student and andlearn about honey bees and how to keep
them and basically become the best beekeeperthat you can possibly ever be before you
even get any bees of your own. And and even further than that,
you know, there's a lot ofactivities around keeping bees of hope and hive
events and even here within our ownAPIER program here at the Department of Ague,
(11:37):
we offer bi monthly to monthly eventsand also for the public as well
to come in and get into beekeeping. So it's an awesome conduit for for
conversation, for loving and and theyou know, the community of exploring the
natural world. And then quite frankly, I think honeybees represent the best of
what we would like to see inour own world. You know, this
this this way that these organisms worktogether for this bigger calls of you know,
(12:01):
this colony, health, the survivabilityof this organism. So it's it's
really quite a beautiful network to witness, and I think we really gravitate towards
that as people. Yeah, welove community just in general. And honestly,
local honey is so good. Ilove buying local honey. And you
know, people think, oh,I'm just gonna go to get the bear
at the supermarket, you know,the little plastic bear or whatever. Tell
(12:22):
us about the benefits of buying localhoney products as opposed to that bear or
whatever you would buy on like anational scale. Yeah, So we're really
very fortunate here in Massachusetts and actuallythroughout our entire northeastern region of our country
here to have what has actually beenconsidered by numerous awards a lot of different
things that these folks put their honeyin by the way, there's a contest
(12:45):
and the coal. So if you'rea beekeeper, you can actually earn a
badge just having the best honey,and so you can get it at the
local level the national level. Sothere's some brag and rocks that come along
with this, which is really cool, but you know, just from a
health perspective, we actually have whatis considered some of the most tasty as
honey. A lot of our beekeeperswin will go and do a complete sleep
of these awards and both of theregional and national levels, and really as
(13:11):
far as the human benefits of honeyare concerned, you know, it is
it's local, So it's it's opportunityto get access to different exposure to these
plants that you may have allergies to, or maybe they just to have some
of that build up immunity to someof these organized these plants that flower throughout
the season. Because every teaspoon ofhoney that you consume has pollen that the
bees collected inadvertently when they visit theflowers, So you're actually getting a one
(13:35):
two punch there. You're getting alittle bit of protein in there, a
little bit of exposure to those thoseplant pollens, which is great for our
immunity. And then also this reallyamazingly sweet, very nutrient rich substance that
is made by bees. And Iwon't tell you, know call how they
make it, because you may nevereat it again, but I can say
that it's delicious. Sometimes I justdon't need to know the process as long
(13:56):
as it gets to the plate.Sometimes it's kind of better off not knowing,
right, And I'm fine with that. I love it. I love
it all right. So you're partof the state's apiary program. You essentially
head it up, and you aredoing so much incredible work around the commonwealth
to protect our bees, to helpour farmers. Give us kind of a
rundown of what you do over there, Well, we're really fortunate. So
here the Aperior program, I workwith a team of inspectors. We provide
(14:18):
services from both a regulatory hat,so we ensure that we have laws and
regulations in our states. We wantto make sure those are followed and support
folks in the process of following those. And then we also were an outreach
education hat, and so we doa lot of programs like these. We
visit schools. We had students cometo this We actually manage to state apiary
(14:39):
locations that are managed by the stateand are used as vessels for educations,
and we bring in, of course, beekeepers there. We offer programming like
I mentioned schools, and we're tryingto get more into that area as well
to offer that. But are thebig focus on our program is to support
beekeepers and support stakeholders. So thepublic or anyone that has questions about honeybees
and or beekeep and or managing behalvesand that process to be really the conduit
(15:05):
there to help them get both localinformation and then if they have any problems,
you know, help them kind offigure out how to manage that,
because it can be really hard tokeep bees. To be honest, it's
a really tough thing to kind ofget a hold of. It's easy to
sit in the classroom and learn aboutit, and you know, I always
think about it like cooking. Ican watch a cooking show, but boy,
oh boy, you better believe youdo not I'm not going to be
jolia child or done. I'm notgoing to make you anything that's edible.
(15:26):
But I can wash a mean dish. And so you know, it's really
easy to watch their shows and sayoh, I can be a beekeeper now,
you know, but it actually takesa lot of work. So our
focus here is to really support peoplein their efforts and of course to make
sure that if they you know,if anybody's not following the rules, that
we get them on the rat path. We are making our way into the
fall, right and so we haveto switch things up, I guess when
(15:48):
it comes to our bees and wehave to start getting ready for the cold
winter months. Speaking of that education, do you have any tips for people
who might be listening to you know, how can we better protect our bees
as we make our way out ofthe months. Yes, definitely, this
is our you know, we prepare, We start preparing for fall and winter
in Massachusetts and really in the entireNortheast as soon as spring starts. That's
(16:10):
kind of our mindset. Really sometimeseven before the new year, because our
season has showed so short here inthe coolst We always have to be mindful
of the bees have enough food.So if you're if you have a hive
right now or colonies in your apior, you want to make sure that they
are have enough food to get intowinter. So if they don't have enough
food, some areas of our stateare just getting into a big bloom for
various plants that are blooming in thefall. But you want to keep that
(16:33):
an eye out to make sure thatthose frames are getting filled with enough food.
And if you don't see enough food, then you're gonna have to supplementally
feed these bees because there's nothing worsethan going into winter with not enough food.
They will not survive. There's noway they can make anything in the
dead of winter with snow on theground. And then the other big piece,
especially this time of year is gettingprepared for winter, is that all
the bees that are being produced aregoing to be your winter bees, and
(16:56):
so you want to make sure they'refat, they're very healthy, and you
have plenty of them so when wintercomes they can take care of all those
immature bees. And of course ourqueen while she's going through the winter months
just waiting in anticipation for that springspring bloom and those really nice weather to
hit. So in order to dothat, a big part of that management
is making sure that you do aRoyal Might alcohol wash to see if you've
(17:18):
got a number there that exceeds thethreshold. So if you have three to
six mites or three to nine mitesI apologize per three hundred bees or a
half a couple of bees. Thenyou do want to think about taking your
your integrated Pest Management plan, yourIPM plan for royal mites out and figure
out what's that next thing on yourbox that you can imply this year as
an addition to whatever things you've beendoing, hopefully in that plan. So
(17:41):
just don't want to make sure thosebees go in the winter fat. They're
very healthy and you got plenty ofthem. So that's kind of the big
the big pieces there, And ifpeople have questions, we're more than happy
to help. And of course weoffer inspection services as well, so we
come out as part of our programand we'll go through the bees with you,
so we can even show you livein person. You know what to
look for and what things to watchout next even better because I know there's
(18:02):
going to be questions. I'm surethere's a lot of questions about what ipms
are and all this other stuff.And if people do have these questions,
if they want to learn more aboutthe bees, how can they find you?
So we have a website through ourmass dot gov, so m Ass
dot go ov. You can searchfirst there an apier program. You can
also always shoot us an email.We're at bees at mass dot gov,
(18:22):
so that's B E. E.S. Bees at MSS dot goov,
so you can shoot us an emailthere. But yeah, those are kind
of the best ways to reach us. And if you want to go on
our website you'll get access to allthe resources we have and then you can
also request an inspection on there ifyou want us to come out and visit
you. Again, those are partof our program, so there's no fees
associated with anything that we do.Nicole, This is all part of our
(18:42):
state program through our Department of bagAll right, beautiful, this is great
information. Doctor. Thank you somuch for your time. I would love
to have you on again at somepoint. And thank you so much for
all you do for the bees.Oh my god, thank you so much
to call your the bees knees.I like, thank you. All right,
have a safe and healthy weekend,Stay cool out there. Join me
(19:03):
again next week for another edition ofthe show. I'm Nicole Davis from w
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