May 28, 2025 • 69 mins
The sweet golden nectar we call honey might be the most remarkable food on earth—the only substance that truly never expires. Egyptian tombs revealed 5,000-year-old honey still perfectly edible, a testament to nature's most extraordinary preservative.
Gary Tibbo returns to the podcast to reveal the secrets of beekeeping, from setting up your first hive to harvesting liquid gold. With 15 years of experience tending bees, Gary presents a comprehensive beginner's guide while sharing insights even experienced beekeepers might not know. We explore the fascinating social dynamics of the hive, where queen bees engage in mortal combat for supremacy while worker bees dedicate their short 90-day lives to the colony's survival.
Beyond delicious honey, we uncover the remarkable health benefits hidden within the hive. Did you know beeswax candles create vitamin D3 in your home atmosphere? Or that propolis, the resin bees use to seal their homes, contains the strongest natural antibiotics known? Gary explains how consuming honeycomb cleanses your teeth and intestinal tract, revealing why bees produce some of nature's most potent superfoods.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn as we discuss how beekeeping might diversify tourism experiences for lodge owners in northern Ontario. Imagine offering guests the unique opportunity to witness the intricate world of honeybees up close—an unforgettable addition to traditional outdoor experiences that connects visitors to the natural world in a profound new way.
Whether you're considering beekeeping as a hobby, seeking natural health alternatives, or simply fascinated by these remarkable insects, this episode delivers golden insights into the ancient practice that's more relevant today than ever. Ready to suit up and discover the buzz about beekeeping? This conversation is definitely worth the sting.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
wax candles burning in your house create vitamin d3,
like the sun, right in theatmosphere.
So that's why a wax candle isso expensive.
But most people don't realizethe the benefits, the health
benefits, of you burning a waxcandle in your house.
And then we have honey, we havepollen, you know all of those
(00:30):
things are superfoods to ourbody.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast
Networks, diaries of a LodgeOwner Stories of the North.
I'm really excited to talk withthis gentleman, and no stranger
to the show, about somethingthat has interested me for years
, to the point I wanted toincorporate this idea into my
(00:57):
lodge business.
It's sweet, totally cool andlasts forever.
And now it is our pleasure tohave back on the show Gary Tebow
to talk honey.
On this show, gary and I talkeverything you need to know to
(01:17):
produce your own honey and carefor a hive as well.
We tell some stories and havesome laughs.
So, folks, if you've ever beeninterested in how to produce
honey and the mystery of bees,then zip those bee suits up
tight, because this one's foryou.
(01:37):
Here's my conversation withGary Thibault with Gary Thibault
.
Gary, welcome back to Diariesof a Lodge Owner Stories of the
North.
It's a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I'm happy to be back.
I mean, we're going to get intoit, right now?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yes, absolutely, and I'm really excited about this
one, and, folks, I alluded tothis on the last episode of
Diaries and we are going to talkabout bees Absolutely, love to
help you.
We're going to talk abouthealth and we're going to talk
(02:15):
about a lot of different thingsthat we've been working on in
the last couple of well monthsreally.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah Well, the last time I came here I helped you
downstairs and there's a YouTubeshort on my platform showing
what we're doing cleaning up thehives, the boxes.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So let's start from thebeginning.
What kind of bees make honey?
Or should I say do all beesmake honey?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well, basically, honeybees make honey, or should
I say do all bees make honey?
Well, basically, honeybees makehoney.
And then if you look at thewild killer bees, like from
Africa or South America, theymake honey too and they store it
like honeybees.
But the deal with them is kindof very nasty.
They call killer bees for areason, because they will kill
you.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
No way.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh yeah, and they're much larger.
They're like super large,they're like an inch long.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah, they're really serious bees.
I don't need to be working withkiller bees, that's for sure,
but honeybees basically havebeen bred through generations.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Basically a lot of the honeybees came out of Italy
and France and you know beforethat they basically came out of
the Middle East, around theMiddle East.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Are there any native honeybees to Canada?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Basically to North America and South America.
The honeybees were really notnative.
Bumblebees and killer bees fromSouth America were native to
here, but mostly we hadbumblebees and we had all kinds
of other little pollination beesthat are native to here, but we
didn't really have honeybeesHoneybees the honeybees that we
know, that we know and lovetoday.
(04:04):
Yes, and most of them have beenbred in North America.
Either are coming from Italy orCalifornia Gotcha, and I found
that from my own experiencebeing a beekeeper for a little
while and I do not knoweverything, I'm continuously
learning all the time.
When you find somebody that'sraising the queens and the nukes
(04:27):
locally and that's been doingit for a while, breeding their
own strains seem to work betterup here in Canada and even in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, so listen, why don't we start from the
beginning?
And for all those people outthere listening and everybody in
the Diaries family who may beinterested in taking on a hobby
like this, where would somebodystart?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Well, first of all, you might want to join a group
of local beekeepers there'salways some around or find
someone who's going to be amentor of yours, like that's an
actual beekeeper and hasactually been doing it for a
while and, you know, is going toteach you and help you to do it
(05:21):
, because you know you canGoogle YouTube videos and look
at other people doing stuff.
But you need somebody to kindof guide you, because it's
getting harder and harder tokeep bees and the weather is not
always cooperating with you andthere's all kinds of diseases
that have been introduced intoNorth America with bees that
(05:45):
never used to be here.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, Varroa is one of them.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
You're right.
And then there's other kinds ofdiseases too that you really
got to kind of be fussy cleaningyour equipment, and you know.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So we'll cover that coming up here shortly.
But for the structure of whatyou need, like actually, gary
today brought over to my house aI'm going to call it a bee trap
, because we're looking forlocal bees and hopefully they're
going to populate this bee trap, which really it's probably not
(06:22):
the right terminology.
But let's talk about what youdid with that and how it would
be the same for when you'rebuilding up your hive.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, you know, second and third year hives that
may be from other beekeepers.
Once the bees have beenestablished in a place, what
happens is when the queen, theolder queen, starts to get a
little tired or whatever she'sexperienced, she will lay a
(06:54):
bunch of eggs in a box and shewill allow new queens to come
out, and then she'll take 50% ofthe bees and fly around with
her scout bees and find a newhome.
And that's how the beepopulation will expand,
naturally.
And so what?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
happens, so the queen actually leaves the hive.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
She will leave the hive and her family will follow
her and they'll take a goodportion of the honey out of the,
store it in the bees' bodiesand they'll go in and start
building new wax and foundationand build a hive.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So does she leave the new queen behind.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, she lays eggs and the
strongest queen coming out ofthe capsule will kill all the
other ones.
Yep, and now?
So there's a queen brawl.
Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
That's kind of crazy.
And the witches fight to death.
Yeah, they don't take prisoners.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
No way.
So then the queen?
Oh sorry about the cheaping inthe background folks, we still
got the incubators in the backdoing their magic thing and
we're hatching out a bunch ofchicks.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, and if you want to buy some chicks, you should
get in touch with this man.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, you certainly can.
They're wonderful little chicks, great breeds, giant Brahmas
and ISA Red Cross and Langshans.
So I know all of you folks haveheard me talking about them
before.
But yes, you can get in touchwith me and if you're interested
in starting a beautiful flockfor meat or eggs, just let me
(08:23):
know.
And you know how to get a holdof me at steven, at
fishincandidacom, no problem.
But where was my train ofthought?
Oh yes, the queens.
So the older queen lays thequeen eggs and she leaves before
they hatch, so she's notinvolved in the queen brawl at
(08:43):
her old house.
They hatch, so she's notinvolved in the queen brawl at
her old house.
She'll take a faction of herown family which are scouts and
then they'll head out and lookfor a new home.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
They'll look for a new home and when they find a
new home they kind of advise herthey found a good place to live
and basically then there'll bea percentage of the worker bees
that are going to stay in theold hive and rebuild it with a
new queen and basically she willgo with an experienced part of
(09:13):
the hive and rebuild anotherplace.
And this will keep gettingrepeated.
If you were just to leave yourhives wild, they would just keep
doing that and spreading.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, very interesting, that's cool.
So when you're starting out andyou want to build a hive or buy
a hive, what are the partsinside that hive and how do they
kind of work?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, what I tell people.
If you want to become abeekeeper, you got to realize
that per hive it's going to costyou approximately a thousand
dollars.
So you know people will say,well, that's overpriced this and
that, but it's not really true.
It is approximately a thousanddollars because by the time you
buy a proper good bee suit, asmoker, all the tools and you'll
(10:01):
need other tools that you don'tcount on, depending on how
involved you want to get, and soyou've got to buy your boxes
and you've got to buy the waxframes if you want to do.
You know, if you want to dolike commercial style, where
you're using plastic in there,which I don't like to use at all
, you end up, you know, havingto scrape more and do more work.
(10:24):
But basically you needfoundation, you need frames, you
need boxes, you need a roof andyou need a bottom floor and per
box just that's, without buyingany bees you're usually around
$400 or $500 easily.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And then in.
So they call.
Just so you folks know, theboxes we're talking about are
the ones that you see when yousee like beehives, right,
everybody's seen them on theside of the road or in a
farmer's field and they're justa square box and they're about
you can buy a half.
Well, they call them supers,right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, so the half boxes are supers and then you
have the deep supers.
So the deep ones are basicallywhere you're going to have your
colony live in and then you canhave a double of those so
they'll have enough foodthroughout the winter.
And then you'd put your superson top of that.
And some people just use deepsupers all the way, and you know
(11:18):
then they're using a spinner tospin out the frames and cut off
the wax, and you know it getsmore and more involved all the
time.
And I recommend that ifsomebody's going to get involved
with it, they needapproximately three hives.
You could start with one, butif something goes wrong or
sideways basically you got anexpense and you don't have any
(11:39):
bees, yeah, and then You're notgoing to start out with your own
bees.
You're going to have to buythem, and the average cost is
around $250 and up, depending onhow many frames your nuc is
going to be.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And that's a nuc and I think that that's derived by
the word nucleus.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Because basically, inside your box you have these
frames that we're calling them,and they're just wooden frames
that hang inside the box orinside the super and that are
deep super, and all a deep superis is a box.
That's about 12 inches, wouldthey be?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, it's about 12 inches high and they're
approximately about 2 feetsquare.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, it's about 12 inches high and approximately
about two inches or two feetsquare.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, somewhere around there, somewhere in that
neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And then a super is just half as high but the same
size, so you can stack them allRight.
So inside a deep super, whichis what you start with, you've
got these frames that hangvertically from top to bottom,
and there's a beeswax filminside that frame, or the
(12:54):
industrial plastic and this iswhat, and you stack them all
side by side, by side by side,so they're fairly tight, but
there's enough space in therethat the bees can travel up and
down and around and everythingelse and then on these vertical
frames they build the wax.
(13:15):
Everybody's seen the waxhoneycomb and they build that
honeycomb and some of thosehoneycombs are for the queen to
lay eggs in and to make I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong, we'llsee if I've been learning, but
we've got the only male bees inthe hive are drones, absolutely,
(13:35):
and their job basically is tomate with the queen?
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Nothing else.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
And then you've got worker bees, and they're all
female, all female.
And some of those worker beesare workers that actually go out
and fly and gather pollen andeverything else, but some of
them, their sole job in life isto feed and look after the queen
.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, every bee starts out that way.
Their first job, when they'retinier, is to feed the queen and
create royal jelly to feed thequeen, because she only eats
royal jelly.
That's why the queen will livean average of seven years.
Yeah, all of the worker beesthat feed her and take care of
her approximately from spring tomid-September, say.
From March to September.
(14:22):
These bees only liveapproximately 90 days, yeah, and
then she's continuously layingan average of 2,000 eggs, plus a
day.
The queen.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And that 2,000,.
So inside your nuc and insidethese frames, they've decided
that the center part of the boxand a box will hold what?
Nine frames, ten frames, tenframes, ten frames.
Ten frames, ten frames.
So in the center of this boxthey make the wax honeycomb and
(14:56):
inside that honeycomb she laysone egg in every one of these
and she just drives around ontop of the honeycomb laying eggs
in every one.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yes, but she doesn't really start laying eggs till.
Flowers come out and there'spollen being produced.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Well, that's when she wants to build the workforce.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
That's right To make honey.
So as soon as pollen, as soonas the worker bees start
bringing in some pollen just notnectar then she really gets the
busy, because the bees live.
That's their superfood.
It's a superfood for us as well, is the pollen and also all the
(15:34):
worker bees.
They have glands underneaththeir wings so that when they
consume honey and pollen theyproduce the wax that comes out
of their glands and then theytake that wax and they build a
frame to store the honey insideof.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
That's right.
So the same wax honeycombthat's growing the worker bees,
depending on where the rack islocated inside the hive, the
frame out and they fill it upwith honey they leave it exposed
(16:11):
to air for 30 days so that thehoney actually ferments inside
those little capsules.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And once it's fermented after 30 days, then
they put a layer of wax over topand seal it and because it's a
fermented food, it's alive allthe time.
It never dies and it will neverspoil, never, never.
It has an eternity of life.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I've heard that it's the only food that never, ever
spoils.
They used to bury pharaohs withwell.
They would coat their bodies inhoney because they believed
that it would help preservetheir body into the next life.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But um uh, if you had a vial of honey that was 5 000
years old well, they've foundhoney in egyptian tombs, that's
right that were 5 000 years oldand completely edible everything
yeah, yeah, which isunbelievable to me to think
about, but that's very that's.
Well, what happens is if youstore honeycomb in a container
(17:12):
after a period of time, even thewax will crystallize and taste
like sugar.
Really, it'll completely gosolid.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, yeah, very cool .
So you've you've got this, the,the nuke, and you install that
nuke inside your, your deepsuper, which is your first um,
your first box in the stack, andthen, when you start out, do
you just simply start with onebox?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
well, if you wanted to start with one box of bees
like that, you could but, like Isaid, work the racks out, make
sure they fill those racks.
Well, no, what would happen iswhen you'd get your bees in the
center.
So you got 10 frames in there.
Yeah, so most people get afour-frame nuc.
Okay, I prefer to buy ones thathave five.
(18:01):
Pay a little bit more moneybecause you have more bees to
start out with, makes yourcolony work faster.
So you take and leave threeframes on each side.
Yeah, and you'd maybe take alittle bit of honey, if you had
some, and paint it on the framesso that you got a little bit of
a food supply in the beginning.
And when you take your bees outof the box, you would actually
(18:22):
stick them right inside and thenOut of the nuke box, out of the
nuke box of the nuke box, andyou'd set them up.
And then you'd put a separatorframe in and you'd put a frame
with a regular super on top sothat as they started filling up
all the bottom where they gottheir food supply, then they're
going to start filling uphoneycomb for you on the top,
(18:43):
which you could extract somehoney from.
But most people will put asecond deep box on top.
Yeah, but if you put it toofast, they only finish the
center.
They don't really fill out thebottom box.
So you want them to fill outthe bottom box first, and then
you would put an empty box ontop.
Yeah, and then you let thembuild that, and then you'd start
(19:05):
putting on stuff for yourself.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, yeah, because they naturally want to build up
like in a tree or yeah, well,they, they actually.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
they don't want empty space.
Yeah, so they want to fill thebox full.
Yeah, so and and so, once theyfill their bottom box full, then
you'd give them an extra space.
You always got to keep thembusy and working.
Yeah, if you don't keep, if youdon't keep them busy and
working, what happens is thequeen says we're running out of
room, we have to find a new home.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, we have to find a bigger house.
Right, and she will Believe me.
Yeah, yeah, now I know somepeople in that bottom box will
manipulate the order of theframes.
So not so much the nuke, notnot in the in the center, but on
those two or three outsideframes.
(19:54):
If they've got one frame full,that's closest to the, because,
from what I understand, beesreally like having their their
shit in order, like they don'tlike having racks mixed up once
they've built the nucleus of thehive.
But I know some people willtake a full frame that's next to
(20:19):
the nuke and then one of theframes that's on the outside
wall, because they never starton the outside wall and work
their way in.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
They always start from the center and move back.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
They'll take an empty frame on the outside, move a
frame and put an empty framecloser to the nuke so that
they'll fill them up and then,once they kind of start getting
close to being full that way,then they'll build up.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yes, but I never.
Once I put my nuke in thebottom box, I just leave them.
I don't move the frames aroundenough.
I let them do their own thing.
Yeah, they know what they needto do.
Yeah, some guys try to do allthat stuff and manipulating them
.
I don't like to do that and Ilike to keep my bottom slide
drawer clean.
(21:06):
I like to keep my bottom slidedrawer clean so I like to take
it out and scrape off any fluffor dead stuff and burn the
bottom box, kill any bacteria.
And I also like to takepersonally cedar, the ends of
the branches and I dry it and Igrind it up like powder and I
throw some cedar in there on asheet of newspaper and the
(21:30):
newspaper ink prevents the waxmoth from going into your hives
and the cedar.
You know you have a cedarcloset.
I mean you don't have any typeof things eating your clothes.
99% of insects will not livearound cedar.
So when you put some cedarshavings or the ends of the
green inside dry, the bees don'tmind it.
(21:51):
They like the smell.
You have the essential oils inthere that keep your hive extra
clean and I've noticed fromexperience, you know my bees
live healthier and produce more.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah, well, that's a great tip, a natural way of
dealing with the disease,because that is a big, big issue
, and we'll just finish out themechanics of the hive so that
people understand what theinside of a hive looks like, and
(22:26):
I think we've done a prettygood job.
So you've got your bottom platewith your tray and that tray
you can pull it out and that'swhere the bees kind of go in,
where the door is.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, it'll be screened.
So they go in on top of thescreen and all the junk and dirt
falls on that tray, so you canclean it every once in a while.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yep, and you can also look for parasites on top of
that tray because you knowthey'll do a test for varroa
mites and you can actually countthese mites that die, because
they're very, very difficult toactually see Because they hide
underneath on the beesthemselves.
(23:04):
Right themselves Right, and themite was a very difficult
diagnosis, I guess, to try andfigure out why hives were dying.
But they finally found out thatthis Varroa mite is like a
vampire and bees don't haveblood per se, but the plasma
that they have in their bodies.
(23:25):
The varroa mite feeds on thatand it weakens the bees.
So you know they were seeing.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, I've also found from experience that I take
essential oils like peppermintor, you know, oregano or
lemongrass or you know differentessential oils, and what I've
done is I put them in, drop themin water with a spray bottle
and every once in a while, whenI open the box, I spray inside
(23:56):
the top of the box, on top ofthe frames, and I've actually
watched.
You'll see your bees going onthat and that smell in that
water and actually kind ofrolling themselves because they
know it gets rid of the mites.
So I I do little things likethat every once in a while.
It helps strengthen your hive.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, very, very interesting stuff, because I
know that, um, um, they tell younow, if you're going to be a
beekeeper, you will have a rowof mites.
I'm not disagreeing with that.
You have to.
You have to treat for them, andthere's different ways of
treating for them.
There's these little bombs thatyou can put in every three
(24:36):
months.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
That it's like a fumigation deal, which I don't
feel very good about thatbecause, well, I I found from
talking to a lot of people thatwhen you're treating for the
varroa mites and people putstuff in they usually kill off
that.
That that stuff, that toxicmaterial, kills off sometimes as
(24:58):
much as 50 of your bees.
Yeah, it's pretty hard on thebee colony see I, I don't know
anything like that, I don't havethe experience well, that's
what I've seen from other peopledealing with them, but they say
you've got to do it, you've gotto do it Now.
I have never done it and I'velost a fair percentage of hives,
probably because of it.
I'm not sure, but I also it'sgot to do with.
(25:20):
I think the biggest problemwith bees dying today is the
fact we have geoengineering andpeople are spraying these
chemicals in the air, causing itto rain when we don't need the
rain.
It's just getting out of handand you know I don't understand
why not enough people are eitherwriting a letter to their
(25:41):
politicians or getting on thebandwagon and saying look, you
know, you can say it's jet fuelfumes, like it's rain falling or
this and that, which is allcrap, because there's scientists
around the world have beencomplaining about it for 25
years.
And why do we have to spraystrontium-90, which is leftover
(26:05):
nuclear waste, nanoparticlebarium, which is a deadly poison
, and nanoparticle aluminum?
They're saying it's globalwarming deflecting the heat from
the Earth.
You know it's something.
I think that's a load of crap.
And we're going on to asituation where people are
saying well, you know, it's apopulation, we're creating too
(26:27):
much carbon in the atmosphere.
Nobody is even talking about.
When a volcano erupts anywhereon the earth, how much carbon
does it put into the air?
And if you think carbon is notimportant, your body is made
from it.
Every plant on earth grows fromit.
And if you look at a forestfire in the bush, after it's
(26:47):
burned like the charcoal, itturns green within a matter of
days.
Why?
It's because of the quality ofthe carbon.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I firmly believe that carbon is not our issue at all.
No, it's not.
I mean, our planet is 20%greener today than it was 30
years ago, when they were sayingthat we were going to turn into
a desert, and it's thosesemi-arid areas that are
greening up, but that's foranother story.
(27:20):
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how to catch them, and they wereeasy to catch.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
We're going to be talking topeople from all facets of the
outdoors, from athletes, All theother guys would go golfing Me
and Garton Turk and all theRussians would go fishing To
scientists.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
Now that we're reforesting and letting things
breathe, it's the perfecttransmission environment for
life.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated
, you will taste it.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you
are.
Outdoor Journal Radio seeks toanswer the questions and tell
the stories of all those whoenjoy being outside.
Find us on Spotify, applePodcasts or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Well, anybody who knows me or heard about me, gary
Thiebaud, you'll know that 15years ago I was filmed at my
farm and at my house inEtobicoke.
I was filmed by MarcusRoskrantz.
He made the DVD series FreeLiving 101, where I was talking
about plants and livingbasically very naturally off the
(29:36):
land, and I explained back thenthat most people today, because
of lack of knowledge andeducation, would be sitting on
their front lawn starving todeath because they didn't know
what was around them to eatright out of their own front
lawn.
So everybody wants manicuredgrass, but if you look at any
environmental situation outsideand in a field, it's not
manicured grass.
(29:57):
There's all kinds of plantsthat will grow to hold the water
and balance, and most of theseplants that grow to hold water
and sustainability are food.
And you know people's brainshave been demonized by
globalists who want to controlyou and they control you through
(30:17):
the banking system, your foodsupply, medication and it's all
BS.
You know we're talkingoriginally about bees, but if
the majority of people don'twake up to the situation and
start doing stuff for yourself,even in small increments, you'd
be surprised what you canaccomplish.
(30:38):
I mean, I advertised on theInternet for years that when my
two daughters were at my houseand you know they ate, believe
me, the best, and you know theyate, believe me, the best Our
food supply was costing us atthe grocery store.
What we had to buy otheroutside of what we were
producing was only $30 a week.
That's all we were spending fora family of four.
(30:59):
And now my wife and I, I don'tthink we can spend $15 between
the two of us a week.
It's because we're veryself-sufficient.
And you know you don't need alot of ground.
And see, I look at whatbuilders are doing around the
world.
They're making these houses themassive thing on a lot and
(31:22):
there's no place to even grow avegetable.
It's ridiculous, because ifyou're putting yourself in that
kind of position and somethinghappens to your economy, you're
in charge of it.
You lose your job, you can'tmake your payments.
Well, what are you going to eat?
The bricks.
You know the mortar tastes good, I guess with spaghetti sauce,
(31:44):
I don't know.
But you know, it's just commonsense.
You know an army on the earthcannot outrun its food supply.
If the man's stomach is empty,he can't fight, right?
Yeah, the only reason NorthAmerican military in the Second
World War beat the Europeanarmies under.
Hitler was a man from thatlived to finally his days in
(32:09):
Nova Scotia.
He was big on wolves andeverything.
He told the Canadian governmentgo up to the Northwest
Territories and harvest thereindeer, you know, harvest the
deer and they killed 60% ofthose deer and that's what fed
the Canadian and United Statesmilitary so they could fight
because they had meat.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
That's actual fact, you can look it up.
His name was Farley Mowat.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
He wrote Call of the wild Right he was.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
uh, he was a scientist that knew a lot about
wolves and he worked for thefederal government and he did
all these research on wolves upin the North and stuff like that
.
And he said, look, you know, wegot all kinds of reindeer on
the, on the things, uh, let's,let's, uh call the most of the
herd and, uh, they'll rebuild.
They never really have rebuiltto their size they used to be,
(33:00):
but some places pretty close,wow, I guess winning the war was
a pretty important Rightotherwise today you'd all be
speaking German.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's well, that's quite a
tangent, but a good one, but agood one.
People need information, yes.
So let's go back to the bees,and we now understand how to
build a bee box, what a bee boxlooks like.
Now to go in and open up a hiveof bees and folks these
(33:36):
beehives.
They'll start with about 15,000, 20,000 bees in the spring and
they'll balloon to over 50,000to maybe 60,000.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Easily.
So the average nuc when you getthem, even with a five-frame
nuc, would probably be about5,000 to 6,000 bees when you get
them and then they willincrease to about fifty thousand
depending on how much room theyhave, like that you give them
and how much their food supplyis.
And you know, if you look atmost bee yards, uh, some of
(34:09):
these bee yards will have, youknow, two, three hundred, uh,
bee for colonies and nobody willknow these people have these
big yards like that.
Don't worry about how much foodsupply is.
It seems like all the hives dowell, because your bees will fly
from your box easily two milesin a radius to harvest whatever
they need to fill up that boxand like, for example, with my
(34:33):
bees from last year that I havethat survived and lived through
the winter and we've had warmdays where they're out.
I couldn't believe how much theywere on my red and black
currents.
They were just like in thecurrents, like you'd never think
about that.
They would really be oncurrents that involved.
(34:54):
And the other thing I noticedtoo certain crops that you could
plant chives, garlic, onions.
Everybody will think that youknow bees don't go to that, but
for some reason when, if you letsome of your crop flower,
honeybees will be in them likeit is no tomorrow, they will
stop doing everything else to goto that, because so they know
(35:15):
there's certain things in therethat's very essential for their
health, which is passing it onto you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
So how do you open up a box and not get stung you?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
need a bee suit and a smoker.
And even then you know,sometimes you get a hive that's
very aggressive and you knowyour screen face covering.
You know the bees come and theytry to sting you right where
your pineal gland is.
That's the first place they goaround your eyes.
They'll come and they'll bangon that thing in front of you
(35:46):
and you'll spray a little bit ofsmoke on your face so they'll
stay away from it.
But mostly if you, if you workwith your bees kind of easy
going and relaxed, not in ahurry and banging the boxes too
much, you take your time and youuse your smoker, when you put
some smoke the bees will go downto the bottom and you can kind
of work.
What does the smoke do?
(36:08):
It kind of just calms them down.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
So it probably they don't like fire.
I've heard that the smoke alsothere's.
People talk about a hive mindand the queen puts out a
pheromone when they get realexcited and that the smoke makes
that smell go away to calm themdown.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I would agree with that to an extent.
But you know, everything innature doesn't really want to be
, uh, doesn't want to be, aroundfire a fire.
You know nature knows fire isdangerous.
So but the smoke, uh, you knowthey they just it calms them
down.
They'll go to the bottom of thebox more or less.
And, and you know, I found,when I'm making I love to use
(36:57):
birch bark and dead grass andyou can buy stuff that'll keep
smoke in there.
Also, when you take your oldboxes apart, some of the old
dark colored wax, like thatfibrous material, is good to
keep around because once itburns it burns kind of slow and
it creates a smoke that the beesseem to like but they're calm
(37:20):
around it.
But I found grass and birchbark white birch bark seems to.
For me I like it the best,gotcha.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
And does the weather make any difference on the
temperament of the hive?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Well, the best time for me to go into a hive is on a
hot, sunny day in the afternoon, because most of your bees are
out foraging.
Yep, they're out working.
Yeah, that makes sense, andthen you're not going to have so
much trouble.
But if you know, going in firstthing in the morning or at the
end of the day, you're askingfor trouble.
You know, no, no, no.
(37:54):
And you know, if you've got abig hive that's kind of
aggressive and you start to takehoney out, you've got to have a
plan that you're going to putthat those frames with honey
into a box and cover it rightaway.
And you know, like I like to putit in my tractor bucket on a
(38:15):
platform and I leave the tractorrunning.
The sound of the tractorrunning kind of leaves that they
, they don't like that so much,so they kind of stay away.
But even then your bees havesuch an incredible nose.
You know, I also have a littlebox that I used to put a trailer
on the back of my ATV and Iactually think that's the best
(38:39):
one because I would cover it upand then I would go for a drive
around the property before Iwent to the shop where I was
going to go Because the beeswill believe me, they will hunt
you.
Oh, they know they can smellthat there's honey over there
and it came from my box and theywant it back.
Work hard for that honey, yeah,yeah and, and they want it back
.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Work hard for that, honey.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, yeah, and they're going to work hard at
stinging you and taking it backtoo.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So now that we've talked about harvesting it a
little bit, you mentioned afilter of sorts that you would
separate out your oh, no, I'mtalking about not a filter.
Well, you can buy filters toscreen your liquid honey.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
No, no, I'm not talking about that.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I'm talking about within the box to keep the queen
down.
Oh yeah, you have a separatingscreen.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
A separating screen.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, yeah, you put a separator in between your boxes
.
That's right, Because otherwise, if you didn't put a separator
in between certain boxes, thequeen will lay eggs everywhere
inside your honey.
Yeah Right, which is?
You know, you don't want to beeating larvae and you know.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So basically, you want you'vegot a queen separator.
So once you get a really nicehive going, which typically
could be two deep supers, right,right, then on top of two deep
supers You'd put a queenseparator.
You'd put a queen separator.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
So I actually cheat a little bit and underneath the
main box I put a queen separator, then I put a deep super and
then I put another queenseparator and so in case my hive
doesn't work out and they dieoff or something, I've got that
super above with a lot ofhoneycomb and if they worked
hard and they filled me up andsomething happens to the hive,
(40:26):
it flies away or whatever.
I've got a deep super and asuper filled with honeycomb that
I'm at least going torecuperate most of my costs, so
that you know, I spend 300 bucksfor a nuke.
I've got my money already madein advance if it works out, and
so that's what I do.
(40:47):
Otherwise, you know, I don'thave a tree in my backyard
printing money.
I just don't.
I wish I did, I don't.
Yeah, no doubt, and it's gettingharder and harder.
So you financially got to thinkof, you know, the maintenance
and everything else.
And so, like you know, I runinto different beekeepers.
Sometimes you talk to them inthe springtime, like last year
(41:08):
in the spring.
I talked to a guy that is uphere with, you know, a thousand
hives and he lost 500, 500 hivesdied.
So that means he lost half amillion dollars.
Yeah, that's a lot of money,you know like.
I mean, I don't know how hestayed in business.
Yeah, you know so we talked to.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
We touched on disease a little bit varroa mites and
that.
What are there?
What else are we fightingagainst?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Well, there's a?
And what are the solutions?
There's a hornet now that'skind of coming up to North
America.
In southern states they've hadquite a bit of problems with it,
but I think I've actually had ahive get attacked with it.
But cold winters will kill thishornet off and like last winter
that just went by it was apretty cold winter, so that was
good.
(41:54):
I haven't seen that but it's abig black hornet and if it gets
into your hive, the bees heredon't know how to deal with it.
But in Africa, what to do?
The bees swarm this hornet andthey keep flying around it so
much that basically they takethe oxygen away from the hornet
and it dies Really.
(42:15):
Yeah, you can actually watchthis on the internet they talk
about, but in North America thebees have never had to deal with
this hornet, so they don't havea mechanism.
So there's guys all overthrough the States now that are
going out at night with suits onand they're looking in trees
where this hornet bores a holein and they're getting it out
and killing it, and they'regoing around because it's
(42:37):
basically you know, a family ofthese hornets could devastate
hundreds of hives in a night.
Wow, like I mean it's justunbelievable, huh.
So you know there's more andmore problems coming along and
it's just like you know.
You know I'm going to go off alittle a little subject here.
You know like people like toimport cheap goods from China
(42:59):
and different countries andstuff like that around the world
, which I I basically I'mtotally against it.
I think you know we should bebuilding our own economy and
produce our own products in ourown country, service our own
people and if we have extra,okay, we can sell it somewhere
else.
But what's happening is, forexample, we had that ash borer
beetle that's killed basicallyall of the elm trees, ash trees.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Elm trees too.
Well, the Dutch elm disease dida good number on that.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Well, that boring beetle also attacks these elm
trees as well.
I didn't know it was attackingelm trees too, and so you got so
many of these trees.
For example, we have floweringash trees, so you got so many of
these trees.
For example, we have floweringash trees and that's one of a
major source of honeybees in thespringtime, especially up here
in Canada, like mountain ashyeah, the mountain ash and the
(43:46):
flowering ash trees and thoseflowering ash trees if you look
right now all around MulmerTownship, you'll see these trees
.
They're all like kind of whitecolor and they're full of
flowers, and so you havehoneybees that are actually
feeding on this, bringing a lotof nectar and pollen in, and so
this you know.
(44:06):
I look at my farm.
I've had about 15 trees and Isome that seem to have been
immune to it.
They're not dead, but all thesedead trees are dying because
this beetle goes in and kills it.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, all of the ash trees, like that emerald ash
borer, it's like standing dead,like I mean, it's been an
epidemic.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
And you know that's a terrible thing.
You know people are looking atthe bottom line.
You want cheap underwear andyou know, cheap this, cheap that
.
But you know there's aconsequence to that it's coming
from other areas.
And now you're wondering whyyour taxes are high.
Well, we're spending money tofight other things that we
(44:51):
wouldn't really have to fight ifwe were doing more production
locally based.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
And so when you know so you think the Emerald ash
borer come over.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
It came on skids.
It came in wooden skids.
Yeah, that's a fact, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Came in skids.
Yeah, I never would havethought of that.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
You know, that's what happened.
It came from the wood overthere they make skids and the
border was beetle and the larvaewas in the skids and brought
over here and that startedmultiplying and flying around.
Yeah, and you know.
So we have all theseconsequences.
You know that side hustleconsequences that are causing us
a lot of problems and we couldsolve that problem pretty easy.
(45:28):
You know, yeah, we used tomanufacture everything yeah,
well, manufacturing in thiscountry is uh.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
I saw it dying when I was starting in that business.
Well, you know getting offsubject.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
You know, being an automotive machinist and a
master mechanic, I complained tothe to Ontario government when
they stopped having theautomotive machinist program out
of Centennial College 30 someyears ago and we've seen the
entire automotive industry godownhill because you know,
metallurgy and machining are akey to a company and everything
(46:07):
around you I mean the farmer onthe field needs a tractor built.
There's engineering, metallurgy, making parts, machining,
building.
That all starts from that rootthing.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, just likebeekeeping, if you don't start
with a good foundation and goodproduct to start with and good
(46:27):
boxes and like, for example, I'mstarting to think that for next
season, all my bottom supersare going to be made out of
cedar.
I'm going to start making themmyself because now your queen
are going to be made out ofcedar.
I'm going to start making themmyself Because now your queen is
going to be living in a cedarbox.
I'll put the cedar shavings inthe bottom and she's going to be
healthier and less diseased.
(46:47):
The mites won't want to live inthere.
That would be very interestingto see the difference.
And there's some peoplestarting to do that in the
United States and some of theMennonites are starting to do
that in the United States andsome of the Mennonites are
starting to do that as well.
And I thought about it 15 yearsago.
I said, well, why don't we makethe boxes out of cedar?
And nobody's jumped on thatbandwagon.
Everybody's making them out ofpine.
(47:07):
But I got my sawmill and I gota few tools and I'm thinking you
know, I'm going to start Mightas well.
Give it a shot, I'm going togive it a shot.
What have I got to lose?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, absolutely Right, 100%.
Well, this has been veryinteresting, and the only thing
that we really haven't talkedbeehive and the health benefits
(47:41):
that some of them carry withthem.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, most people don't realize eating honey
actually heals your teeth.
Okay, sugars, you know fromother things, actually eat holes
in your teeth, but honey doesnot.
Honey actually helps your teeth.
Secondly, you have propolis,which is the strongest form of
antibacterial on earth, ofanything.
(48:05):
The bees make it and eating alittle bit of propolis on a
regular basis or making atincture from it, which I do
both of them.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
And that's just the glue that they use to stick the
boxes together and fill theholes.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah.
So the bees go to olive trees,poplar trees and tamarack,
spruce and basically sumac,because all of those trees have
resins in them, because all ofthose trees have resins in them.
So, for example, if you go tothe biblical text, the poplar
(48:41):
tree is called the balm of Giladand it's a sacred tree
according to the Bible.
So, and poplar trees, thelargest population of them in
the world in one group, isbasically in the Carolina
forests below the Great Lakesand then basically north of the
Great Lakes, all around northernOntario, and that we have a lot
(49:01):
of poplar trees.
And poplar trees grow from seedand root and basically they
feed a lot of things.
In native culture we eat theinner bark as survival food.
You can't die from it, itdoesn't taste good, but you will
live, you won't starve.
So poplar trees, the bees go toit and they take that resin.
It doesn't taste good but youwill live, you won't starve.
So poplar trees, the bees go toit and they take that resin.
(49:22):
And most people don't even knowwe have olive trees growing in
Canada all over the place,called Russian olives, and some
of them produce a little yellowolive.
That's kind of sweet and youcould eat and the bees will go
to that and collect the resinagain.
They'll also go to all thetypes of spruce trees and, like
I said, the sumac as well.
They collect the resin and theymix it with their body fluids
(49:43):
and it's called a bee spit.
It's like a gummy brown glue toblack.
The red stuff, if you can findit in a box, is the highest
quality.
That's kind of pink and redcolor.
It has very high medicinalproperties and so putting it in
good quality alcohol food gradealcohol I like to use good
(50:05):
quality vodka and you let itferment in there and then you
have a little one way dropperand having a little bit of that
on a piece of bread or justputting it in your mouth is
really good.
An example my youngest daughter.
When she was a little kid shehad a lot of cavities and my
wife used to take this liquidpropolis and put it in the
cavities.
They never got worse.
All of those teeth fell outnaturally and my youngest
(50:29):
daughter has movie star teethI'm not kidding, she has the
nicest teeth, they're pictureperfect, and so I learned a lot
of stuff about propolis andstuff like that from the hive.
Second thing is you get wax Waxcandles burning in your house
create vitamin D3, like the sun,right in the atmosphere.
(50:50):
So that's why a wax candle isso expensive.
But most people don't realizethe benefits, the health
benefits, of you burning a waxcandle in your house.
And then we have honey, we havepollen, you know all of those
things are superfoods to ourbody.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
Well, I'll tell you, you gave me a honeycomb, so the
whole the wax and the honey andeverything.
It was just like a capped comband you said, eat the wax you
got to eat the wax.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Well, most people don't realize that when bees
make wax they have to eat twopounds of honey to make one
pound of wax.
So just think about it.
How much nutrition is in thehoney.
That means there's got to bedouble the amount in the wax,
because they had to produce that.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Well, and I'd never really eaten beeswax before and
to take a teaspoon of honeycombwhich is the wax, the honey
itself and everything else in it, and to throw that in and eat
it.
The wax is almost like gum andI like it.
(52:06):
It gets a little bit at the endwhen you keep chewing it and
chewing it, and chewing it, itgoes a little sandy almost.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, but it also cleans and sucks all the grains
and all the junk off your teeth.
Yeah well, I don't doubt it.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
That's where my mind went.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
And then what the wax also does when it gets into
your intestinal tract.
It's like a sponge forabsorbing all of the bad things
that you don't want in yourintestinal tract.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Wow, that's good.
I've been eating beeswax.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
It's a great product.
I've been doing it for 35 years.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Nice, it's.
Uh, it's a, it's a.
I I've been doing it for 35years.
Nice, right on.
Wow, listen folks.
Uh, do you have anything elsethat?
Uh do you feel I missed when itcomes to uh, beekeeping and
bees?
Speaker 1 (52:50):
well, you know, don't think of it as a summertime job
, because when the fall comesyou got to clean up equipment,
put stuff away.
You're extracting honey, you'recutting cone, you're doing all
this stuff.
Then you've got to take andmake sure your bees got enough
food.
You know you got to make surethe bottom boxes are clean.
(53:12):
You got to wrap them.
You know if you're in a reallycold place you got to wrap them.
You know if you're in a reallycold place, make sure that you
have ventilation so that, see,bees don't really die from cold,
they die from water dampness.
So if your boxes are a flat boxand most of these beekeepers,
(53:32):
commercially-wise, like the flatroof box because they stack the
boxes and they ship them allover the place, which is not the
greatest thing for bees.
They don't like that, they liketo be stationary.
So if you're stationary youwant a roof that's kind of
angled.
You know I've designed a rooffor my own self that's more
almost a 45 degree like a houseroof, and I found that from
using that style that Ideveloped your bees don't have
(53:56):
to work very hard in thesummertime to keep it cool and
they don't work so hard in thewintertime to keep it warm
because it naturally deflectsboth ways.
And you know, have yourself anice organized little area where
you can extract your honey outand your stuff.
You'll have to buy some kind ofextractor if you want liquid
(54:18):
honey.
Other than that, you need somehand tools, scrapers, some trays
, jars, you know containers toput if you want to sell cut cone
or wax honey in in theseparator that I buy.
(54:39):
The solar power that you put outin a sunny day for leftover wax
with some honey in it.
It melts it out, the honey goesto the bottom, the wax comes on
top.
You can take the piece of waxout, pass a little hot water
over it, rinse it off and you'vegot clean wax.
And so there's lots of thingsto go on.
I mean I could talk aboutbeekeeping, so there's lots of
(55:07):
things to go on.
I mean I could talk aboutbeekeeping and I think I'm an
amateur.
I've only been doing it forabout 15 years.
I still don 416-709-3535.
Send me a text, I'll be glad tohelp you.
And if you look at my YouTubechannel, I'm putting up videos
and trying to teach people, toeducate them.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
It's a great hobby.
That is work.
I'm going to find that out, ohyes, he is.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
He's already finding that out.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Oh for he is, yeah, but he's already finding that
out.
Oh, for sure, for sure.
But you know what?
It's one of those things that Iat least for me, it's very
gratifying to be in nature, togo out.
It's therapeutic looking afterthese hives, looking after these
hives.
And if you've never pulled arack out of a beehive and looked
(55:59):
at it and I have a fellowshowed me I actually did a
course, a one-day course, withum apiary, uh and I and, and you
know what I'll, I'll figure,I'll figure out who, uh, the the
(56:20):
information for this guy.
But it's an apiary in callingwood and uh, to pull out a rack
and hold on to a rack that'sjust alive with movement and
bees and there's shit going on,and you're holding onto this
rack and you don't even the beesdon't even care that you're
(56:42):
holding this whole rack full ofhoney and wax and larvae and
everything else.
They're just doing their workand it is something amazing to
see.
Everybody is busy and there arehundreds of thousands of these
little dudes and they know whatthey're doing.
(57:03):
They work in harmony.
There's no issues.
Everybody does their own stuffand to be able to watch it, to
see it and to work in harmonywith it.
It just really does somethingfor your soul and it's a great
(57:26):
hobby, and you know from whatI'm learning.
You can make a lot of moneydoing it if you know how to.
You can make a lot of moneydoing it if you know how to, and
that's something that is one ofmy goals and endeavors, and
Gary too, I think.
So listen, thank you for comingon the show today.
(57:46):
It was my pleasure and mine too.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
We're going to have to do this more often,
Absolutely absolutely.
And folks out there, eventhough you know this is a
fishing thing and we're going totalk about a lot of different
subjects.
You know our environment's veryimportant, and so it's just
like if you don't take care ofthe bees, it's the same thing as
you don't take care of a lakeand put fish into it you don't
(58:12):
got fish to eat.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
You know it's all connected.
I'm glad that you mentionedthat because the environment is
so important and for me, being alodge owner, I always, like I
said before, I always wanted tohave a beehive.
I just, you know, when you're alodge owner, you're really,
really busy doing a lot of otherstuff, but I'll tell you, if I
(58:40):
could have been organized enoughand had a mentor or a base
knowledge of beekeeping, that issomething that I would have
totally integrated into thelodge and coming up in the next
up and coming weeks.
It's funny I had a conversationwith one of my good friends and
(59:04):
former guests, val Gayna, andthis was when I was up at the
cottage for opener this year,when I was up at the cottage for
opener this year, and ourconversation was based around
the sustainability of thelodging industry today and his
(59:24):
point of view is that ourdemographic is rapidly changing,
is rapidly changing, and that'sculturally, that's socially,
everything is changing.
And he was one of the guys thatwas constantly on me about not
(59:50):
having internet at the lodge.
And I'm not pretending to haveany of the answers, but we're
going to start asking thequestions about how sustainable
is the lodging industry todaythe way that it is, and maybe it
is, maybe it isn't, and maybewhat are some of the things that
(01:00:13):
can be incorporated into anorthern tourism operation that
could widen the interest, and Ibelieve that beekeeping and
honeybees could be part of that.
(01:00:33):
Like, I mean, I think that if Ihad the lodge and I had half a
dozen bee suits and half a dozenhives out in the back and
suggested to guests that, hey,have you ever seen a bee colony
at work, you know it would be anamazing experience for somebody
(01:00:55):
to see the inside of a hive andthat could be something that
that you incorporate into yourbusiness.
So, you know, as as far away asas beekeeping could be
construed construed as somethingthat has nothing to do with
lodges and fishing, but Ibelieve that it does and it
(01:01:21):
could be and it could have animpact and help you know lodge
owners out there who could bestruggling with a fishery that's
not doing well and looking foran experience.
I grew, I started in a fisherythat was not doing all that well
the French River in 2010,.
The walleye population wassuffering and I was forced to
(01:01:45):
figure it out and folks.
It wasn't about fishing, it wasabout experience and it was
about knowing people, and it wasabout knowing your guests and
what they were looking for andbeing able to listen and build
an experience that they neverforgot.
And a lot of it happened, andhappened not even on the water,
(01:02:13):
so I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Well, I will agree with you because you know, since
I became a beekeeper I've runinto people that their father
was a beekeeper and they want toget back into it and they
regret they didn't spend timelearning from their parent and
they're coming to me forsuggestions how to become a
beekeeper.
Or they get a hive and theydon't know how to take care of
(01:02:36):
it, and you know they or they'vegot a bunch of hives with
somebody else and they all diedon them and you know they're
wondering what are they going todo now with these empty boxes?
And so you know I got peoplewho approach me all the time
just for that reason, and Iagree with you.
You know I owned a fishhatchery in Parry Sound area and
(01:02:59):
I was raising on my propertyall the pickerel for the Great
Lakes and it was a native guy inthe reserve, in the Schwanager
Reserve, that got with a privateowner on the property I own and
I can.
My property is still licensedto raise fish but I just don't
have the capital to do itanymore.
But I want to get back into itand see, the thing is, you know
(01:03:20):
people don't understand theimportance of stocking programs
and actually doing stuff toeducate not only the locals but
the people in the industry, andit helps everybody have a great
experience.
You know, I have a pond on myproperty which is filled with
(01:03:41):
smallmouth bass and I've reallymanaged it and took care of it.
You know, not many people cansay that I've had a guy come and
catch 55 fish in an hour andrelease.
You know, I mean it's anunbelievable experience.
He couldn't believe it without,no, just the rusty hook
throwing in the water.
They were biting that good.
So you know.
But it's management of thingsand I look at it the same way
(01:04:03):
that we don't manage the beepopulation, we don't manage our
waters, we don't manage ourforests, we don't manage stuff.
You know it's going to be a sadworld for our grandchildren and
even our children.
Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Yeah, and I think we're doing.
I think that we as a populationare doing a pretty good job at
the grassroots level to do thatand I enjoy being part of that.
And on that note, folks, thankyou so much for listening to
(01:04:41):
this point.
I really appreciate everythingyou guys do out there.
And thanks to producer AnthonyMancini you are the man.
Love you, brother.
You work really hard every weekto make it possible for
everybody to be listening to us.
And folks head on over toFishinCanadacom where you can
(01:05:04):
get in on those giveaways.
I tell you every episode Get onover there, um, you get on over
there.
I love hearing about people thatlisten to the diaries of a
lodge owner podcast winning thethings over at fish and
canadacom.
Thank you to our, oursupporters, um, um, it's, it's
(01:05:25):
wonderful to have that support.
You're the reason that we'rehere, um, you know lakeside
marine, uh, and, and all of youfolks out there, I really really
appreciate it.
Thank you again, gary, andwe'll do this again sometime
soon.
And thus brings us to theconclusion of another episode of
(01:05:48):
Diaries of a Lodge OwnerStories of the North.
I'm a good old boy, nevermeaning no harm.
I'll be all you ever saw, beenreeling in the hog since the day
I was born.
Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
Bending my rock, stretching my line.
Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine.
I'll be making my way.
Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
The only way I know how.
Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Working hard and sharing the North with all of my
pals.
Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
I bought a lodge and live my dream.
Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
And now I'm here talking about how life can be as
good as it seems.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons
of our natural world becomeharder and harder to hear, but
they are still available tothose who know where to listen.
I'm Gerry Ouellette and I washonoured to serve as Ontario's
Minister of Natural Resources.
However, my journey into thewoods didn't come from politics.
(01:07:12):
Rather, it came from my time inthe bush and a mushroom.
In 2015, I was introduced tothe birch-hungry fungus known as
chaga, a tree conch withcenturies of medicinal use by
Indigenous peoples all over theglobe.
After nearly a decade of harvestuse, testimonials and research,
(01:07:34):
my skepticism has faded toobsession and I now spend my
life dedicated to improving thelives of others through natural
means.
But that's not what the show'sabout.
My pursuit of the strangemushroom and my passion for the
outdoors has brought me to theplaces and around the people
that are shaped by our naturalworld.
On Outdoor Journal Radio's,under the Canopy podcast, I'm
(01:07:59):
going to take you along with meto see the places, meet the
people.
That will help you find youroutdoor passion and help you
live a life close to nature.
And under the canopy Find Underthe Canopy now on Spotify,
apple Podcasts or wherever elseyou get your podcasts.
Speaker 5 (01:08:19):
Back in 2016,.
Frank and I had a vision toamass the single largest
database of muskie anglingeducation material anywhere in
the world.
Speaker 6 (01:08:28):
Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this
amazing community and share itwith passionate anglers just
like you.
Speaker 5 (01:08:39):
Thus the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly
grew to become one of the topfishing podcasts in North
America.
Speaker 6 (01:08:42):
Step into the world of angling adventures and
embrace the thrill of the catchwith the Ugly Pike Podcast.
Join us on our quest tounderstand what makes us
different as anglers and touncover what it takes to go
after the infamous fish of10,000 casts.
Speaker 5 (01:08:55):
The Ugly Pike podcast isn't just about fishing.
It's about creating atight-knit community of
passionate anglers who share thesame love for the sport Through
laughter, through camaraderieand an unwavering spirit of
adventure.
This podcast will bring peopletogether.
Speaker 6 (01:09:10):
Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our
angling adventures.
Tight lines everyone.
Speaker 5 (01:09:19):
Find, subscribe now and never miss a moment of our
angling adventures.
Tight lines everyone Find UglyPike now on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or wherever else youget your podcasts.
wax candles burning in your house create vitamin d3,
like the sun, right in theatmosphere.
So that's why a wax candle isso expensive.
But most people don't realizethe the benefits, the health
benefits, of you burning a waxcandle in your house.
And then we have honey, we havepollen, you know all of those
(00:30):
things are superfoods to ourbody.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast
Networks, diaries of a LodgeOwner Stories of the North.
I'm really excited to talk withthis gentleman, and no stranger
to the show, about somethingthat has interested me for years
, to the point I wanted toincorporate this idea into my
(00:57):
lodge business.
It's sweet, totally cool andlasts forever.
And now it is our pleasure tohave back on the show Gary Tebow
to talk honey.
On this show, gary and I talkeverything you need to know to
(01:17):
produce your own honey and carefor a hive as well.
We tell some stories and havesome laughs.
So, folks, if you've ever beeninterested in how to produce
honey and the mystery of bees,then zip those bee suits up
tight, because this one's foryou.
(01:37):
Here's my conversation withGary Thibault with Gary Thibault
.
Gary, welcome back to Diariesof a Lodge Owner Stories of the
North.
It's a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I'm happy to be back.
I mean, we're going to get intoit, right now?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yes, absolutely, and I'm really excited about this
one, and, folks, I alluded tothis on the last episode of
Diaries and we are going to talkabout bees Absolutely, love to
help you.
We're going to talk abouthealth and we're going to talk
(02:15):
about a lot of different thingsthat we've been working on in
the last couple of well monthsreally.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah Well, the last time I came here I helped you
downstairs and there's a YouTubeshort on my platform showing
what we're doing cleaning up thehives, the boxes.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So let's start from thebeginning.
What kind of bees make honey?
Or should I say do all beesmake honey?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well, basically, honeybees make honey, or should
I say do all bees make honey?
Well, basically, honeybees makehoney.
And then if you look at thewild killer bees, like from
Africa or South America, theymake honey too and they store it
like honeybees.
But the deal with them is kindof very nasty.
They call killer bees for areason, because they will kill
you.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
No way.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh yeah, and they're much larger.
They're like super large,they're like an inch long.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, yeah, they're really serious bees.
I don't need to be working withkiller bees, that's for sure,
but honeybees basically havebeen bred through generations.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Basically a lot of the honeybees came out of Italy
and France and you know beforethat they basically came out of
the Middle East, around theMiddle East.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Are there any native honeybees to Canada?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Basically to North America and South America.
The honeybees were really notnative.
Bumblebees and killer bees fromSouth America were native to
here, but mostly we hadbumblebees and we had all kinds
of other little pollination beesthat are native to here, but we
didn't really have honeybeesHoneybees the honeybees that we
know, that we know and lovetoday.
(04:04):
Yes, and most of them have beenbred in North America.
Either are coming from Italy orCalifornia Gotcha, and I found
that from my own experiencebeing a beekeeper for a little
while and I do not knoweverything, I'm continuously
learning all the time.
When you find somebody that'sraising the queens and the nukes
(04:27):
locally and that's been doingit for a while, breeding their
own strains seem to work betterup here in Canada and even in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, so listen, why don't we start from the
beginning?
And for all those people outthere listening and everybody in
the Diaries family who may beinterested in taking on a hobby
like this, where would somebodystart?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Well, first of all, you might want to join a group
of local beekeepers there'salways some around or find
someone who's going to be amentor of yours, like that's an
actual beekeeper and hasactually been doing it for a
while and, you know, is going toteach you and help you to do it
(05:21):
, because you know you canGoogle YouTube videos and look
at other people doing stuff.
But you need somebody to kindof guide you, because it's
getting harder and harder tokeep bees and the weather is not
always cooperating with you andthere's all kinds of diseases
that have been introduced intoNorth America with bees that
(05:45):
never used to be here.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, Varroa is one of them.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
You're right.
And then there's other kinds ofdiseases too that you really
got to kind of be fussy cleaningyour equipment, and you know.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So we'll cover that coming up here shortly.
But for the structure of whatyou need, like actually, gary
today brought over to my house aI'm going to call it a bee trap
, because we're looking forlocal bees and hopefully they're
going to populate this bee trap, which really it's probably not
(06:22):
the right terminology.
But let's talk about what youdid with that and how it would
be the same for when you'rebuilding up your hive.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, you know, second and third year hives that
may be from other beekeepers.
Once the bees have beenestablished in a place, what
happens is when the queen, theolder queen, starts to get a
little tired or whatever she'sexperienced, she will lay a
(06:54):
bunch of eggs in a box and shewill allow new queens to come
out, and then she'll take 50% ofthe bees and fly around with
her scout bees and find a newhome.
And that's how the beepopulation will expand,
naturally.
And so what?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
happens, so the queen actually leaves the hive.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
She will leave the hive and her family will follow
her and they'll take a goodportion of the honey out of the,
store it in the bees' bodiesand they'll go in and start
building new wax and foundationand build a hive.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So does she leave the new queen behind.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, she lays eggs and the
strongest queen coming out ofthe capsule will kill all the
other ones.
Yep, and now?
So there's a queen brawl.
Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
That's kind of crazy.
And the witches fight to death.
Yeah, they don't take prisoners.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
No way.
So then the queen?
Oh sorry about the cheaping inthe background folks, we still
got the incubators in the backdoing their magic thing and
we're hatching out a bunch ofchicks.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, and if you want to buy some chicks, you should
get in touch with this man.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, you certainly can.
They're wonderful little chicks, great breeds, giant Brahmas
and ISA Red Cross and Langshans.
So I know all of you folks haveheard me talking about them
before.
But yes, you can get in touchwith me and if you're interested
in starting a beautiful flockfor meat or eggs, just let me
(08:23):
know.
And you know how to get a holdof me at steven, at
fishincandidacom, no problem.
But where was my train ofthought?
Oh yes, the queens.
So the older queen lays thequeen eggs and she leaves before
they hatch, so she's notinvolved in the queen brawl at
(08:43):
her old house.
They hatch, so she's notinvolved in the queen brawl at
her old house.
She'll take a faction of herown family which are scouts and
then they'll head out and lookfor a new home.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
They'll look for a new home and when they find a
new home they kind of advise herthey found a good place to live
and basically then there'll bea percentage of the worker bees
that are going to stay in theold hive and rebuild it with a
new queen and basically she willgo with an experienced part of
(09:13):
the hive and rebuild anotherplace.
And this will keep gettingrepeated.
If you were just to leave yourhives wild, they would just keep
doing that and spreading.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, very interesting, that's cool.
So when you're starting out andyou want to build a hive or buy
a hive, what are the partsinside that hive and how do they
kind of work?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, what I tell people.
If you want to become abeekeeper, you got to realize
that per hive it's going to costyou approximately a thousand
dollars.
So you know people will say,well, that's overpriced this and
that, but it's not really true.
It is approximately a thousanddollars because by the time you
buy a proper good bee suit, asmoker, all the tools and you'll
(10:01):
need other tools that you don'tcount on, depending on how
involved you want to get, and soyou've got to buy your boxes
and you've got to buy the waxframes if you want to do.
You know, if you want to dolike commercial style, where
you're using plastic in there,which I don't like to use at all
, you end up, you know, havingto scrape more and do more work.
(10:24):
But basically you needfoundation, you need frames, you
need boxes, you need a roof andyou need a bottom floor and per
box just that's, without buyingany bees you're usually around
$400 or $500 easily.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And then in.
So they call.
Just so you folks know, theboxes we're talking about are
the ones that you see when yousee like beehives, right,
everybody's seen them on theside of the road or in a
farmer's field and they're justa square box and they're about
you can buy a half.
Well, they call them supers,right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, so the half boxes are supers and then you
have the deep supers.
So the deep ones are basicallywhere you're going to have your
colony live in and then you canhave a double of those so
they'll have enough foodthroughout the winter.
And then you'd put your superson top of that.
And some people just use deepsupers all the way, and you know
(11:18):
then they're using a spinner tospin out the frames and cut off
the wax, and you know it getsmore and more involved all the
time.
And I recommend that ifsomebody's going to get involved
with it, they needapproximately three hives.
You could start with one, butif something goes wrong or
sideways basically you got anexpense and you don't have any
(11:39):
bees, yeah, and then You're notgoing to start out with your own
bees.
You're going to have to buythem, and the average cost is
around $250 and up, depending onhow many frames your nuc is
going to be.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And that's a nuc and I think that that's derived by
the word nucleus.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Because basically, inside your box you have these
frames that we're calling them,and they're just wooden frames
that hang inside the box orinside the super and that are
deep super, and all a deep superis is a box.
That's about 12 inches, wouldthey be?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, it's about 12 inches high and they're
approximately about 2 feetsquare.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, it's about 12 inches high and approximately
about two inches or two feetsquare.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, somewhere around there, somewhere in that
neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And then a super is just half as high but the same
size, so you can stack them allRight.
So inside a deep super, whichis what you start with, you've
got these frames that hangvertically from top to bottom,
and there's a beeswax filminside that frame, or the
(12:54):
industrial plastic and this iswhat, and you stack them all
side by side, by side by side,so they're fairly tight, but
there's enough space in therethat the bees can travel up and
down and around and everythingelse and then on these vertical
frames they build the wax.
(13:15):
Everybody's seen the waxhoneycomb and they build that
honeycomb and some of thosehoneycombs are for the queen to
lay eggs in and to make I think.
Correct me if I'm wrong, we'llsee if I've been learning, but
we've got the only male bees inthe hive are drones, absolutely,
(13:35):
and their job basically is tomate with the queen?
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Nothing else.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
And then you've got worker bees, and they're all
female, all female.
And some of those worker beesare workers that actually go out
and fly and gather pollen andeverything else, but some of
them, their sole job in life isto feed and look after the queen
.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, every bee starts out that way.
Their first job, when they'retinier, is to feed the queen and
create royal jelly to feed thequeen, because she only eats
royal jelly.
That's why the queen will livean average of seven years.
Yeah, all of the worker beesthat feed her and take care of
her approximately from spring tomid-September, say.
From March to September.
(14:22):
These bees only liveapproximately 90 days, yeah, and
then she's continuously layingan average of 2,000 eggs, plus a
day.
The queen.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
And that 2,000,.
So inside your nuc and insidethese frames, they've decided
that the center part of the boxand a box will hold what?
Nine frames, ten frames, tenframes, ten frames.
Ten frames, ten frames.
So in the center of this boxthey make the wax honeycomb and
(14:56):
inside that honeycomb she laysone egg in every one of these
and she just drives around ontop of the honeycomb laying eggs
in every one.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yes, but she doesn't really start laying eggs till.
Flowers come out and there'spollen being produced.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Well, that's when she wants to build the workforce.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
That's right To make honey.
So as soon as pollen, as soonas the worker bees start
bringing in some pollen just notnectar then she really gets the
busy, because the bees live.
That's their superfood.
It's a superfood for us as well, is the pollen and also all the
(15:34):
worker bees.
They have glands underneaththeir wings so that when they
consume honey and pollen theyproduce the wax that comes out
of their glands and then theytake that wax and they build a
frame to store the honey insideof.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
That's right.
So the same wax honeycombthat's growing the worker bees,
depending on where the rack islocated inside the hive, the
frame out and they fill it upwith honey they leave it exposed
(16:11):
to air for 30 days so that thehoney actually ferments inside
those little capsules.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And once it's fermented after 30 days, then
they put a layer of wax over topand seal it and because it's a
fermented food, it's alive allthe time.
It never dies and it will neverspoil, never, never.
It has an eternity of life.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
I've heard that it's the only food that never, ever
spoils.
They used to bury pharaohs withwell.
They would coat their bodies inhoney because they believed
that it would help preservetheir body into the next life.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But um uh, if you had a vial of honey that was 5 000
years old well, they've foundhoney in egyptian tombs, that's
right that were 5 000 years oldand completely edible everything
yeah, yeah, which isunbelievable to me to think
about, but that's very that's.
Well, what happens is if youstore honeycomb in a container
(17:12):
after a period of time, even thewax will crystallize and taste
like sugar.
Really, it'll completely gosolid.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, yeah, very cool .
So you've you've got this, the,the nuke, and you install that
nuke inside your, your deepsuper, which is your first um,
your first box in the stack, andthen, when you start out, do
you just simply start with onebox?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
well, if you wanted to start with one box of bees
like that, you could but, like Isaid, work the racks out, make
sure they fill those racks.
Well, no, what would happen iswhen you'd get your bees in the
center.
So you got 10 frames in there.
Yeah, so most people get afour-frame nuc.
Okay, I prefer to buy ones thathave five.
(18:01):
Pay a little bit more moneybecause you have more bees to
start out with, makes yourcolony work faster.
So you take and leave threeframes on each side.
Yeah, and you'd maybe take alittle bit of honey, if you had
some, and paint it on the framesso that you got a little bit of
a food supply in the beginning.
And when you take your bees outof the box, you would actually
(18:22):
stick them right inside and thenOut of the nuke box, out of the
nuke box of the nuke box, andyou'd set them up.
And then you'd put a separatorframe in and you'd put a frame
with a regular super on top sothat as they started filling up
all the bottom where they gottheir food supply, then they're
going to start filling uphoneycomb for you on the top,
(18:43):
which you could extract somehoney from.
But most people will put asecond deep box on top.
Yeah, but if you put it toofast, they only finish the
center.
They don't really fill out thebottom box.
So you want them to fill outthe bottom box first, and then
you would put an empty box ontop.
Yeah, and then you let thembuild that, and then you'd start
(19:05):
putting on stuff for yourself.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yeah, yeah, because they naturally want to build up
like in a tree or yeah, well,they, they actually.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
they don't want empty space.
Yeah, so they want to fill thebox full.
Yeah, so and and so, once theyfill their bottom box full, then
you'd give them an extra space.
You always got to keep thembusy and working.
Yeah, if you don't keep, if youdon't keep them busy and
working, what happens is thequeen says we're running out of
room, we have to find a new home.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, we have to find a bigger house.
Right, and she will Believe me.
Yeah, yeah, now I know somepeople in that bottom box will
manipulate the order of theframes.
So not so much the nuke, notnot in the in the center, but on
those two or three outsideframes.
(19:54):
If they've got one frame full,that's closest to the, because,
from what I understand, beesreally like having their their
shit in order, like they don'tlike having racks mixed up once
they've built the nucleus of thehive.
But I know some people willtake a full frame that's next to
(20:19):
the nuke and then one of theframes that's on the outside
wall, because they never starton the outside wall and work
their way in.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
They always start from the center and move back.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
They'll take an empty frame on the outside, move a
frame and put an empty framecloser to the nuke so that
they'll fill them up and then,once they kind of start getting
close to being full that way,then they'll build up.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yes, but I never.
Once I put my nuke in thebottom box, I just leave them.
I don't move the frames aroundenough.
I let them do their own thing.
Yeah, they know what they needto do.
Yeah, some guys try to do allthat stuff and manipulating them
.
I don't like to do that and Ilike to keep my bottom slide
drawer clean.
(21:06):
I like to keep my bottom slidedrawer clean so I like to take
it out and scrape off any fluffor dead stuff and burn the
bottom box, kill any bacteria.
And I also like to takepersonally cedar, the ends of
the branches and I dry it and Igrind it up like powder and I
throw some cedar in there on asheet of newspaper and the
(21:30):
newspaper ink prevents the waxmoth from going into your hives
and the cedar.
You know you have a cedarcloset.
I mean you don't have any typeof things eating your clothes.
99% of insects will not livearound cedar.
So when you put some cedarshavings or the ends of the
green inside dry, the bees don'tmind it.
(21:51):
They like the smell.
You have the essential oils inthere that keep your hive extra
clean and I've noticed fromexperience, you know my bees
live healthier and produce more.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Yeah, well, that's a great tip, a natural way of
dealing with the disease,because that is a big, big issue
, and we'll just finish out themechanics of the hive so that
people understand what theinside of a hive looks like, and
(22:26):
I think we've done a prettygood job.
So you've got your bottom platewith your tray and that tray
you can pull it out and that'swhere the bees kind of go in,
where the door is.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, it'll be screened.
So they go in on top of thescreen and all the junk and dirt
falls on that tray, so you canclean it every once in a while.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yep, and you can also look for parasites on top of
that tray because you knowthey'll do a test for varroa
mites and you can actually countthese mites that die, because
they're very, very difficult toactually see Because they hide
underneath on the beesthemselves.
(23:04):
Right themselves Right, and themite was a very difficult
diagnosis, I guess, to try andfigure out why hives were dying.
But they finally found out thatthis Varroa mite is like a
vampire and bees don't haveblood per se, but the plasma
that they have in their bodies.
(23:25):
The varroa mite feeds on thatand it weakens the bees.
So you know they were seeing.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, I've also found from experience that I take
essential oils like peppermintor, you know, oregano or
lemongrass or you know differentessential oils, and what I've
done is I put them in, drop themin water with a spray bottle
and every once in a while, whenI open the box, I spray inside
(23:56):
the top of the box, on top ofthe frames, and I've actually
watched.
You'll see your bees going onthat and that smell in that
water and actually kind ofrolling themselves because they
know it gets rid of the mites.
So I I do little things likethat every once in a while.
It helps strengthen your hive.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, very, very interesting stuff, because I
know that, um, um, they tell younow, if you're going to be a
beekeeper, you will have a rowof mites.
I'm not disagreeing with that.
You have to.
You have to treat for them, andthere's different ways of
treating for them.
There's these little bombs thatyou can put in every three
(24:36):
months.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
That it's like a fumigation deal, which I don't
feel very good about thatbecause, well, I I found from
talking to a lot of people thatwhen you're treating for the
varroa mites and people putstuff in they usually kill off
that.
That that stuff, that toxicmaterial, kills off sometimes as
(24:58):
much as 50 of your bees.
Yeah, it's pretty hard on thebee colony see I, I don't know
anything like that, I don't havethe experience well, that's
what I've seen from other peopledealing with them, but they say
you've got to do it, you've gotto do it Now.
I have never done it and I'velost a fair percentage of hives,
probably because of it.
I'm not sure, but I also it'sgot to do with.
(25:20):
I think the biggest problemwith bees dying today is the
fact we have geoengineering andpeople are spraying these
chemicals in the air, causing itto rain when we don't need the
rain.
It's just getting out of handand you know I don't understand
why not enough people are eitherwriting a letter to their
(25:41):
politicians or getting on thebandwagon and saying look, you
know, you can say it's jet fuelfumes, like it's rain falling or
this and that, which is allcrap, because there's scientists
around the world have beencomplaining about it for 25
years.
And why do we have to spraystrontium-90, which is leftover
(26:05):
nuclear waste, nanoparticlebarium, which is a deadly poison
, and nanoparticle aluminum?
They're saying it's globalwarming deflecting the heat from
the Earth.
You know it's something.
I think that's a load of crap.
And we're going on to asituation where people are
saying well, you know, it's apopulation, we're creating too
(26:27):
much carbon in the atmosphere.
Nobody is even talking about.
When a volcano erupts anywhereon the earth, how much carbon
does it put into the air?
And if you think carbon is notimportant, your body is made
from it.
Every plant on earth grows fromit.
And if you look at a forestfire in the bush, after it's
(26:47):
burned like the charcoal, itturns green within a matter of
days.
Why?
It's because of the quality ofthe carbon.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I firmly believe that carbon is not our issue at all.
No, it's not.
I mean, our planet is 20%greener today than it was 30
years ago, when they were sayingthat we were going to turn into
a desert, and it's thosesemi-arid areas that are
greening up, but that's foranother story.
(27:20):
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Speaker 2 (28:07):
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Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's favorite
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That's right Every Thursday,ang and I will be right here in
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Now, what are we going to talkabout for two hours every week?
Well, you know, there's goingto be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and
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Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
We're going to be talking topeople from all facets of the
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Speaker 5 (28:47):
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Speaker 6 (28:52):
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Speaker 2 (28:59):
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Speaker 1 (29:14):
Well, anybody who knows me or heard about me, gary
Thiebaud, you'll know that 15years ago I was filmed at my
farm and at my house inEtobicoke.
I was filmed by MarcusRoskrantz.
He made the DVD series FreeLiving 101, where I was talking
about plants and livingbasically very naturally off the
(29:36):
land, and I explained back thenthat most people today, because
of lack of knowledge andeducation, would be sitting on
their front lawn starving todeath because they didn't know
what was around them to eatright out of their own front
lawn.
So everybody wants manicuredgrass, but if you look at any
environmental situation outsideand in a field, it's not
manicured grass.
(29:57):
There's all kinds of plantsthat will grow to hold the water
and balance, and most of theseplants that grow to hold water
and sustainability are food.
And you know people's brainshave been demonized by
globalists who want to controlyou and they control you through
(30:17):
the banking system, your foodsupply, medication and it's all
BS.
You know we're talkingoriginally about bees, but if
the majority of people don'twake up to the situation and
start doing stuff for yourself,even in small increments, you'd
be surprised what you canaccomplish.
(30:38):
I mean, I advertised on theInternet for years that when my
two daughters were at my houseand you know they ate, believe
me, the best, and you know theyate, believe me, the best Our
food supply was costing us atthe grocery store.
What we had to buy otheroutside of what we were
producing was only $30 a week.
That's all we were spending fora family of four.
(30:59):
And now my wife and I, I don'tthink we can spend $15 between
the two of us a week.
It's because we're veryself-sufficient.
And you know you don't need alot of ground.
And see, I look at whatbuilders are doing around the
world.
They're making these houses themassive thing on a lot and
(31:22):
there's no place to even grow avegetable.
It's ridiculous, because ifyou're putting yourself in that
kind of position and somethinghappens to your economy, you're
in charge of it.
You lose your job, you can'tmake your payments.
Well, what are you going to eat?
The bricks.
You know the mortar tastes good, I guess with spaghetti sauce,
(31:44):
I don't know.
But you know, it's just commonsense.
You know an army on the earthcannot outrun its food supply.
If the man's stomach is empty,he can't fight, right?
Yeah, the only reason NorthAmerican military in the Second
World War beat the Europeanarmies under.
Hitler was a man from thatlived to finally his days in
(32:09):
Nova Scotia.
He was big on wolves andeverything.
He told the Canadian governmentgo up to the Northwest
Territories and harvest thereindeer, you know, harvest the
deer and they killed 60% ofthose deer and that's what fed
the Canadian and United Statesmilitary so they could fight
because they had meat.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
That's actual fact, you can look it up.
His name was Farley Mowat.
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
He wrote Call of the wild Right he was.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
uh, he was a scientist that knew a lot about
wolves and he worked for thefederal government and he did
all these research on wolves upin the North and stuff like that
.
And he said, look, you know, wegot all kinds of reindeer on
the, on the things, uh, let's,let's, uh call the most of the
herd and, uh, they'll rebuild.
They never really have rebuiltto their size they used to be,
(33:00):
but some places pretty close,wow, I guess winning the war was
a pretty important Rightotherwise today you'd all be
speaking German.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's well, that's quite a
tangent, but a good one, but agood one.
People need information, yes.
So let's go back to the bees,and we now understand how to
build a bee box, what a bee boxlooks like.
Now to go in and open up a hiveof bees and folks these
(33:36):
beehives.
They'll start with about 15,000, 20,000 bees in the spring and
they'll balloon to over 50,000to maybe 60,000.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Easily.
So the average nuc when you getthem, even with a five-frame
nuc, would probably be about5,000 to 6,000 bees when you get
them and then they willincrease to about fifty thousand
depending on how much room theyhave, like that you give them
and how much their food supplyis.
And you know, if you look atmost bee yards, uh, some of
(34:09):
these bee yards will have, youknow, two, three hundred, uh,
bee for colonies and nobody willknow these people have these
big yards like that.
Don't worry about how much foodsupply is.
It seems like all the hives dowell, because your bees will fly
from your box easily two milesin a radius to harvest whatever
they need to fill up that boxand like, for example, with my
(34:33):
bees from last year that I havethat survived and lived through
the winter and we've had warmdays where they're out.
I couldn't believe how much theywere on my red and black
currents.
They were just like in thecurrents, like you'd never think
about that.
They would really be oncurrents that involved.
(34:54):
And the other thing I noticedtoo certain crops that you could
plant chives, garlic, onions.
Everybody will think that youknow bees don't go to that, but
for some reason when, if you letsome of your crop flower,
honeybees will be in them likeit is no tomorrow, they will
stop doing everything else to goto that, because so they know
(35:15):
there's certain things in therethat's very essential for their
health, which is passing it onto you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
So how do you open up a box and not get stung you?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
need a bee suit and a smoker.
And even then you know,sometimes you get a hive that's
very aggressive and you knowyour screen face covering.
You know the bees come and theytry to sting you right where
your pineal gland is.
That's the first place they goaround your eyes.
They'll come and they'll bangon that thing in front of you
(35:46):
and you'll spray a little bit ofsmoke on your face so they'll
stay away from it.
But mostly if you, if you workwith your bees kind of easy
going and relaxed, not in ahurry and banging the boxes too
much, you take your time and youuse your smoker, when you put
some smoke the bees will go downto the bottom and you can kind
of work.
What does the smoke do?
(36:08):
It kind of just calms them down.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
So it probably they don't like fire.
I've heard that the smoke alsothere's.
People talk about a hive mindand the queen puts out a
pheromone when they get realexcited and that the smoke makes
that smell go away to calm themdown.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I would agree with that to an extent.
But you know, everything innature doesn't really want to be
, uh, doesn't want to be, aroundfire a fire.
You know nature knows fire isdangerous.
So but the smoke, uh, you knowthey they just it calms them
down.
They'll go to the bottom of thebox more or less.
And, and you know, I found,when I'm making I love to use
(36:57):
birch bark and dead grass andyou can buy stuff that'll keep
smoke in there.
Also, when you take your oldboxes apart, some of the old
dark colored wax, like thatfibrous material, is good to
keep around because once itburns it burns kind of slow and
it creates a smoke that the beesseem to like but they're calm
(37:20):
around it.
But I found grass and birchbark white birch bark seems to.
For me I like it the best,gotcha.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
And does the weather make any difference on the
temperament of the hive?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Well, the best time for me to go into a hive is on a
hot, sunny day in the afternoon, because most of your bees are
out foraging.
Yep, they're out working.
Yeah, that makes sense, andthen you're not going to have so
much trouble.
But if you know, going in firstthing in the morning or at the
end of the day, you're askingfor trouble.
You know, no, no, no.
(37:54):
And you know, if you've got abig hive that's kind of
aggressive and you start to takehoney out, you've got to have a
plan that you're going to putthat those frames with honey
into a box and cover it rightaway.
And you know, like I like to putit in my tractor bucket on a
(38:15):
platform and I leave the tractorrunning.
The sound of the tractorrunning kind of leaves that they
, they don't like that so much,so they kind of stay away.
But even then your bees havesuch an incredible nose.
You know, I also have a littlebox that I used to put a trailer
on the back of my ATV and Iactually think that's the best
(38:39):
one because I would cover it upand then I would go for a drive
around the property before Iwent to the shop where I was
going to go Because the beeswill believe me, they will hunt
you.
Oh, they know they can smellthat there's honey over there
and it came from my box and theywant it back.
Work hard for that honey, yeah,yeah and, and they want it back
.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Work hard for that, honey.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, yeah, and they're going to work hard at
stinging you and taking it backtoo.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So now that we've talked about harvesting it a
little bit, you mentioned afilter of sorts that you would
separate out your oh, no, I'mtalking about not a filter.
Well, you can buy filters toscreen your liquid honey.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
No, no, I'm not talking about that.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I'm talking about within the box to keep the queen
down.
Oh yeah, you have a separatingscreen.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
A separating screen.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, yeah, you put a separator in between your boxes
.
That's right, Because otherwise, if you didn't put a separator
in between certain boxes, thequeen will lay eggs everywhere
inside your honey.
Yeah Right, which is?
You know, you don't want to beeating larvae and you know.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So basically, you want you'vegot a queen separator.
So once you get a really nicehive going, which typically
could be two deep supers, right,right, then on top of two deep
supers You'd put a queenseparator.
You'd put a queen separator.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
So I actually cheat a little bit and underneath the
main box I put a queen separator, then I put a deep super and
then I put another queenseparator and so in case my hive
doesn't work out and they dieoff or something, I've got that
super above with a lot ofhoneycomb and if they worked
hard and they filled me up andsomething happens to the hive,
(40:26):
it flies away or whatever.
I've got a deep super and asuper filled with honeycomb that
I'm at least going torecuperate most of my costs, so
that you know, I spend 300 bucksfor a nuke.
I've got my money already madein advance if it works out, and
so that's what I do.
(40:47):
Otherwise, you know, I don'thave a tree in my backyard
printing money.
I just don't.
I wish I did, I don't.
Yeah, no doubt, and it's gettingharder and harder.
So you financially got to thinkof, you know, the maintenance
and everything else.
And so, like you know, I runinto different beekeepers.
Sometimes you talk to them inthe springtime, like last year
(41:08):
in the spring.
I talked to a guy that is uphere with, you know, a thousand
hives and he lost 500, 500 hivesdied.
So that means he lost half amillion dollars.
Yeah, that's a lot of money,you know like.
I mean, I don't know how hestayed in business.
Yeah, you know so we talked to.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
We touched on disease a little bit varroa mites and
that.
What are there?
What else are we fightingagainst?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Well, there's a?
And what are the solutions?
There's a hornet now that'skind of coming up to North
America.
In southern states they've hadquite a bit of problems with it,
but I think I've actually had ahive get attacked with it.
But cold winters will kill thishornet off and like last winter
that just went by it was apretty cold winter, so that was
good.
(41:54):
I haven't seen that but it's abig black hornet and if it gets
into your hive, the bees heredon't know how to deal with it.
But in Africa, what to do?
The bees swarm this hornet andthey keep flying around it so
much that basically they takethe oxygen away from the hornet
and it dies Really.
(42:15):
Yeah, you can actually watchthis on the internet they talk
about, but in North America thebees have never had to deal with
this hornet, so they don't havea mechanism.
So there's guys all overthrough the States now that are
going out at night with suits onand they're looking in trees
where this hornet bores a holein and they're getting it out
and killing it, and they'regoing around because it's
(42:37):
basically you know, a family ofthese hornets could devastate
hundreds of hives in a night.
Wow, like I mean it's justunbelievable, huh.
So you know there's more andmore problems coming along and
it's just like you know.
You know I'm going to go off alittle a little subject here.
You know like people like toimport cheap goods from China
(42:59):
and different countries andstuff like that around the world
, which I I basically I'mtotally against it.
I think you know we should bebuilding our own economy and
produce our own products in ourown country, service our own
people and if we have extra,okay, we can sell it somewhere
else.
But what's happening is, forexample, we had that ash borer
beetle that's killed basicallyall of the elm trees, ash trees.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Elm trees too.
Well, the Dutch elm disease dida good number on that.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Well, that boring beetle also attacks these elm
trees as well.
I didn't know it was attackingelm trees too, and so you got so
many of these trees.
For example, we have floweringash trees, so you got so many of
these trees.
For example, we have floweringash trees and that's one of a
major source of honeybees in thespringtime, especially up here
in Canada, like mountain ashyeah, the mountain ash and the
(43:46):
flowering ash trees and thoseflowering ash trees if you look
right now all around MulmerTownship, you'll see these trees
.
They're all like kind of whitecolor and they're full of
flowers, and so you havehoneybees that are actually
feeding on this, bringing a lotof nectar and pollen in, and so
this you know.
(44:06):
I look at my farm.
I've had about 15 trees and Isome that seem to have been
immune to it.
They're not dead, but all thesedead trees are dying because
this beetle goes in and kills it.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, all of the ash trees, like that emerald ash
borer, it's like standing dead,like I mean, it's been an
epidemic.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
And you know that's a terrible thing.
You know people are looking atthe bottom line.
You want cheap underwear andyou know, cheap this, cheap that
.
But you know there's aconsequence to that it's coming
from other areas.
And now you're wondering whyyour taxes are high.
Well, we're spending money tofight other things that we
(44:51):
wouldn't really have to fight ifwe were doing more production
locally based.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
And so when you know so you think the Emerald ash
borer come over.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
It came on skids.
It came in wooden skids.
Yeah, that's a fact, yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Came in skids.
Yeah, I never would havethought of that.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
You know, that's what happened.
It came from the wood overthere they make skids and the
border was beetle and the larvaewas in the skids and brought
over here and that startedmultiplying and flying around.
Yeah, and you know.
So we have all theseconsequences.
You know that side hustleconsequences that are causing us
a lot of problems and we couldsolve that problem pretty easy.
(45:28):
You know, yeah, we used tomanufacture everything yeah,
well, manufacturing in thiscountry is uh.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
I saw it dying when I was starting in that business.
Well, you know getting offsubject.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
You know, being an automotive machinist and a
master mechanic, I complained tothe to Ontario government when
they stopped having theautomotive machinist program out
of Centennial College 30 someyears ago and we've seen the
entire automotive industry godownhill because you know,
metallurgy and machining are akey to a company and everything
(46:07):
around you I mean the farmer onthe field needs a tractor built.
There's engineering, metallurgy, making parts, machining,
building.
That all starts from that rootthing.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, just likebeekeeping, if you don't start
with a good foundation and goodproduct to start with and good
(46:27):
boxes and like, for example, I'mstarting to think that for next
season, all my bottom supersare going to be made out of
cedar.
I'm going to start making themmyself because now your queen
are going to be made out ofcedar.
I'm going to start making themmyself Because now your queen is
going to be living in a cedarbox.
I'll put the cedar shavings inthe bottom and she's going to be
healthier and less diseased.
(46:47):
The mites won't want to live inthere.
That would be very interestingto see the difference.
And there's some peoplestarting to do that in the
United States and some of theMennonites are starting to do
that in the United States andsome of the Mennonites are
starting to do that as well.
And I thought about it 15 yearsago.
I said, well, why don't we makethe boxes out of cedar?
And nobody's jumped on thatbandwagon.
Everybody's making them out ofpine.
(47:07):
But I got my sawmill and I gota few tools and I'm thinking you
know, I'm going to start Mightas well.
Give it a shot, I'm going togive it a shot.
What have I got to lose?
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Yeah, absolutely Right, 100%.
Well, this has been veryinteresting, and the only thing
that we really haven't talkedbeehive and the health benefits
(47:41):
that some of them carry withthem.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, most people don't realize eating honey
actually heals your teeth.
Okay, sugars, you know fromother things, actually eat holes
in your teeth, but honey doesnot.
Honey actually helps your teeth.
Secondly, you have propolis,which is the strongest form of
antibacterial on earth, ofanything.
(48:05):
The bees make it and eating alittle bit of propolis on a
regular basis or making atincture from it, which I do
both of them.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
And that's just the glue that they use to stick the
boxes together and fill theholes.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah.
So the bees go to olive trees,poplar trees and tamarack,
spruce and basically sumac,because all of those trees have
resins in them, because all ofthose trees have resins in them.
So, for example, if you go tothe biblical text, the poplar
(48:41):
tree is called the balm of Giladand it's a sacred tree
according to the Bible.
So, and poplar trees, thelargest population of them in
the world in one group, isbasically in the Carolina
forests below the Great Lakesand then basically north of the
Great Lakes, all around northernOntario, and that we have a lot
(49:01):
of poplar trees.
And poplar trees grow from seedand root and basically they
feed a lot of things.
In native culture we eat theinner bark as survival food.
You can't die from it, itdoesn't taste good, but you will
live, you won't starve.
So poplar trees, the bees go toit and they take that resin.
It doesn't taste good but youwill live, you won't starve.
So poplar trees, the bees go toit and they take that resin.
(49:22):
And most people don't even knowwe have olive trees growing in
Canada all over the place,called Russian olives, and some
of them produce a little yellowolive.
That's kind of sweet and youcould eat and the bees will go
to that and collect the resinagain.
They'll also go to all thetypes of spruce trees and, like
I said, the sumac as well.
They collect the resin and theymix it with their body fluids
(49:43):
and it's called a bee spit.
It's like a gummy brown glue toblack.
The red stuff, if you can findit in a box, is the highest
quality.
That's kind of pink and redcolor.
It has very high medicinalproperties and so putting it in
good quality alcohol food gradealcohol I like to use good
(50:05):
quality vodka and you let itferment in there and then you
have a little one way dropperand having a little bit of that
on a piece of bread or justputting it in your mouth is
really good.
An example my youngest daughter.
When she was a little kid shehad a lot of cavities and my
wife used to take this liquidpropolis and put it in the
cavities.
They never got worse.
All of those teeth fell outnaturally and my youngest
(50:29):
daughter has movie star teethI'm not kidding, she has the
nicest teeth, they're pictureperfect, and so I learned a lot
of stuff about propolis andstuff like that from the hive.
Second thing is you get wax Waxcandles burning in your house
create vitamin D3, like the sun,right in the atmosphere.
(50:50):
So that's why a wax candle isso expensive.
But most people don't realizethe benefits, the health
benefits, of you burning a waxcandle in your house.
And then we have honey, we havepollen, you know all of those
things are superfoods to ourbody.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
Well, I'll tell you, you gave me a honeycomb, so the
whole the wax and the honey andeverything.
It was just like a capped comband you said, eat the wax you
got to eat the wax.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
Well, most people don't realize that when bees
make wax they have to eat twopounds of honey to make one
pound of wax.
So just think about it.
How much nutrition is in thehoney.
That means there's got to bedouble the amount in the wax,
because they had to produce that.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Well, and I'd never really eaten beeswax before and
to take a teaspoon of honeycombwhich is the wax, the honey
itself and everything else in it, and to throw that in and eat
it.
The wax is almost like gum andI like it.
(52:06):
It gets a little bit at the endwhen you keep chewing it and
chewing it, and chewing it, itgoes a little sandy almost.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah, but it also cleans and sucks all the grains
and all the junk off your teeth.
Yeah well, I don't doubt it.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
That's where my mind went.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
And then what the wax also does when it gets into
your intestinal tract.
It's like a sponge forabsorbing all of the bad things
that you don't want in yourintestinal tract.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Wow, that's good.
I've been eating beeswax.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
It's a great product.
I've been doing it for 35 years.
Speaker 3 (52:42):
Nice, it's.
Uh, it's a, it's a.
I I've been doing it for 35years.
Nice, right on.
Wow, listen folks.
Uh, do you have anything elsethat?
Uh do you feel I missed when itcomes to uh, beekeeping and
bees?
Speaker 1 (52:50):
well, you know, don't think of it as a summertime job
, because when the fall comesyou got to clean up equipment,
put stuff away.
You're extracting honey, you'recutting cone, you're doing all
this stuff.
Then you've got to take andmake sure your bees got enough
food.
You know you got to make surethe bottom boxes are clean.
(53:12):
You got to wrap them.
You know if you're in a reallycold place you got to wrap them.
You know if you're in a reallycold place, make sure that you
have ventilation so that, see,bees don't really die from cold,
they die from water dampness.
So if your boxes are a flat boxand most of these beekeepers,
(53:32):
commercially-wise, like the flatroof box because they stack the
boxes and they ship them allover the place, which is not the
greatest thing for bees.
They don't like that, they liketo be stationary.
So if you're stationary youwant a roof that's kind of
angled.
You know I've designed a rooffor my own self that's more
almost a 45 degree like a houseroof, and I found that from
using that style that Ideveloped your bees don't have
(53:56):
to work very hard in thesummertime to keep it cool and
they don't work so hard in thewintertime to keep it warm
because it naturally deflectsboth ways.
And you know, have yourself anice organized little area where
you can extract your honey outand your stuff.
You'll have to buy some kind ofextractor if you want liquid
(54:18):
honey.
Other than that, you need somehand tools, scrapers, some trays
, jars, you know containers toput if you want to sell cut cone
or wax honey in in theseparator that I buy.
(54:39):
The solar power that you put outin a sunny day for leftover wax
with some honey in it.
It melts it out, the honey goesto the bottom, the wax comes on
top.
You can take the piece of waxout, pass a little hot water
over it, rinse it off and you'vegot clean wax.
And so there's lots of thingsto go on.
I mean I could talk aboutbeekeeping, so there's lots of
(55:07):
things to go on.
I mean I could talk aboutbeekeeping and I think I'm an
amateur.
I've only been doing it forabout 15 years.
I still don 416-709-3535.
Send me a text, I'll be glad tohelp you.
And if you look at my YouTubechannel, I'm putting up videos
and trying to teach people, toeducate them.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
It's a great hobby.
That is work.
I'm going to find that out, ohyes, he is.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
He's already finding that out.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Oh for he is, yeah, but he's already finding that
out.
Oh, for sure, for sure.
But you know what?
It's one of those things that Iat least for me, it's very
gratifying to be in nature, togo out.
It's therapeutic looking afterthese hives, looking after these
hives.
And if you've never pulled arack out of a beehive and looked
(55:59):
at it and I have a fellowshowed me I actually did a
course, a one-day course, withum apiary, uh and I and, and you
know what I'll, I'll figure,I'll figure out who, uh, the the
(56:20):
information for this guy.
But it's an apiary in callingwood and uh, to pull out a rack
and hold on to a rack that'sjust alive with movement and
bees and there's shit going on,and you're holding onto this
rack and you don't even the beesdon't even care that you're
(56:42):
holding this whole rack full ofhoney and wax and larvae and
everything else.
They're just doing their workand it is something amazing to
see.
Everybody is busy and there arehundreds of thousands of these
little dudes and they know whatthey're doing.
(57:03):
They work in harmony.
There's no issues.
Everybody does their own stuffand to be able to watch it, to
see it and to work in harmonywith it.
It just really does somethingfor your soul and it's a great
(57:26):
hobby, and you know from whatI'm learning.
You can make a lot of moneydoing it if you know how to.
You can make a lot of moneydoing it if you know how to, and
that's something that is one ofmy goals and endeavors, and
Gary too, I think.
So listen, thank you for comingon the show today.
(57:46):
It was my pleasure and mine too.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
We're going to have to do this more often,
Absolutely absolutely.
And folks out there, eventhough you know this is a
fishing thing and we're going totalk about a lot of different
subjects.
You know our environment's veryimportant, and so it's just
like if you don't take care ofthe bees, it's the same thing as
you don't take care of a lakeand put fish into it you don't
(58:12):
got fish to eat.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
You know it's all connected.
I'm glad that you mentionedthat because the environment is
so important and for me, being alodge owner, I always, like I
said before, I always wanted tohave a beehive.
I just, you know, when you're alodge owner, you're really,
really busy doing a lot of otherstuff, but I'll tell you, if I
(58:40):
could have been organized enoughand had a mentor or a base
knowledge of beekeeping, that issomething that I would have
totally integrated into thelodge and coming up in the next
up and coming weeks.
It's funny I had a conversationwith one of my good friends and
(59:04):
former guests, val Gayna, andthis was when I was up at the
cottage for opener this year,when I was up at the cottage for
opener this year, and ourconversation was based around
the sustainability of thelodging industry today and his
(59:24):
point of view is that ourdemographic is rapidly changing,
is rapidly changing, and that'sculturally, that's socially,
everything is changing.
And he was one of the guys thatwas constantly on me about not
(59:50):
having internet at the lodge.
And I'm not pretending to haveany of the answers, but we're
going to start asking thequestions about how sustainable
is the lodging industry todaythe way that it is, and maybe it
is, maybe it isn't, and maybewhat are some of the things that
(01:00:13):
can be incorporated into anorthern tourism operation that
could widen the interest, and Ibelieve that beekeeping and
honeybees could be part of that.
(01:00:33):
Like, I mean, I think that if Ihad the lodge and I had half a
dozen bee suits and half a dozenhives out in the back and
suggested to guests that, hey,have you ever seen a bee colony
at work, you know it would be anamazing experience for somebody
(01:00:55):
to see the inside of a hive andthat could be something that
that you incorporate into yourbusiness.
So, you know, as as far away asas beekeeping could be
construed construed as somethingthat has nothing to do with
lodges and fishing, but Ibelieve that it does and it
(01:01:21):
could be and it could have animpact and help you know lodge
owners out there who could bestruggling with a fishery that's
not doing well and looking foran experience.
I grew, I started in a fisherythat was not doing all that well
the French River in 2010,.
The walleye population wassuffering and I was forced to
(01:01:45):
figure it out and folks.
It wasn't about fishing, it wasabout experience and it was
about knowing people, and it wasabout knowing your guests and
what they were looking for andbeing able to listen and build
an experience that they neverforgot.
And a lot of it happened, andhappened not even on the water,
(01:02:13):
so I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Well, I will agree with you because you know, since
I became a beekeeper I've runinto people that their father
was a beekeeper and they want toget back into it and they
regret they didn't spend timelearning from their parent and
they're coming to me forsuggestions how to become a
beekeeper.
Or they get a hive and theydon't know how to take care of
(01:02:36):
it, and you know they or they'vegot a bunch of hives with
somebody else and they all diedon them and you know they're
wondering what are they going todo now with these empty boxes?
And so you know I got peoplewho approach me all the time
just for that reason, and Iagree with you.
You know I owned a fishhatchery in Parry Sound area and
(01:02:59):
I was raising on my propertyall the pickerel for the Great
Lakes and it was a native guy inthe reserve, in the Schwanager
Reserve, that got with a privateowner on the property I own and
I can.
My property is still licensedto raise fish but I just don't
have the capital to do itanymore.
But I want to get back into itand see, the thing is, you know
(01:03:20):
people don't understand theimportance of stocking programs
and actually doing stuff toeducate not only the locals but
the people in the industry, andit helps everybody have a great
experience.
You know, I have a pond on myproperty which is filled with
(01:03:41):
smallmouth bass and I've reallymanaged it and took care of it.
You know, not many people cansay that I've had a guy come and
catch 55 fish in an hour andrelease.
You know, I mean it's anunbelievable experience.
He couldn't believe it without,no, just the rusty hook
throwing in the water.
They were biting that good.
So you know.
But it's management of thingsand I look at it the same way
(01:04:03):
that we don't manage the beepopulation, we don't manage our
waters, we don't manage ourforests, we don't manage stuff.
You know it's going to be a sadworld for our grandchildren and
even our children.
Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Yeah, and I think we're doing.
I think that we as a populationare doing a pretty good job at
the grassroots level to do thatand I enjoy being part of that.
And on that note, folks, thankyou so much for listening to
(01:04:41):
this point.
I really appreciate everythingyou guys do out there.
And thanks to producer AnthonyMancini you are the man.
Love you, brother.
You work really hard every weekto make it possible for
everybody to be listening to us.
And folks head on over toFishinCanadacom where you can
(01:05:04):
get in on those giveaways.
I tell you every episode Get onover there, um, you get on over
there.
I love hearing about people thatlisten to the diaries of a
lodge owner podcast winning thethings over at fish and
canadacom.
Thank you to our, oursupporters, um, um, it's, it's
(01:05:25):
wonderful to have that support.
You're the reason that we'rehere, um, you know lakeside
marine, uh, and, and all of youfolks out there, I really really
appreciate it.
Thank you again, gary, andwe'll do this again sometime
soon.
And thus brings us to theconclusion of another episode of
(01:05:48):
Diaries of a Lodge OwnerStories of the North.
I'm a good old boy, nevermeaning no harm.
I'll be all you ever saw, beenreeling in the hog since the day
I was born.
Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
Bending my rock, stretching my line.
Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine.
I'll be making my way.
Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
The only way I know how.
Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Working hard and sharing the North with all of my
pals.
Well, I'm a good old boy.
Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
I bought a lodge and live my dream.
Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
And now I'm here talking about how life can be as
good as it seems.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons
of our natural world becomeharder and harder to hear, but
they are still available tothose who know where to listen.
I'm Gerry Ouellette and I washonoured to serve as Ontario's
Minister of Natural Resources.
However, my journey into thewoods didn't come from politics.
(01:07:12):
Rather, it came from my time inthe bush and a mushroom.
In 2015, I was introduced tothe birch-hungry fungus known as
chaga, a tree conch withcenturies of medicinal use by
Indigenous peoples all over theglobe.
After nearly a decade of harvestuse, testimonials and research,
(01:07:34):
my skepticism has faded toobsession and I now spend my
life dedicated to improving thelives of others through natural
means.
But that's not what the show'sabout.
My pursuit of the strangemushroom and my passion for the
outdoors has brought me to theplaces and around the people
that are shaped by our naturalworld.
On Outdoor Journal Radio's,under the Canopy podcast, I'm
(01:07:59):
going to take you along with meto see the places, meet the
people.
That will help you find youroutdoor passion and help you
live a life close to nature.
And under the canopy Find Underthe Canopy now on Spotify,
apple Podcasts or wherever elseyou get your podcasts.
Speaker 5 (01:08:19):
Back in 2016,.
Frank and I had a vision toamass the single largest
database of muskie anglingeducation material anywhere in
the world.
Speaker 6 (01:08:28):
Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this
amazing community and share itwith passionate anglers just
like you.
Speaker 5 (01:08:39):
Thus the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly
grew to become one of the topfishing podcasts in North
America.
Speaker 6 (01:08:42):
Step into the world of angling adventures and
embrace the thrill of the catchwith the Ugly Pike Podcast.
Join us on our quest tounderstand what makes us
different as anglers and touncover what it takes to go
after the infamous fish of10,000 casts.
Speaker 5 (01:08:55):
The Ugly Pike podcast isn't just about fishing.
It's about creating atight-knit community of
passionate anglers who share thesame love for the sport Through
laughter, through camaraderieand an unwavering spirit of
adventure.
This podcast will bring peopletogether.
Speaker 6 (01:09:10):
Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our
angling adventures.
Tight lines everyone.
Speaker 5 (01:09:19):
Find, subscribe now and never miss a moment of our
angling adventures.
Tight lines everyone Find UglyPike now on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or wherever else youget your podcasts.
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