Talking Bees with Dr. Juliana Rangel

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
H Garden line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's crazy here.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Gas can use a shrimp. You just watch him as
we'll go. Gassies and gas.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Many good things to sup bat basic in bringing the
glassies and gas. And again you Davos clubs back making
there not a sid credit the glasses and gas, the
sun beam and between.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
The gasses and gas.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
First starting and treating.

Speaker 5 (00:48):
Gas.

Speaker 6 (00:48):
Well.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Good morning, gardeners, Good morning, and I hope you're having
a great morning so far. That would include one cup
of coffee, some piece of quiet while your while your
brain fully kicks into gear.

Speaker 7 (01:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I don't know. Some people wake up and their mourning people.
I used to have a dorm or not a dorm
apartment roommate in college that was a morning person. Oh
my gosh, just about killed me. I just killed them
because I was like, okay, let's an hour from now,
let's try to start talking. Anyway. We're glad you're here

(01:26):
this morning. I don't know if you're a morning person
or not, but we're gonna be talking gardening today. If
you want to give me a call and maybe ask
a question something that's of interest to you'd help you
have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and
of course more fun in the process. Well seven one
three two one two ktr h seven to one three
two one two ktrh. Chented Forest is garden center down

(01:52):
there in the Richmond Rosenberg area. In fact, to be
a little more specific, it's on FM twenty seven fifty nine.
If you're in Richmond, you're heading up towards Sugarland Way,
you know, coming up fifty nine. Then it's off to
the right on FM twenty seven to fifty nine. It
is a great place to visit. By the way, they
got big beautiful shade trees and so walking out there,

(02:13):
even on a hot day, it's just a it's a
pleasant to be out and about and shopping and seeing
all the cool stuff they have. And they definitely have
a lot of great stuff, lots of plants to support
bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, just beautiful plants from color
to things like herbs and vegetables to beautiful really just

(02:34):
outstanding flowering shade trees, plants that have foliage. You know,
right now that it's getting hot, we're thinking about shade,
and they've got you covered on all kinds of things
that thrive in shade.

Speaker 6 (02:45):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
One of my favorite is a turk cap. It's a
native Texas native, very very hardy. Tracks hummingbirds like crazy.
They love those red tubuler balloons that it has and
it's just tough. I've got one in the backyard. I
never do anything to it except at the end of winter.
Cut all the top growth back is because it comes
back out of the ground again. It makes a nice,

(03:07):
nice shrub. The firebush the compact compact form of firebush
called compacta. It's a little smaller than regular fire bushes. Rockrose,
rockrose is not a rose. It's more kin to hibiscus
and okra and things like that cotton plant for example.
They're all in the same family. Rock Rose is beautiful,

(03:28):
little pink flowers, really nice Mexican petunia like Katie, little
compact mounting type. They've got all of those there at
Enchanted Forests. Now, if you what I would recommend you
do is go to the website number one. It's awesome.
See everything you need to see, contact numbers, where it's located,
all of that, and that is Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX

(03:52):
dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX. Dot com. They are
open Monday through Saturday the summer hours eight am to
five and on Sunday from ten am to four pm.
The Enchanted Forest. They've got you covered on every kind
of plant for every season that we have. And boy,
if if you are looking to make some shade, they
have some great shade trees too. By the way, you

(04:14):
need to go check those out. Best time flying tree
was forty years ago. Second best times today. You can
get it done right there at Enchended Forest. So I
in my yard, I've been fixing a gate. I had
a gate that was hanging a little bit, just kind
of sagging a little bit, and I said, I'm gonna
go fix it. So I took the gate off and

(04:37):
I grabbed onto one of the posts and when I
grabbed onto it, it moved and I heard a crack.
Now a person should not be able to reach up
with one arm and pull a little bit on a
post and it cracks. That means that thing is about
twenty years too old. So I got to reset posts
and get the gate set and everything like that. Our

(04:58):
grand dog is visiting and the dog likes to wander,
and so if I don't keep that gate firmly closed.
We get to go up and down the street finding
the rain dogs that we're not going to do that anymore.
Now that I've got that gate fixed, I appreciate that
very much. The rain that we had has kind of

(05:18):
settled off for a little bit. You know, we've got
we got the summer cycle. We're going to be entering
where rains are fewer and further between. And what happens
when we get rain the clay soils that are kind
of predominant in this region. I know a lot of
you have sands and loams and other things, but a
lot of clay soils along the Gulf coast. In fact,
they gave it our local name. It's called Houston black clay.

(05:42):
That's the official soul scientist's name for the black clays
we have down here. When they get wet, they swell.
When they get dry, they shrink. And you know, from
a gardener's standpoint, not so much of a deal, because
we can keep them evenly moist by watering them. But
around your house the tree roots pumping all the water
out of the soil around the house, that makes that

(06:06):
wet dry cycle worse. It exacerbates it. It makes it.
You know, it gets drier and more, and then it
gets wet, and then it gets very dry again, and
that causes the problems we have with our foundations. It's
why you go through parts of Houston and in the
summer they're fixing water lines because the soil is moving
so much. It's literally breaking water lines deep underground in

(06:29):
a bad drought. And then the sidewalks and the driveways
and everything are moving, and it just it is what
it is. And so if you are thinking you may
have a foundation problem, and that would be for example,
you see cracks in the brick on the outside, typically
at the corner of a windows where you most see them,
but that's not the only place. Maybe you have sheet

(06:52):
rock cracks inside or doors that are sticking. Those are
all signs you need to have someone take a look
at it and fix my slab. Foundation repair. They're the
folks that can do it. Ty Strickland's been doing this
for twenty three years. He's an eighty Estonian, fifth generation Texan,
and he knows our soil. He knows how to assess
and fix foundation problems. The website just just go there.

(07:15):
Fix myslab dot com. Fix myslab dot com. If you
want to get him, a call to eight one two
FI five forty nine forty nine. He shows up on time,
he fixes it right, he charges a fair price fixmislab
dot com two eight one two f five forty nine
forty nine. He knows what he is doing, that is

(07:38):
for sure. I was visiting with somebody from Ace Hardware
the other day and I have a barbecue pit that
I got at Ace Hardware and we are enjoying it.
In fact, we have plans tomorrow. We got a bunch
of family coming over and we're going to be doing
some major barbecue in all through the day. It's a
lot of fun. But you know, you go to ACE,
and I don't care what brand you're looking for. If

(07:58):
it's a quality brand, the top quality brands that exist,
they've got them there. You know you're gonna find Big
Green Egg there. You're going to find Tragger, You're going
to find Rectech, You're going to find Weber and so
on and all the things you need to go with it.
And so for your weekend cookouts and stuff, it's your
one stop shop. You know, if you got a pellet grill,
you need the pellets. They got those there, of course

(08:20):
they do. They have everything else you need and for
your lawn, the fertilizers that we're talking about, by the way,
they do have propane too, where if you've got a
gas grill to you can do that. Now, everything that
you would look at to make that outdoor area just
a wonderful place to hang out, to make your indoor
areas more beautiful, you're going to find it Today's hardware.

(08:41):
Oh yeah, and then all the hardware stuff that a
hardware store has. They've got all that, but so much more.
If you are up in the north side Spring Ace
on Spring Cyprus. Northeast is Crosby Ace on twenty one
hundred down southwest is Plantation Ace out there on Mason
Road in Richmond Rosenberg. You go over to Champions Ace
on Spring Cyprus up northwest or down on the west side.

(09:04):
Langham Creek Ace, by the way, is up there on
five point twenty nine by Copperfield. Those are just a
few of the miny ace Hardware's And here's how you
find yours. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Acehardware Texas dot Com.
We're gonna take a quick break when we come back Melbourne,
Paarland you'll be our first s up. Good morning, gardeners.

(09:25):
We are we are glad you're back with us. Listen,
if you are looking to put in some plants that
can survive the weather here, you know that summer it's coming,
you can. As native plants specializes, I mean, they have
every kind of plant in the world, native, non native,
you name it. But the best selection in natives you're
gonna find anywhere is right there in Buchanans Native Plants

(09:45):
in the Heights on Eleventh Street. Just go to the
website Buchanansplants dot Com. While you're there, sign up for
the newsletter. Get that newsletter. Make sure you visit the
website because there's always good timely information on what to do.
They have an excellent selection, by the way of some beautiful,

(10:07):
beautiful plants that are natives that you probably haven't seen
before or grown before. That's where you find them. Buchanans
Native Plants, as well as all the fertilizers I talk
about here on garden Line and everything else you need
for success. If summer heat is driving you inside, you
won't believe the selection house plants and succulents and other
things that are there at Buchanans. It's the place to

(10:30):
go for a landscape that survives the insects, diseases, heat, drought, coal, rain,
whatever we have here, the plants that are from here
that know how to survive it, you're going to find
their Buchanans native plants. Let's head out now to pair
Land and if I can get my here we go.
Hey Melboyne, welcome to garden line. Hey Skip, how's are

(10:54):
going doing good? Thank you? I've got a question. I've
got two peach trees.

Speaker 8 (11:01):
One of them is a red baron, the other one
is a mid pride. They've both kind of gotten pretty
much higher than managemb One of the bid pride is
about ten foot, the red baron's about eight.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
So kind of a double question. When is the best
time to cut them back?

Speaker 8 (11:22):
And how much can I do it for a manageable tree.
And then also, this year, for whatever reason, most a
lot of the peaches on it were about the size
of a ping pong ball, And last year they had
very good sized peaches on it. You know, it's not

(11:43):
overloaded with them, and I feed them the Microlife orange bag.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
So those are the questions.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay, Well, when you say their ping pong ball s
eye is ping pong ball size when they're ripe? Or
is that just what they are right right now?

Speaker 6 (12:05):
Right?

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah? Okay? That is small when yeah, yeah, Usually that's
a function of too many fruit for the for the
tree branch to be able to fully size up. I
don't know, you know what the spacing is and stuff,

(12:28):
But peaches will set about oh ten times more fruit
than they need in a good year, and we just
have to thin all the extras off in order to
have the best size. If you can keep your peaches
about you know, open up your hand wide and from
the tip of your little finger to the tip of
your thumb, that's about how far you want peaches to
be apart. If the leaves are not large and healthy

(12:51):
and there's plenty of them, it's going to cause the
same problem as having too many peaches. You just those
are the keys. Lots of good sunlight too. If usually
this doesn't happen within one year Melbourne, but as trees
start to shade your trees, that will affect fruit set
and and development. Those are a few things. Make sure

(13:14):
it has adequate water. Yeah, do the trees look healthy
in general when you just stand back and look at
the foliage and everything.

Speaker 8 (13:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And the rit mid Pride has
probably got about a three inch or maybe a little
bit more diameter trunk, and the Red Barren probably got
a three inch trunk. And this is the first year
they've ever done that, you know.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, Well, I don't know. I'd wait and watch then.
I mean, obviously you know how to grow peach, and
so those are the things that cause yeah, well, those
are the things that cause lack of fruit size, the
things I just went over. But as far as the
tree cutting it back, you can cut back a tree

(14:03):
some anytime you need to, pretty much. We try to
do the major printing at the end of a winter
before the tree leaves out sometime in the winter. If
you are well going to do something pretty severe, you
may want to start on some of the printing. Now.

Speaker 8 (14:23):
Yeah, that was kind of my question, like if maybe
I'll cut back maybe about a third of the tree
and encourage the new growth to start growing now. But
I didn't know when it was the best time to
do that.

Speaker 9 (14:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, So when you do a major prone back, that
tree is just going to send up shoots everywhere and
it's going to be a mess, and so you're going
to have to work with it a while. And when
shoots are coming out toward the center of the tree
or you know that you want to keep the center open.
If you can, you just have to say no, cut
those off and leave the ones are going in the

(15:00):
direction you want them to go. Uh, if you if
you do it, maybe a third of it now you
can do that. But the main thing you're wanting to
do is is build a bunch of branches where you
want them, not where they are now, over the months
to come. And so that's going to be a kind
of gradual thing. Now, if you didn't in the at

(15:22):
the end of winter the best pruning time, it'd be
easiest on the tree, and the wounds would heal the fastest.
But then you would just have you would basically be
giving up most of next year's crop, because that all
sets at the end of summer and in the fall.
So if you can do some now and get some
of the little you know, peaches set fruit on the
little twiggy growth, the little branches that are uh, you know,

(15:45):
smaller than a straw, a drinking straw. I mean they're
they're they're small. Half the size of a straw. That's
that's where the fruiting comes on last year. So in
order to have fruit next year, you need to prune
now and then met probably prune again by the time
we get to Actually, no, you're not gonna have time
for another one, but prine now, and then the shoots
that grow have the ability to set for it for

(16:08):
next year as you kind of work it back to
where you want it.

Speaker 8 (16:13):
Yeah, that was kind of my thinking to do that,
so it would have some type of fruit next year,
so you could.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, and uh, just remember it's.

Speaker 8 (16:25):
Better to put a five dollar tree in a twenty
dollars hole than a twenty.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Dollars three a five dollars hole. Ain't that the truth
I tried got to get that's all part of that.
I always say brown stuff before green stuff. It's getting
getting the soil right is so important. Yeah, yeah, I
believe he said that. I'm sure he did. Yeah, Well,
if you take care, appreciate that, if you'd like to

(16:52):
give me a call. Seven one three two one two.
K t r H seven one three two one two.
K t r H has a number of different fertilizer
products on the market, quite a few as a matter
of fact, they've got one called Sweet Green that's their
organic line. It is a eleven percent nitrogen, which is
really high for an organic product, but eleven percent nitrogen

(17:14):
fertilizer is typically used by folks for the lawn. And
you know, if you were to do soil testing, what
you're going to find is, while the while sun needs
all these different nutrients, they are all important, when it
comes to turf grass, the main thing it needs is nitrogen.
And so a lot of times I will switch and

(17:35):
just do a nitrogen application only occasionally, because if I'm
returning my clippings and recycling nutrients, I'm keeping most of
this stuff around. Sweet Green is great for that. You
know we're talking about basically with the eleven percent nitrogen,
just a really good quick boost. I had a neighbor

(17:55):
to use some Sweet Green last year and he was
talking to me all about three weeks ago and he
was saying, Man, that stuff just works. I mean it
greens up and it looks good. Yes, that's true. It
is a quality product from the folks at Microsoft and
Microsoft Oh my gosh, I'm not even a computer guy.

(18:15):
Nitrofoss anyway, you're gonna find nitrofoss products many places, you know,
I was just talking about Enchanted Forest. They carry night
foss products down there at in Channon Forest. You can
find it at Ace Hardware up there, and sick A Ranch.
If you go up to Arbor Gate, if you go
to Plants for All Seeds, if you go to you
know RCW all these nurseries and things, a lot of

(18:36):
those folks will carry us some nitrofoss products there as well.
So just give them, give them a check and ask
sweet green, the organic sweet green from nitrofoss. You're listening
to Guardline, I'm your host, Skip Richter. If you'd like
to give me a call seven one three two one
two ktr H. We're gonna go now to Kingwood and
talk to Salvator. Am I saying that right is at

(18:59):
Salvat all right, Salvator Salvator.

Speaker 10 (19:03):
Okay, okay, hey's my help. Uh yeah, I got a
couple of citrus trees in thirty five gallons uh containers.
On one of them, I've got a really big, huge
climbing the sides of the container, a fire ant hill. Well,
my question to you is I have some granules in
the garage that work very well, when I hurt the

(19:26):
tree by you know, sort of maybe putting a hole
into the hill and just adding some of that. Will
that do anything to the tree or the fruits that
are growing on it right now?

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Is this a is this a bait product? Or is
this just a mound killers?

Speaker 10 (19:43):
Is just a mile killer from Bayer? The granules you
just spray out from your back and I just want
to make sure I have limes on it right now,
and I don't want to ruin the limes or kill
the tree or anything.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, So there's there's two. There's two answers to your question.
The correct and right answer, according to the law is
the label is the law, and I can't tell you
to use a product contrary to what the label says.
That's a big no no. So if it's not on
the label, don't do it. The other answers does it

(20:14):
work and will it hurt something? And that's a whole
nother kind of thing. But bottom line is if you
look on that label and it doesn't say fruit, trees
or citrus, then I would not do it. There is
a product, a bait product called come and Get It
that is from Fertilom, and it works very well, and

(20:34):
it's organic, and it happens to have a label for
use in edible like gardens and stuff, so you could
use that one then. But anything that's labeled for those
killing the mound is not that hard, you know. Pretty much,
any decent insecticide you drenched down into the mound is
going to kill them. But the baits are the better

(20:57):
long term solution to that. So that's kind of where
we are, Salvator. I've got to I've got to go
immediately to break hang on. I'll come back to you
when we come back. Glad to have you on garden
line with us today. If you're back, if you'd like
to call in ask a question seven one three two
one two ktr H seven one three two one two

(21:18):
fifty eight seventy four if you like to die by
the numbers, had a lady one time bus at me
forgiven just letters, because then you got to kind of
go through your phone buttons and find out what number
that letter is. All right, well, occasionally we'll give you
the fifty eight seventy four if if that makes it
a little bit easier for you, all righty, well, uh,

(21:39):
if you are looking to get a landscape that is
state of the art, beautiful, gorgeous, just whatever you want
out of your landscape. You want it designed, you want
it built, you want it maintained, whatever you want in
that way. That's puer Scapes. That's what they do. You
can go to the website peerscapes dot com. You can

(22:00):
get them a call. Two eight one three seven oh
fifty sixty. Do you need the whole thing designed? Do
you just want to revamp a bed, put in new plants,
plants that are drought tolerant, heat tolerant, things like that.
Do you need lighting? Do you need irrigation? Do you
need drainage to be improved? Pierce Scapes does it all?
Go to the website, look at it, look at what
they do. See the quality of work they can do.

(22:21):
Piercescapes dot com. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty.
I was talking about some soil of somebody the other day,
and they had gotten some soil products from Nature's Way Resources.
Now Nature's Way, for those who aren't familiar, is the
place up Interstate forty five almost to Toumbo in fact,

(22:42):
where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia and HiT's
forty five across the railroad tracks is Nature's Way. So
if you're going north, you turn right across over the
tracks and at Sherbrook Circle the website Nature'sway Resources dot Com.
That's what you need to check out Nature's Way Resources

(23:02):
dot Com. Look at the products that they offer, so
many quality products. They take time to do it right,
and they've been doing this a long time, and they
know how to make things. If you need a blend,
like for vegetables, or for fruit trees, or for roses
and other blooming plants, they've got all of those. Do
you need something for top dressing, Well, they've got the

(23:23):
fungal compost, which is excellent, by the way, over Friday
is Fungal Friday where you get ten percent off bags
twenty percent off bulk. They also have leaf mole compost,
which is outstanding for doing top dressing of your lawn.
You got some areas of lawn that are thin and
need a little boost, a lilaration, a little compost top
dressing on those and you can really turn them around.

(23:44):
And Nature's weighs the place to do that. Nature's Way
Resources dot Com makes it easy. So anyway, I was
telling you that earlier this week, I've been working on
fixing a gate. I also am putting some dud's in
around the base of some trees. I'm tired of weed
eating around the base of a tree, trying to kill

(24:05):
the grass, so I just put a little small bed
in around it. Put some things there at the base
that can take the shade and do really well, and
anything it looks better. So kind of having some fun
with that. A couple of other projects going on the
orchard is needing my attention. My fruit trees are young,
and so they always need a boost a fertilizer. So

(24:26):
if you're if you've got young fruit trees, and you
know the goal is to make a bigger tree pretty
fast so you can hang fruit on it, right, I mean,
you've got a little scrawny Charlie brown fruit tree. You're
not gonna put many peaches or apples or whatever kind
of fruits et ceterus and whatever on it. So you
want it to grow, and the way to get it

(24:47):
to grow is to give it a good quality fertilizer.
Standard lawn fertilizers work fine for fruit trees because they're
heavy in the nitrogen in they support that growth. But
buy a fruit, a fruit tree fertilizer, but just give
one and do it. If you don't know how much
fertilizer you use on a tree, go up to the
trunk and figure out how many inches across is it.

(25:07):
You know, if it's the size of let's say a broomstick,
a broom handle, Well depends on what kind of broom handle,
but let's just say that's about an inch and a
half something like that. Well, for every inch of trunk diameter,
give it one or two cups of synthetic fertilizer, or
give it three to five cups of organic fertilizer. So

(25:29):
it just depends on which of the two you choose
to use. But that way you know exactly. So someone
was calling earlier and had some trees with the size
of a sense of a coke can, so roughly three
inches across, So that would be three to six cups
of synthetic spread out in an area all underneath the branches.
Don't dump it at the bottom or essentially double that

(25:50):
on organic spread out in that same area, working into
the soil water. It didn't really good. Keep that tree growing,
keep training it to, don't let it listen. If you
get a new puppy and you don't train it at all,
you're going to have a problem when that thing's a dog, right,
a big old dog. You gotta train your fruit trees.

(26:12):
You gotta point them in the direction you want them
to go. And life is so much better if you
do so. Fertilize them, get them growing, but train them.
Go online, go to the Aggi Horticulture website. It's Aggie Horticulture.
There's a fruit section and a publication on every fruit
tree you would grow here, and he tells you how
to print it and do that. The earlier you start,

(26:35):
the better. When you have to cut a tree way back,
that's a whole new operation, and you're going to set
yourself back in your production back in the process. I'm
going to head out to Pairland now and talk to Jessica. Hey, Jessica,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (26:50):
Hie, thank you so much for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
What's up?

Speaker 11 (26:57):
I own a house forty five years and sixty years ago.
The neighbors that had lived there planted oak trees down
the property line and they said sold out in the
city owns that property, but they're claiming the city is
claiming that the church behind me owns Eastman there and
they owned the tree, so nobody's claiming ownership of the trees.

(27:21):
I need to trim them back because of the leaves
of the branches have grown halfway over my house, and
I'm wondering, if I just trimmed my side, is it
going to kill the trees.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
No, it won't kill the tree. Now, I'm not a lawyer,
so what you really need here is a property lawyer
to figure out whose trees those are and then to
tell you what you can and can't do on your
side of the of the property.

Speaker 11 (27:47):
I know city doesn't want to the city, I'm sorry, Yeah,
go ahead. The city years ago or twelve years ago
can take responsibility for the roots growing close up under
my slab and they came out and cut the roots.

(28:09):
But now the city that I'm talking to you is
kind of they don't own them.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Okay, Well, I'll just answer the horticultural part of the question,
and that is if you prune branches back, it's not
going to kill the tree. So just prune as you
need to prune. Yeah. Now, you know, as far as
who owns a tree and legal stuff, that that's a
different that's a different picture. You know what I would

(28:36):
do is and if you are you thinking about having
it done having somebody do.

Speaker 11 (28:42):
It, well, my husband to do it yourself kind of guy.
But that kind of scares me because I think I
need a tree company that has insurance that would be responsible.

Speaker 12 (28:51):
If they died.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, yeah, I would. Well, let me give you a
phone number and y'all I can figure out what you
want to do with the phone number. Uh, it's Affordable
Tree Service and it's seven to one three six nine
nine two six six three. They do this all day long.
They know how to prune properly. Uh, they can probably
answer your questions on you know, what you can and

(29:15):
can't do in terms of property how that all works.
But uh, they do trimming and feeding and everything. But
they can come out there and certainly this would be
just very easy for them just to do a proper
prune job on those trees. But it's Affordable Tree eight
uh seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three.
When you call you, it's Martin Spoon Moore's company. You'll

(29:37):
probably talk to his mom. It's a family business, so uh,
just tell him you heard about on Guarden Line where
they're our customers are are our listeners? Are their their
priority customers there at Affordable Tree Service.

Speaker 11 (29:52):
All right, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Okay, thank you, good luck with that. Thank appreciate to call.
Just bye bye. All right, I'm gonna take a little
quick break here and we'll be back. Yes, that's actually
a song. It sounds like a jingle for a company.
Maybe pest Bros. Needs to pick that up as their jingle.

(30:15):
You know, best Bros. Is the company I talk about
all the time. They cover the whole area. I mean
from the up in the Woodlands down to Texas City
and Baytown across the Kadie. They do all kinds of stuff,
not just mosquitoes, but their mosquito bucket system is awesome.
I'm telling you, I have it, I use it. It's amazing.
And my neighbor the other day he said, I got

(30:36):
to get one of those because he was seeing benefits
actually at his house from my buckets that they work
that well. Pest Bros. Is the company you need to
call for anything. Termites, you know, cockroaches in the house.
You know, maybe your mother in law's visiting and she's
screaming running around the house because there's cockroaches and so Okay,

(30:58):
my wife says, if you're thinking about saying something, don't
say it because you've already crossed the line. So I'm
gonna leave the mother in law and roaches come out
alone and just say call pest Bros. Two eight one
two o six forty six seventy two eight one two
o six forty six seventy for whatever bugs you well

(31:19):
with six legs dpestbros dot com dpestbros dot com. Let's go.
Let's go out to Parallel now and we are gonna
speak with Archie. Hey, Archie, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Warning you. Hey, a couple of mornings ago, I sent
you a couple of photos. One was of a black
picked tree I have in my front yard that's forty
five years old. And then the other one was think
some kind of bug that was on my patio. It
looked like it looked like a stick had a baby
ride in his back. Hey, it wasn't. I don't think
it was a sting bug, but I couldn't identify it.

(31:53):
I just disappeared and I don't see it. I haven't
seen anything any more of them, but I thought it
was a strange looking bug.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Uh Uh, let's see I don't see it was a yeah,
I think I do.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
I think yeah, because you sent me some kind of
text that could you for permission?

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Uh to photos? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I'm looking. I'm seeing
I can find it here, Archie. Uh go ahead and
tell me describe one of them again for me. What
did it look like?

Speaker 2 (32:29):
The bug? Yeah, the of the tree.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I'm trying to find your photos. Okay, Oh, why you're
just not seeing it? I tell you.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I'm gonna give a shout out to Jorge down there
in Alvin. I went down there a couple of weeks
ago and got some drift roses from him and at
a hyberta really really nice roses. And for this time
of the year, a lot of nurseries who have with
their roses optober you know, have black spot and everything
else on them. His his really in good shape. So

(33:04):
and he's a nice guy. I enjoyed my visit down there.
So give me a shout out.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, I'm glad to glad to know that it doesn't
surprise me. Or he's a great guy. They have great stuff. Yeah,
well I'm not I'm not finding you can't find it.
We must if it's far back. Yeah, Okay, here we go.
I see I see one that's aecht?

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
What was what was the other one about?

Speaker 2 (33:35):
It was a bug?

Speaker 1 (33:35):
I may have to a long yes, I may, okay?

Speaker 2 (33:41):
And what was what was interesting about it? He had
a baby on its back, you know, about about the
fourth of its size. And it was just a really
unusual looking bug. I've never seen one like it.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
All right, let's do this. Let me. I'm gonna need
some time to find this, so let's let me. We're
going to hit the top of the hour here pretty quick. Uh,
could you call back if I find it, I'll talk
about it. But if we need to talk back and forth,
just call me back next hour if you would, and
I'll be able to. Yeah. Right now, we're not getting anywhere,

(34:15):
but thank you. I'm going to put you put you
on hold. Go ahead, okay, all right? Yeah, I was
talking about pest bros. I'll find that. I'll find that
picture a little bit. A lot of emails come in
and sometimes kind of hard to keep up with them.
Have you ever been out to Nelson Nursery and Ruder
Garden out in Katie. You just head out to Katie

(34:35):
on Town Turn North on Katie Fort Ben Road, and
it's just up the street a little bit there. It
is an outstanding garden center. I mean, it's a destination
guards if you're you know, we I like to think
of it as this is your West Houston destination garden center.
Take friends with you, get out there. Uh. They have
all kinds of things, I mean, if everything from you know,
landscape laying, a really nice selection of the perennial hibiscus,

(34:58):
a kind with the big white, pink or red blooms
that are dinner plate size. They have folks that know
what they're talking about. They can direct you and point
you in the right direction. Milk weeds for your and
other plants for your pollinators, beautiful pottery, and of course
things for water, whether it's putting in a waterfall, putting

(35:20):
in a disappearing fountain, one of those little, tall, not
necessarily little, but tall eurns that the water just goes
out of the top of and then recycles back in.
It's the place and you're gonna find the products you
need to have success with your lawn and whatnot there
as well. Nelson Watergardens dot Com, Nelson Watergardens dot Com,

(35:41):
Katie fort Benrod and boy, with the hot weather heating up, now,
what a great time to go out there and walk
among their beautiful shade trees and enjoy the sound of water.
Maybe you want to bring some of that home with you.
I know I do every time I'm around one of
those water features. It's like I got to have me
one of these. Someone was asking me. They were down

(36:03):
I don't know what was it, Clear Lake City, somewhere
down in that whole area around there, asking me about
where can I get such and such fertilizer you talk
about done here? And I said, well, League City Feed,
League City Feeds in League City there are a few
blocks south of Highway ninety six, and so you know,
they were kind of trying to find, well, where do
you get I can't remember which one it was, which fertilizer,

(36:24):
but it was like they had nitrofis they have as
a might, they have microlife. You know, they got Nelson
plant food. They got you covered on all of that.
If you want airlom solves by the bag, they got
that too. There at League City feed. It's just an
old time feed store, been around over forty years now,
and they carry the bags out for you know, the
old time service that you would expect from back in
the day. Maybe you went to a feed store with

(36:46):
a parent back when you were growing up, you remember that, Well,
this is what we're talking about. League City Feed. The
Thunderbergs have been operating this thing for over forty years now.
They're open Monday through Saturday, nine to six. You can
swing by after work, closed on Sundays. Here's a phone
number two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. So

(37:06):
that's where you get the fertilizer down there. They cover
that whole area. Of fact. I think of them as
the hometown beach store for Santa Fe and Dickinson in
League City, and Webster and Clare Lake and Lamarx and
Leone Elkaminarreal, all those communities down there. They serve that
area just a few blocks south of Highway or of
Highway ninety six on Highway three right there in League City.

(37:31):
So if you if you are have not done a
summer fertilization, it's time to go ahead and get that done.
And you can make sure that you get your products
down watermen really good. Follow the label. You know, the
slow releases are the better choice, but you can use
an immediate release. You just do it in small applications,
repeated over time, so you kind of make it slow yourself.

(37:54):
If you haven't been to the arbor Gate recently, you
need to go check out what they've got going there.
By the way, a lot of you love their one
two three easy system. And that is the food for
anything with roots, a food for anything with roots, and
it is a soil that is organic. It has expanded
shale in it, and it's a compost. The three products

(38:16):
food soil composts, all organic, all available also by bulk
from Arburgate. Check out the arbor Gate. It's west of
Tomball on twenty nine to twenty. You've probably been there before.
Today'd be a good day to get out there and
visit it because when you go, your jaw's going to
hit the ground all the beautiful plants and things that
they have. It's time for me to quit talking. So

(38:38):
we're gonna go away and I'll be right back with
your calls after the hour. All right, folks, welcome back
to the guard Line. Good to have you back with
us here. Archie. If you're still listening, I am not
finding the picture. I don't know why you can't find it.
In the emails. Send it me again if you would.

(39:00):
If you got those photos, and then we can give
me a call. We'll talk about them. Anyway. You're listening
to garden Line and we're here to help you have
a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape and hopefully more
fun in the process. That's kind of the deal, right,
We want you to enjoy gardening because gardening is a very,
very enjoyable hobby. People worry about failing at gardening and

(39:24):
they feel like they can't grow things, and they say
they have a brown thumb. And I'm here to tell
you that it's not as difficult sometimes as we make it.
But it comes down to getting good information and giving
a plant what it wants. That's the bottom line. Now,
you go on social media, okay, don't get me started.
Drives me nuts. All the claims that are made out

(39:47):
there and all the kind of goofy things. You know,
if it's used to be a guy I won't use
his name, but wrote books and everything, and he talked
about putting beer on your lawn and of course people
eat that stuff up. They love all kinds of weird
stuf like that. Just just do things right. Just understand
what a plant wants. Plants want sunlight, plants want soil moisture,

(40:09):
plants want good drained and there's variations in all of
those factors. How much, son, how much do you know?
There are plants that can take bad drainage. But in general,
you give a plant what it wants and you're gonna
have success with it. And so save yourself all the
gimmicks and home remedies and all the other things, and
just give the plants what they want. If you got
any questions about those same, give me a call. You're

(40:31):
on guarden line. That's over here. We can help you
have success. We want it to be fun. I promise
you you do not have a brown thumb, no matter what.
I don't care how many plants you've killed. You got
to kill a lot of plants to be a good gardener,
by the way, but you don't have a brown thumb.
You have an uninformed thumb. Maybe, so let's inform that thumb.
Give me a call seven one three two one two

(40:53):
k t RH. We'll make it simple like that. You know,
when you think about what a plants want, well, what
is nature provide for plants?

Speaker 6 (41:02):
You know?

Speaker 1 (41:02):
How where do plants live other than in our yards
when we pull them from all over the world and
bring them to one spot here to grow in our yard. Well,
plants live out where soil is being built by natural processes,
roots growing and dying and decomposing, earthworms going through leaves
falling on the surface and decaying away. And microlife fertilizers

(41:24):
are designed for that particular system. That is exactly what
nature does. Microbes rule the world. And when you do
a microlife fertilizer, when you get one, whether it's the
green bag, the sixty four that we put on our lawns,
you know, the humates plus the purple bag, we're talking
about microbes present in those products and built in fact,

(41:47):
every bag contains just bazillions of beneficial microbes to help
your plants. And then that includes i say bags, that
includes their liquids, the Microlife Biomatrix orange label, the Ocean Harvest.
I just use some Ocean Harvest blue label on some
plants I'm trying to get a boost on. I got
some outdoor plants that are in containers and they're just
kind of not happy. Part of it's my fault for

(42:09):
not caring for them better. But I've got some Microlife
Ocean Harvest blue label. It's a four to two three
fish based fertilizer. Mixed it up in water like the
label says, and watered with it, and I'll do that
for the next two or three weeks and they will
turn around. Because micro Life products work. You can go
to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out more about it,
but the bottom line is that they work. My songbirds

(42:35):
out in the yard and garden are really excited about
the feeders that we have for them out right now.
I put some Nesting super Blend in. That's a product
sold by Wildbird's Unlimited Nesting Superblend, because a lot of
our birds are nesting. I had some doves that came
in and I've never seen this before, but we have

(42:56):
a swallow nest. It's a little mud nest under the
eaves of the house at the front door, and we
leave it there because we like it. We like having
the swallows come in. They came in, did their thing.
Now they're gone, and some doves came in and start
bringing sticks and putting them on top of the swallow
nest to make their nests right there. It's the strangest thing.
But birds love to hang out at my house because

(43:18):
we're always giving them quality feed from Wildbirds Unlimited. Cheap
bird seed is exactly that. It's not just that it's inexpensive.
In fact, it isn't inexpensive because when half the bird
seed goes on the ground because birds don't want to
eat it, that's not inexpensive. That is a cheap product,
but that's not inexpensive because you're gonna end up buying

(43:41):
more just to get some in the bird's stomach. Well,
the folks at Wildbirds Unlimited know how to make blends.
The Nesting Super Blend that's their exclusive, The Cardinal Confetti
another awesome blend that my birds love. It's another good one.
And you can go to any of the six wild

(44:01):
Birds Unlimited stores here in the Greater Houston area Wan
in Kingwood, won In clear Lake, When in pair Land,
Houston West on Memorial Drive, Houston Southwest on bel Air,
and Cypress. Up there in Barker Cypress, there's a wild
Bird's Unlimited store there too. You get expertise, you get
quality bird seed, you get all kinds of feeders and

(44:22):
houses and everything else you need to be able to
go out and enjoy a really wonderful time. You know,
gardening isn't just visual like colors and flowers. Gardening is
fragrances from scented plants. Gardening is sounds from the birds
and the sound of running water. And when you create

(44:44):
that backyard place like bringing in birds, you just add
to the many scents senses I can't say, I'm trying
to say scent and senses at the same time, the
many senses that you enjoy your gardens with, the visual,
the hearing, the smelling. It's a wonderful thing. And Wilbird's

(45:06):
unlimited is a big part of being able to enjoy that.
I'm going to need to take a little break here
in just a second. When we come back from break,
Mark and Katie, you're going to be our very first stop,
so hang on, we'll be right back with you. Plans
for all seasons is the Garden Center up there where
Luetta comes into two forty nine Tomball Parkway, so you're

(45:30):
heading up toward tom Ball or down from Tomball towards Houston.
It's just north of Luetta on the east side of
the road there. It's been around since nineteenth seventy three.
True lawn and garden experts at Plants for All Seasons.
You can give them a call at two eight, one, three, seven, six,
sixteen forty six. Go in there with your questions and
your problems, take them samples, take them photos, or just

(45:52):
walk in. They'll take time with you. They'll, you know,
describe the situation. I need a container and it's going
to be in shade, and I wanted to have and
what are some and they'll explain, give you options and
put it together. Because they are experts, they know what
they're talking about. At Plants for All Seasons. I need
to take a little quick break here and again when

(46:12):
we come back, Mark and Katie and Veronica and sugar Land,
you'll be our first two up. All right, welcome back,
Welcome back to guard Line, folks. Good to have you
with us. Listen, storm season, summer, storm season is coming,
Hurricane season is here already. We're already at the front
end of it, and we got a lot of months
of that left to go. And when storms come and

(46:34):
knock out your power, you need a dependable supply. Maybe
you're on a trip and you come home and oh
my gosh, two weeks ago power went out and wait
till you open that freezer. I've been there rough Quality
Home products cells Generack automatic stand by generators, top quality product.
It Automatic stand by means power goes out. You can

(46:56):
be sitting there reading the paper in the chair. Power
goes out for you can put the paper down and
get up out of the chair. It's back on again
because of your Generac automatic stand by generator. Now Quality
Home you get generators a lot of places. Quality Home
is a place that is unmatched when it comes to
customer satisfaction. Award winning customer service, over seventy seven thousand

(47:16):
homeowners have enjoyed the products and the service of Quality
Home fourteen thousand plus five star reviews eight times. They
have won the Better Business Bureau's Most Prestigious Customer Service
Work eight times because they take care of their customers.
They are family owned operations since nineteen eighty nine. Right
here in Houston, Texas. Financing options are available. Go to

(47:40):
the website qualitytx dot com or give them a call
seven one three Quality. As they like to say, quality products,
quality service for a quality life. And they definitely step
up to the plate and make that a fact when
you contact them and when you let them help you
get set up with the kind of power dependability that

(48:02):
you need to go through summer. They walk you through
the whole process. They take care of you. It is
a process, So go ahead and get started now. It's
not like you call them today and the generator arrives tomorrow.
You want to get it right. They know how to
get it right. Quality Home Products of Texas. We're going
to head out now and go to Katie and talk
to Mark. Hello, Mark, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (48:24):
Good morning Skip.

Speaker 14 (48:26):
We had some foundation work done and they had to
take the plants out of the backflower bed and there
were four really healthy, mature Laura Petellum's, And I guess
my first question is, how do you hoy?

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Do you pronounce it? Is it Laura Peddlum or Laura Petellum?

Speaker 6 (48:43):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Laura Pedlum Chinese witch hazelaw? That makes it easier, Okay.

Speaker 14 (48:48):
Anyway, so they did a very poor job, didn't take
much of the roots and all and put them back,
and of course they all died. So the quandary, though,
is that we went out and bought four more new,
really nice, healthy laurapotolms put them back in the exact
same spots and the same dirt, exact same sun and shade,

(49:09):
and they're dying too, so we can't figure out what
to do about it.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
The key on a new plant like that is to
keep the roots moist, not overwatering and drowning them, nor
letting them get dry. And the challenge mark is that
plant before you bought it was sitting in a garden
center where somebody's watering it every day, because the whole
root system is in that cylinder in the container, and

(49:36):
so when you put it in the ground, it could
pump that cylinder dry easily, even though you know you've
watered the whole bed and the soil is moist well,
the root zone soil is not moist because it pumps
it dry. So you have to water right there at
the base for a little while. And it's kind of
a touch and got thing where you're keeping it moist
enough but not too soggy wet, and it takes almost

(49:58):
a daily watering, well early on it does, especially if
they're in some sun, to do that, and then gradually
as they get established, then you know you're not worrying
about such touch and go watering all the time. But
that may have been what happened. It could have been
some damage in the transplanting process. But I would just
dig down with a little hand trowel, go about four

(50:20):
to six inches down and feel the soil right there
at the root ball, and that'll tell you if it's
moist or not and water accordingly.

Speaker 14 (50:30):
Is there any sign I can look forward to know
that I'm overwatering.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Well, Digging down and feeling the wet soil is the
most dependable way, because you know, the soils are all different,
they hold water, different sun versus shade, hot versus cool,
you know, I mean, there's a lot of variables. But
how wet is the soil is what you're really trying
to do. And I would say, what size gallon? What

(50:56):
size containers? With these about? How are the diameter of
the pop roughly?

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, I think again three gallon, so you could.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Probably, yeah, you could probably put about on maybe almost
a gallon of water on them if you're doing it
every day and they're in some shade, maybe a half
gallon would be enough to do it. But it's you know,
I hesitate to give amounts like that because, as I said,
every situation is different. It's just the real answer. It

(51:29):
sounds like an avoiding the question, but the real answer
is enough to keep the soul moist and no more so.
Uh yeah, that's why your you know, your fingers on
the end of your hand, or your best gauge of
the of of that situation. All right, I'll try that,
all right, Mark, thanks a lot. I appreciate your call.

(51:52):
You take care, yes, bye bye.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
We can plan any We can plan all year round here,
but when you plant, you got to it's touch and
go in the summertime. It doesn't mean it can't be done.
I still do it. I've got some plants that are
about to go in the ground. I've been planting very
much every other week here for a good while, just
when I can get around, you know, to taking care
of some plants. If if you haven't been out to

(52:22):
RCW Nurseries recently, you need to go. They've got some
really good deals going on out there, and it's a
great nursery anyway to go to. You good advice, but
they they can fix you up.

Speaker 7 (52:35):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yellow is the color of summer, and they have so
many great plant like goldstaris bronze. You've seen that. It's
a beautiful yellow plant coliuses that are all yellow in
the fold. It's just a golden yellow. A little lisamakia.
It's a ground covering vine that has yellow flowers. One
called golden globes. The yellow shrimp plant. For shady areas.
Light colors really brighten up a shade, make it look

(52:58):
really good. They've got plenty of sun loving geraniums, the
ones that can take quite a bit of sunlight out there.
And then of course the gorgeous, just gorgeous cajun hibiscus
and beautiful kriite myrtles, beautiful roses. Yes, you can still
plan all that stuff. Just keep the root zone moist
and then beautiful color. One of my favorite summer plants

(53:20):
is for annual color is summer snap dragon. It's just
angelonia is a proper name for it. It's just a
beautiful plant. They got lots of that at RCW Nursery.
They're the nursery where Tomball Parkway and About Way eight
come together. Makes it really easy to get in and out.
And when you get there, you're gonna find some really
good stuff. We're going to go to sugar Land now

(53:41):
and talk to Stephen. Hello, Stephen, Welcome to garden line. Hello,
good morning, So morning.

Speaker 15 (53:47):
We were gifted at autumn blaze maple tree. It was
about six foot tall and during transport to our property
it broke at the base, so it was done well.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
I noticed a little offshoot there. It was about inch tall,
so I left it.

Speaker 13 (54:07):
Well.

Speaker 15 (54:08):
That thing is now sprouted to about two feet, but
it's got like a bunch of branches.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
It's more like a bush than a tree.

Speaker 15 (54:16):
So I'm wondering should I And it's got one main
branch coming off the side. I should probably just snip
that off right so it could be more of a
tree light, But the straighter ones we'll take over.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Yeah, it had a good root system, so when the
top broke off, it had a lot of energy to
push into growth because it had that good root system.
I don't you can snip off everything but the central trunk,
but what I generally recommend is take your prunters and
just cut the last three or four inches off these
shoots that you don't want to keep. What that does

(54:51):
is it dwarfs them and lets the growth energy go
into the shoot that you're leaving that's going to become
the trunk of your autumn blaze. Uh, and so when
you when you when you do that, they stay small,
but you leave the leaves on them. Because that plant
lost all its leaves when they got broken off. It's
food factories were gone. So I don't want to take

(55:13):
the food factories that it just put out and just
cut them right away again, cut them off again. So
if you tip them though off.

Speaker 15 (55:21):
When the other stopped when the main tree broke, I
mean literally there was nothing left. That offshoot was coming
off the side of the root like a brand new
but it has since sprouted up two feet and I
want I'm thinking I want to cut there's one that's
kind of coming out the side that's actually gotten taller
than the main stalk, So I want to I think

(55:43):
I should just cut.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
It off totally. So so what I'm telling you is
tip that one, cut it back about four inches, and
if it tries to sprout some more on that branch,
cut it back, but leave the leaves that are on
it to benefit you when we get to fall, you
will have tipped it more than once to stop anything
from thinking it's going to become the boss of the
plant and take over and be the trunk like it's

(56:05):
doing right now. And then cut it off when we
get into winter winter printing time, but leave it. We
call that a nurse limb. A nurse limb, you're you're
keeping the leaves on it because that tree is in
shock already and it needs all the food factories that
can get. And then the one you leave unpruned becomes
the main trunk. It will take off and you will

(56:26):
have dwarfed the other one that you don't.

Speaker 5 (56:28):
Want to keep.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
All right, so good good luck with that, you bet,
I wish you, wish you well on that. If you
have not had compost, top dressing or aerration done before,
you need to see it to really understand just how
good that process is, how effective it is. Mbb turfpros
dot com. That is the website to go to to

(56:51):
check it out. BnB turf Pros. They do quality work.
They take care of their customers. It's very important to them.
For them, it's not just like here, I show up,
I do my thing, hand me a check, I'm gone.
It's a relationship for them with their customers. They do
high quality work and customers. They want you to be
happy with what they're doing. That is important and you

(57:13):
will be by the way they do outstanding work. Now,
if you live in the area, let's say from sugar
Land all the way across I six all the way
to Interstate forty five. You know, so Sugarland, Missouri City,
Ciena ar Cola, Manvil, Alvin and then up Pairland friends
would League City, Dickinson forty five. There, that's the region

(57:34):
they serve, and they do quality work. If your lawn
is struggling, if it's thin, if you just can't get
it to grow, you know you fertilize, it's just not
doing well, probably needs some aerration done and core aeration
followed by compost top dressing will really turn it around.
BnB turf Pros only uses top quality materials from Cienamals.
Just these products I talk about here on guarden Line

(57:58):
basically family operation, honest quality work BB no end in
the website. BB Turfpros dot com seven to one three
two three four fifty five ninety eight. We're going to
go now to Archie and U pair Land if I
can get my computer over there. Hey, Archie, I have

(58:19):
just a second here, but I saw that you did
resend me an email. But it has the it has the.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
BTEX tree in it, right, Yeah, that's the one, okay,
and then I'll sent you another one of insect that
was on my my bricks just in the last thirty
mini almost at the same time. But there's a second
one I sent.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
I don't understand this. I got one from units of Itex.
That's all that's in my box. I'm gonna I've got
fifteen seconds. I'm I'm I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to run.
All right, It's fine, give it one give it, give
it one more try, let's try. I'd really like to
help you with this one. H. But I'm just gonna
have to have to go. H. I wish I could,

(59:12):
wish I could find that email. Well, we'll be right back. Alrighty,
we're back. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you
with us. I like hopping music. Keep things going. If
you if you're if you're looking to get your lawn
fertilizing done, you need to go ahead and do so.

Speaker 6 (59:33):
Now.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
It is time. June is the time.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
Now.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
If you're using slow release fertilizers like you hear me
talk about all the time, Uh, there are some outstanding
products out there to do that. Nitrovas has one called
super Turf nitrovas. Super turf is a slow release. It's
going to give you four months of feeding. You put
it down. You put it down now, and you're done.
You're done till fall. When we get to the fall fertilization,

(59:55):
that's when we put on a little more potassium in
our mixes, and that's next time you're going to fertilize.
So we're talking about October there. Probably I would go
ahead and get it done, watered in really good. You're
gonna be okay. Someone called me the other day and
they'd gotten a gully washer rain after they put down superturf,
and they said, I need to fertilize again. I said, no,
you do not. Here's why super turf doesn't just dissolve

(01:00:17):
away like typical salt based fertilizer and just you know,
all gone in a good rain. It releases slowly over time,
and not all the types of nitrogen are going to
be affected by water, so it gets real wet. It
doesn't mean it's all releasing. It's a quality product. It's
in a silver bag and it's from Nitrofoss, and so
you can find nito Foss products, you know, at places

(01:00:40):
like fish Ers Hardware, there's one down in Pasadena, there's
one in La Port, there's one in Bellevue, there's one
in Baytown Stanton Shopping Center, and Alvin carries Night Foss
products as well as does D and D Feed up
in a Tumbole area. By the way, if you haven't
been to D and D Feed, they are three miles
west of two forty nine and tom Ball, so you

(01:01:01):
just head out west, they'll be on the left hand side,
about three miles out. Dover Family open that place and
I believe nineteen eighty nine and it just keeps getting
better and you're gonna find everything you need when it
comes to fertilizers for your loan. And they even carry
things like heirloom soils, heirloom sold bagged products there. They
carry brands of every kind of fertilizer. If you hear

(01:01:22):
me talk about fertilizers here on Guardline, they're going to
have it. At D and DE Feed, they do carry
a complete selection. They have quality pet foods too, brands
like Victor Star Pro Diamond Origin. And if you're dealing
with pass weeds and diseases, their selection of products to
help manage those plant problems is outstanding. You just just

(01:01:46):
head in there again. They're on twenty nine to twenty
three miles west of two forty nine if you want
to get McCall two eight one three five to one
seventy one forty four two eight one three five one
seventy one forty four out there at d And Defeed.
I was in there the other day looking at some
of the products. I always stop into our garden center

(01:02:07):
sponsors periodically, just okay, what's new on the shelf, what
you got, and just really surprised at some of the
specific products that aren't available in a lot of places,
but they definitely have them right there in d And Defeed.
If you are looking to do some pest control in

(01:02:30):
your lawns, you know we've got a number of pests
that begin about this time of the year to either
attack or to be present in some years. And here's
what I mean by that. Chinchbugs the first generation that
we really start dealing with that is a problem in
our lawns. It starts occurring in June, July, August, and

(01:02:51):
the later you get in the summer, the worst the
chinchbug potential and problem is. Doesn't mean you have them
right now that are a problem in your lawn. That
don't mean you have to treat right now. Your lawn
looks good, You're okay, but watch it because chinchbugs could
be coming. Sod webworms another one. Late summer, especially fall,
or late summer and early fall. But that's another one.

(01:03:11):
Doesn't mean you're going to happen. Some years you don't
even know you have them. I mean they're there, they
live in our area, but there's not outbreaks every year,
but boy, when there are, you got to get in
ahead of them. Those are just two prime examples. And
then we've got grubs and grubs. We have two things
we do, or two attempts at the life of the grub.

(01:03:34):
One of them is we typically are doing it in
June when the June bugs there should be called may
bugs around here, but the jumbugs lay eggs and the
little tiny larvae are hatching and feeding near the surface,
and they're easy to get to right then. That's why
June is prime time for treating for them. By the

(01:03:55):
time we get into July in August, the grubs have
started going down in the hot weather, the dryer soils
and stuff. They're moving their way down and they're getting bigger,
and a lot of products don't make it down that far.
And so if you look at my schedule, Skip Richter's
lawn Pest, Disease and weed Management Schedule free online at

(01:04:15):
my website gardeningwith Skip dot com, you'll see what I
just told you about chinchbugside web worms and early grub treatment,
late grub treatment, and it gives you the products that
you can use to control them at those times of
the year. So take a good close look at it.
It's free. It's online, as is my lawn care guide.

(01:04:37):
Our phone number here if you'd like to give me
a call is seven one three two one two ktr
H seven one three two one two k t r H.
We'll be happy to visit about the things that are
of most interest to you. Hey, have you been down
to Intended Gardens? Intended Gardens is a garden center there
in Richmond Rosenberg. In fact, what you do is you

(01:05:00):
just head north of Richmond rosa Berg on the Katie
Fullsher side of Richmond, Okay. The road is FM three
fifty nine out there where all the new neighborhoods have
been being built for a long time now. And boy
is it ever a Great Garden Center. Beautiful, beautiful things.
If you're looking for pollinators, if you're looking for you know,

(01:05:22):
just bringing butterflies and things. If you're looking for summer
color plants that can just survive the heat, I don't care.
If it's plants you need for sun or maybe you
need some plants for shade. They are good to go.
They've got everything. And one of the things that I
always think of first when I think of enchanted gardens

(01:05:43):
is their containers. And the reason is because they have
so many unique containers. Maria there just does some beautiful designs.
You can buy those kind of a rustic iron. It's
almost like a giant, heavy duty wire basket. I don't
know if that's a good description of it or not.
But they line them with liners, fill them with potting soil,

(01:06:03):
and do these mixed containers of all types. I saw
one that was a butterfly container that was gorgeous. It
was in like a galvanized metal container. You gotta have
good drainage for those, but that's easy. It had a
lantana in it, It had milkweed for bringing in the
monarch larvae. It had what oh, it had pipevine, which

(01:06:24):
brings excuse me. Dutchman's pipe brings in the pipeline swallowtail,
a type of that had rue, which is another source
for caterpillar. I mean they're gonna be butterflies on that
lamb eggs for their babies to grow up. All kinds
of good things to eat. What a cool thing. Make
one of those. Set it out there on your patio.
Maybe you know, if you've got a little coffee table

(01:06:45):
equivalent outside there. They got them. Enchanted Gardens FM three
fifty nine Katie fullsher Cider Richmond right down the website.
That's the easiest thing to do. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
By the way, they're open Monday through Saturday from eight
to five and also on Sunday as well, So enjoy

(01:07:06):
yourself Outn't even chinny gardens. I always do when I
go there. So what are we looking at here? I
always have to watch my time and make sure that
I'm not going too long. It always sneaks up with me.
They say time flies when you're having fun, and I'm
always having but here on guard Line, Medina products are
one of those products. Been around a long long time.

(01:07:28):
I do Ecompton back in the fifties. I mean, he
was talking about Medina products long long time ago, and
they have so many good products.

Speaker 6 (01:07:35):
I like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Medina Plus is one of the many things.

Speaker 13 (01:07:38):
That they have.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
It's the regular Medina soil activator, which everybody knows that one,
but it's got over forty different trace elements. It's got
a number of different natural growth hormones put in it,
as well as many other things that help your plants
that thrive. Plants need more than just a few nutrients.
They need lots of nutrients, and they need lots of

(01:07:59):
substances that are part of nature, part of what plants
make too, and they're in Medina Plus. You mix it
in water for transplanting. You can spray it as a
folier if you wish to do that. Uh, it works.
Medina Plus. Where you find Medina products, which is pretty
much everywhere you know. You go into ace hardware stores,
you go into feed stores, you go into our garden centers.

(01:08:19):
You hear me talk about they're all gonna have Medina
products and they work. I've got them on my shelf
and when I'm heading out into the garden, I can
just grab them, mix them in water for whatever I'm doing. Transplanting.
Whatever the activity of the day is, Medina's got a
product there for you. Let's see, I'm gonna have to
run to a break here. When I come back, Tom

(01:08:40):
and Rocheron and David and Tomba, you will be our
first two up. All right, welcome back to Garden Line.
I don't think I've ever played blink one eight two
on guard Line before, but now I have good to
have you with us. If you'd like to give me
a call seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven for if you've got old metal furniture out there

(01:09:02):
in the patio, or maybe you have a decorative things
that are metal, you know, cast iron, wrought iron, aluminum,
patio furniture, any of those things. Houston powder coders can
put a fresh new life into your product. It doesn't
matter if it's rusty. You know, if you get some
old hardware that you need new bolts, they put stainless
steel hardware back in them. They get them refinished. If

(01:09:23):
the straps are worn or the sling fabric is worn,
they fix all of that. And then you have only
one hundred plus colors to shoes from oh my, how
can I ever find a color? And one hundred plus colors.
When they get through, it looks new. It looks absolutely new,
way better than painting. Houston powder Coders dot Com is

(01:09:43):
the website Houston powder Cooders dot com. Give them a
call two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty
eight or email them a picture of what you got
for a free quote sales at houstoncoders dot com. Head
out and out to Tom n Rose Sharon. Hello, Tom,
Welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 10 (01:10:04):
Good morning.

Speaker 12 (01:10:05):
I've got a primacaine variety of blackberries, and this year
they're really produced. And I noticed for the first time
that the cane that produced berry towards the end of production.

Speaker 5 (01:10:20):
It dies.

Speaker 13 (01:10:21):
Is that normal?

Speaker 9 (01:10:23):
It can be?

Speaker 6 (01:10:25):
It can be.

Speaker 10 (01:10:25):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Typically with the non primacaine types, you know, they go
into the second year when they produce and then they
die after the production.

Speaker 6 (01:10:34):
H I have not do you have like.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
Traveler Primark Traveler Primark Freedom? What do you know?

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Okay? Yeah, uh, just just watch and see. I don't
know if you're going to get a second on the primacaine.
I thought they would re sprout some and and and
still do a second, uh, the next year, but I
think they will.

Speaker 12 (01:11:03):
But that that pain that produced all the berries, you know,
or stem whatever you want to call it, that one.

Speaker 13 (01:11:11):
He might have five of those on a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
On your plant.

Speaker 12 (01:11:16):
That stem died after.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Do I cut that all?

Speaker 6 (01:11:22):
What should I do?

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
Yeah? Anytime, I just want any of the black any kind.
It was something else happened, I don't think so. I
mean they blackberries get some little stem splotches, disease splotches,
and other things that can happen to them. But as
long as the rest of your plant looks good, I
think you're okay. But cut it off down near the
ground and that it'll send up new shoots of course,

(01:11:48):
like blackberries do from the base. Yeah, if you want
to send a picture, I can take a look at it,
see if I see anything else on it. But I
would just prien the dead ones. That one's out of there.
Makes it a more manager patch to keep those old
things out of there. Okay, thank you, thanks sir. Appreciate
your call very much. Tom. Those are great blackberries too,

(01:12:10):
by the way, glad to hear that you've got those. Yeah,
I love those, love those things year round. Houston is
a company that comes out and does cor aeration in
compasstop dressing, and they do an awesome job of it.
They use quality materials, so when you go to year
Round Houston, you're going to get something that is going

(01:12:32):
to help your lawn to just be rejuvenated. It's going
to breathe new life in the soil. The cor aeration
they do gets the oxygen down in the root system.
It helps break up that dense clay soil that gets compacted,
and that's one of the problems for plants that are
trying to grow in that kind of a mass. And
then the compost stop dressing provides a coating over the soil.

(01:12:54):
Some of it falls into the whole microbes go crazy,
they decompose it away, the lawn just gets better. They
cover the area inside the Beltway, So that's where we
talk about him. Here on Guardenline is our inside the
Beltway compost stop dressing and core Aeration. The website year
round Houston dot com, Year Round Houston dot Com. The

(01:13:15):
phone number eight three two eight eight four fifty three
thirty five. Go out now to Baytown and we're going
to talk to Wayne.

Speaker 6 (01:13:23):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Hello, Wayne, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:13:26):
Oh well, welcome back here. A two weeks ago, the
city prepared a water main leak in my Saint Augustine
yard and the filter that they brought back in has
a bunch of Johnson grass.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
So really and they and they didn't charge you extra.
They didn't charge you extra for Johnson grasst.

Speaker 13 (01:13:47):
I got the Johnthon grats.

Speaker 6 (01:13:48):
I got the Johnthan grass free.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
Oh what a deal. Oh my gosh. Well, you know,
Johnson grass got those underground rhizomes and so hand digging
it out. I know it's in your yards. It's kind
of hard, but you kind of date out, put the
grass back down and watered down. That is an option.
But the other option would be to use my weed
wiper Wayne. I don't know if you've been to my website,

(01:14:12):
but it's gardening with Skip dot com and on there
is a publication called Skip's Weedwiper tells you how to build.
It's really easy to build, and you can put anything
on it that kills grass. I mean, it could be
a grass only killer, or it could be something like glyphosate.
And you put it on the sponges and that Johnson
grass comes up higher than your lawn. So you can

(01:14:33):
easily wipe it on the leaves without even stooping over
with my weed wiper tool, and it translocates down and
kills the Johnson grass. It's good for any killing anything
that's coming up above your lawn, or for getting underneath
like a rosebush, to kill a poison ivy that's coming
up under there. It's a very versatile tool.

Speaker 6 (01:14:54):
Oh can I just spray it with spectracide weed stop
for lawns with a Let's see it supposed to have
atrosine in it, I.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Don't unless it's a very young seedling still stage, I
don't think it's gonna give you good effect. I don't
think you're gonna get what you're looking for out of it.
You're gonna be extra careful with that atrocine too. Atrazine
is primarily something we use as a pre emergent and

(01:15:31):
what we say early post emergent. While the little seedlings
are young, it'll still kill them. But I don't think
johnsonngrass coming from rhizomes is gonna be killed by it.
I'd have to check into that to be sure, but
I don't think so. All righty, I find your weed
wipper gardening with skip dot Com gardening with skip dot com.

(01:15:54):
When you see it, just see a picture of it,
you go, oh, okay, I know how to build one
of those, but it walks you through. It's really easy
to do, and I use it for all kinds of things. Yeah,
you bet, Thanks Wayne. I appreciate your call very very
very much, that is for sure. Uh Yeah. The weed
wiper is a handy little tool, and I encourage you

(01:16:14):
to check them out. Try them out, see how you
like it. Jorges Hidden Gardens down there in Alvin, Texas.
It's on Elizabeth Street and Alvin. Someone called today and
talked about how they've enjoyed Horae. Well, of course they did.
He's got all kinds of good things. He serves that
whole region Alvin, Santa Fe Hillcrest, Algoo or Katie Alta
Loma just south of the Highway six between Alvin and

(01:16:36):
Santa Fe on Elizabeth Street seven to one three six
three to two fifty two. Ninety's got a lot more
citrus than other kinds of fruit trees in He's got
beautiful roses and crape myrtles and all kinds of things.
He keeps a good stock of trees and other things
at Jorges Hidden Gardens at your garden center down south
of the Houston area. And see here, we've got to

(01:17:01):
no time left, think Charles. I'm gonna probably have to
pick you up right after the top of the hour.
If you want to hang on, you can do that,
or you can call back if you don't mind holding
I'll be back with you when we come back at
the top of the hour. You're listening to garden Line. Hey,
I got a special guest coming up halfway through the

(01:17:22):
eight o'clock hour. You are gonna love this. Don't go away.
She will be here also, by the way, in the
nine o'clock hour. It's doctor Juvanna Rangello Posada. She is
a honey bee expert. And I'm telling you you're gonna
learn things that are fascinating and some things that are
practical too, like how do you take care of your

(01:17:43):
bees around the landscape? How do you not kill your
bees or hurt them around the landscape? She knows it all.
We're gonna have her here. Can't wait to talk to her.
Hang around. Time to go get a cup of coffee
for now, We'll be right back, all right, folks, Welcome

(01:18:04):
back to garden Line. Good to have you good heavy
with us. We're looking forward to visiting with you about
the kinds of questions that you have. You can give
me a call it seven one three two one two
k t r H. Seven to one three two one
two kt r H. You hear me talk about the
importance of taking care of the soil before you plant,

(01:18:27):
fixing the soil, getting it right, getting it ideal, creating
the perfect environment for plant roots. If you make roots happy,
you're going to make the plant happy. And if the
plant's happy, it's going to grow. It's going to make
give you roses. It's going to give you tomatoes, it's
going to give you beautiful green foliage. Whatever you're growing
that plant for, it starts in the soil. And see

(01:18:48):
in a mulch is the spot where you get everything
you need for making the soil bank account perfect for
the plant. That would include things like compost, that would
incl things like maltz. That would include things like bed
mixes like the Veggian or mix for marylom soils. You
can get that at cienamalt That would include the nutrients

(01:19:09):
that go into the soil, products from microlife and asamite
and Nelson's plant food and nitrefoss and medina. They have
it all. So when you go to Cienamltch and go
home and put their products to work, and then you
get your wonderful plants you're so excited about, you know,
go into the garden center getting your plants and you're

(01:19:30):
bringing them home. Well, you're putting them into the perfect
spot for them to thrive. That is cnamals. Cnimalts dot
com is the website. Go there. You can find their
hours there by the way, they're open today from seven
thirty to two that we close tomorrow, but they're on
FM five point twenty one kind of near where Highway
six and two eighty eight are. Okay, so Sienna Maltz

(01:19:52):
dot com. That's what you need to know. Go check
it out and then get the products and do not
do not put a plant in the ground with out
preparing the soil, and Cienamals can help you do just that.
And head out now to the woodlands and visit with Charles. Hey, Charles,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:20:12):
Pay sad. Thanks.

Speaker 13 (01:20:13):
So this year I've got this weed in my Saint
Augustine lawn and it kind of looks like the small
version of a mimosa plant or mi mosa tree. Yes,
and I'm not sure what it is, and I'm not
sure what I do to kill the weed and not

(01:20:36):
the lawn when temperatures are in the mid nineties. So
what advice do you have for me on that?

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
Yeah, that's called chamber better and just to make sure
we do have the right weed, because there's more than
one weed with mimosa like foliage. If you look underneath
that little pettiole coming off the stem with all the
little leaflets lined up along it, you should see little
balls underneath, a little tiny It could be a little
bit of a flower looking thing, or it could just
be a little kind of a fuzzy sphere underneath the

(01:21:07):
edge of that. That's chamber bitter, very difficult to control.
When you have it, and it's a problem in your lawns,
then putting a pre emergent herbicide out is the best
way to prevent those seeds from coming up, because they'll
be back every year. So that would include there's a
product called Gallery that's actually pretty good for that. It

(01:21:30):
controls broad leaf weeds specifically, it doesn't control grassy weeds,
but it works pretty good for that, and so you're
gonna need to apply it probably, ah boy, I would
say maybe April, sometime in April, probably between maybe as
late as early May. But the chamber bitter sprout's late

(01:21:54):
and so but you don't want to wait too late
until it's already sprouted. But gallery will do it post emergent. Wise,
it's hard to find something that's not going to hurt
your your turf grass. I have not seen anybody try
Celsius on chamber bidder as a post emergent application yet.

(01:22:15):
I think that it probably would do pretty good, but
I'm not sure. So I'm saying that with a big
caveat on it. You would have to test it out
to see Celsius is a product that even if it's
in the low nineties, it's not going to hurt your grass.

Speaker 13 (01:22:33):
Okay, thanks Gip, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
You bet good luck with that. Appreciate the call. Yeah,
I need to check into that well, Celsius control chamber bidder.
That's a good question.

Speaker 13 (01:22:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
It's interesting. There's so many products, and there's so many
weeds and diseases and insects, and then the products change
and then they change their name. On the products like
it's like a twenty four seven three sixty five job,
just trying to keep up with everything that is out
there going on. Hey, if you'd like to give me
a call seven one three two one two k t

(01:23:06):
r H. Seven one three two one two k t
r H. Look forward to having you here. On garden Line.
Nilsen Plant Food, they have a product called turf Star
Slow and Easy. It's part of the turf Star line.
Turfstars all their fertilizers for your lawn. Turf Star Slow
and Easy is a very gradual release of nutrients for

(01:23:27):
four plus months out there. So you put it down
now you're covered all the way up until your fall fertilization.

Speaker 6 (01:23:33):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:23:34):
It has some ingredients in it that are somewhat acidifying
to the soil. Now our when our as our shall
pH gets high, that's when you start to see, especially
in your Saint Augustine, the iron deficiency, the yellowing in
your turf, and so anything we do to keep the
pH down helps reduce iron chlorosis. So you don't want
to raise your pH. You don't want to send your

(01:23:55):
phosphorus through the roof. That's that mental number on the
fertilizer bag. Those all promote ourn chlorosis and we want
to bring it down. So turf Star Slow and Easy
does just that. The blend of nutrients is right, the
fact that it does the acidifying, it's got a beneficial
effect really on the soul microbes, and some of the

(01:24:17):
forms of nutrients that it puts out are actually can
be utilized as well. So turf Star Slow and Easy
from the folks at Nelson Plant Food. Many great products
from Nelson, from the turf Star line to the nutri
Star line, which is fertilizers. You get a little jars
a fertilizer for every kind of plant you can imagine,
like booga and villia for example, and then the nutri

(01:24:40):
Star for palms and ornamental grasses. Good time to be
applying that too, works very very well. By the way,
do you know that palm trees are actually a grass
type plant. That's why we say palms and ornamental grasses.
From the folks at Nelson in the Nutri Star. If
you'd like to give me a call, we're gonna take

(01:25:00):
a little break here, but you can be first up
seven to one three two one two k t r
H seven one three two one two k t rh OH.
By the way, I wanted to mention, I'm still seeing
gray leaf spot out in the lawns now things really
heat up. The gray leaf spot tends to subside some
on us. But when we have high humidity or wet

(01:25:21):
grass surfaces so it could be rainfall shade, it doesn't
dry as fast in shade, so you tend to see
more gray leaf spots. Sometimes in shady areas you're running
the irrigation too long that or too often that promotes
gray leaf spot. To fight it, there's a product called
Eagle Turf fungicide. It's a systemic fungicide. It protects against

(01:25:44):
attack by a number of diseases, including gray leaf spot.
But it also is a curative in that it moves
up into the plant, the roots take it up, and
then moves it up into the plant and makes that
plant protected. It's kind of an antibiotic, I guess in
our system, you know, and fighting disease and stuff that's
equal to her fungicide.

Speaker 2 (01:26:03):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
And it's from the folks at nitrofoss And you're gonna
find night frost products at places like M and D
on Beamer and Saegemont, M and D and Clairelake. Uh,
you're gonna find it at oh, I know it plays.
If you go up to Acid Single Ranch or Aspose's
up in the woodlands, you're gonna find nitro FoST products
up there as well. Let's take a little break and

(01:26:24):
I'll be back with your calls. Seven one three two
one two ktr H. All right, we're back, folks. Good
to have you with us. Hey, you got a gardening question.
Seven one three two one two ktr H. I want
to give me a call and we'll help you with that.
By the way, starting at eight thirty, coming up just
a little bit here, we are going to have a

(01:26:44):
special guest. Doctor Juliana Rangel Posada is going to be
on and she is a researcher on honeybees in uh
tex A and m up in college station. Boy, does
she ever have a lot of good information on bees.
Number one, You're gonna be fascinated. It is really cool
information that we're talking about. But also we're going to
talk a little bit about bees related to our gardening.

(01:27:07):
You know, what things we spray affect bees, how do
we take care of bees, and what are some of
the issues that we have. Dealer with bees. So anyway
you can enjoy that she's going to be with us
from eight thirty all the way through the end of
the show today, all the way through up to ten o'clock.
So stay tuned, and you know, if you got any
kiddos around, they might be interested in bee keeping or

(01:27:28):
learning about bees. I think that they will really enjoy
it as well. I was checking out Spring Creek Feed,
which is up there in the Tombul areas north actually
toward a Magnolia direction on FM twenty nine seventy eight,
So think of northeast of Tumbule, just a few minutes
away from Grant Parkway and Highway to forty nine. They

(01:27:50):
carry all the fertilizers that we talk about from turf
Star that's the Nelson line, microlife and nitroposs as well
as all kinds of things to control pests, weeds and
diseases in your landscape. When you go in there, you're
going to be greeted by friendly, courtious staff. They just
it's just a I enjoy going in there. You walk
in and first when you look straight ahead, you see

(01:28:11):
all this cool stuff you know, for your home and
other things and caps and decorations, all kinds of you.
Just think, am I in the right place? And then
you look to the left and there's all the dog
food and other things, high quality lines like Victor Purina.
And then you look to the right and there's your
gardens products, products to control weeds and diseases and pests,

(01:28:32):
fertilizers and whatnot. It's all there at Spring Creek Feed. Hey,
if you are in the military or a senior citizen,
there are discounts. Just ask them about it. They can
do special orders and they do delivery service that's available
as well. Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM twenty
nine seventy eight. Fun place. I promise you enjoy going

(01:28:53):
in there. You probably go home with some stuff for
your house too, because they got all kinds of good
stuff as well. ACE Hardware stores all over the Greater
Houston area. When I say Greater Houston area, I'm talking
all the way down you know, Rockport, Texas, And for example,
there's an there is an ACE Hardware store on in

(01:29:14):
Port Lavaca on Calhoun Plaza on Rockport on State Highway
thirty five. Of course, here in the Houston area we've
got them. We've got K and M out in Kingwood
on Kingwood Drive, and the one in a Taska Seeda
on timber Forest Drive. If you are in Spring on
Rayford Road, there's an All Star Ace there. There's All
Seasons Ace up on Interstate forty five in Willis up north,

(01:29:38):
and then on the east side we've got Uvaldi Ace
and New Valdi Road, Deer Park Ace on Center Street,
and Child's Buildings Supply on North sixteenth Way out there
in Orange. And I could just go on and on
and on. Lots of east hardware stores. Here's how to
find yours. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. That's my garden line,

(01:29:58):
ACE Hardware group that through the this whole region. Ace
Hardwaretexas dot Com. Go check them out. And by the way,
just the tip. Lots of good things for the patio outdoors.
Of course, they got all the fertilizers. You hear me
talking about U and barbecue pits. That is my latest obsession.
I'm becoming a barbeque nut. And it all started with

(01:30:19):
a really cool bet from Ace Hardware. Uh you are
listening to Guardline phone number seven one three two one
two k t r H. When we get past the
eight thirty hour, I'm going to be focusing the calls
more on things that are related to bees. So we've
got uh, you know, doctor Rangel here at the starting

(01:30:42):
just after eight thirty. So if you have a question
about bees, or taking care of bees, or be keeping
in general, or be issues and things, this would be
a good time to call. Maybe you heard some fun
factor about bees, you want to check it out. We'll
be visiting with her. It's going to be a fireside chat,
no lecture here, just enjoying ourselves talking about the wonderful
world of bees. I listened to a book on tape.

(01:31:06):
I can listen on tape as I'm driving, and when
I have to sit and read, I can't get so
many books, so little time, That's what I'm saying. But anyway,
it's called Honeybee Democracy. I'm gonna talk with her a
little bit about some of the things in that book
as well. But if you are wanting to have your
mind belong on the world of honeybees and how they
communicate and what they do and how they make decisions,

(01:31:27):
and even how that applies to human decision making, it is.
It's mind bodling. It's so cool. Anyway, I'd recommend that
book Honeybee Democracy really good one. I wanted to before
we do take a break here. The Plumerius Society of
America is having their annual show and sale right now

(01:31:52):
today at the Bay in Clearlake Bay Area Community Center.
It's on Nasa Road one in Seabrook, Texas, and they're
going to have a lot of plumeria growers with their
their lines and things out there. They you can join
the Plumera Society if you'd like to do that. Some
cool raffle tickets. But again, it started at nine am,

(01:32:14):
and oh it starts at nine am and it will
go until one pm. So after garden Line today head
over there. Head over to the Plumaria Society of America's
Show and sale. It is at the clear Lake Bay
Area Community Center on Nasa Road Highway Won in Seabrook, Texas.
You will love it, I have to warn you. Plummerias,

(01:32:35):
like a lot of other specific types of plants, are addictive.
You get in there and you start. Next thing, you know,
you know, Hawaii, you'll be calling you saying, hey, we're
running out of flowers, per lays, can you send us
some of yours? Because it's a lot of fun. A
lot of fun to do that. Well, I wanted to, Oh,
I know, I know what Moss Nursery. I had not

(01:32:57):
talked about Moss nurserying a bit. That is a cool
garden center. Moss Nursery is done in Seabrook, Texas. And listen,
this place has been around a very long time. Moss
Nursery eight acres to wander through eight acres and beautiful trees.
Don't worry about the heat. Just get out there. Lots
of shade trees. It's wonderful. When you go there, you

(01:33:19):
are going to find so much blank. They have some
of those wall planters for example. Uh, they're just some
of them are like Mexican tallavera, you know, with all
the colors and painting and everything. Others are more plain
and they attached to a wall. And then you just
plant something that cascades down, you know, maybe a string
of fill in the blank succulent. It may be something

(01:33:43):
like a dichondra, the silver pony foot dichondra is beautiful
for that. Do you have shady areas, You're not going
to find a better coalladium supply than at Moss Nursery
and Seabrook or or Colius for that matter. You just
need to go check them out. They're on Toddville Road
and Seabrook, Texas. Here's the website, Moss Nursery dot com.

(01:34:03):
Moss is spelled m a A S m a a
S Nursery dot com. I was in their greenhouse for houseplants.
I always go there and their selection is unbelievable and
they have everything from little starter plants like if you

(01:34:24):
just you know, want to kind of go get started,
and maybe a string of pearls or something like that
you want to just get a little plant for that,
or if you want like this giant staghorn fern hanging
from a chain under your trees, you can buy that there.
I mean, they've got it all, succulents, you name it.
Their pottery selection is incredible too, really really nice selection

(01:34:46):
of pottery. They know what they're doing, they know how
to take care of things. Let's head out on the phones.
We're going to go now to Northwest Houston and talk
to Rosemary. Hey, Rosemary, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (01:34:58):
Thank you for taking my call. We recently bought a
small plumbia and we would like to repot it into
a larger pot and we are wondering what soil we
could put it in. I did look on the Plumbia
Society site and it seemed to want you to buy
three different products and mix them together, and it didn't

(01:35:18):
even give what proportions of each one. So yeah, rather
buy three products, we'd love to be able to just
buy one thing and put it in it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:28):
So any any suggestion, right, Well, Plumeria is are you
know they store a lot of moisture in their trunks
and leaves and everything. They need a well drained soil.
They don't want to be in a swamp. So I
didn't I have them beento that site to look at
their mix. But I'm sure it's got some chunky pearl
light or something like that, and it probably there are

(01:35:48):
white things that you see in potting soil and you
can buy those by a small bag at any garden center.
You know, you probably find them at Ace hardware stores
and other places like that. So you can take a
standard potting soil. I might take the one, and Airline
Soils has a standard one type of potting soil, and
then they've got one for succulents that is a little

(01:36:09):
grittier that would also work well, and you could even
put a little bit of pearlite in those if you
wanted to loosen them up just a little bit more.
Just know that your potting soils break down over time
and they go from being kind of a looser, chunkier
to more of a mucky, decomposed down material, so occasionally
you're going to have to kind of spruce those up

(01:36:30):
a little bit. Plumarias are very tolerant of being being
messed with like that, right. I bet you've went to
the show and Sail today. I bet they'd have some
soils for sale down there too, Okay.

Speaker 7 (01:36:44):
I know that we were pulling it out every winter
and probably storing it in the garage, so at that
point we could change out even the potting soil once
a year. And yes, okay, so that would probably be
a good idea.

Speaker 5 (01:36:56):
To do that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
That's what I would do. I think that it's going
to be your best bet on those, so yeah, just
do that. I would. I would do the airloom soils
potting soil, and probably the succulent type of mix would
be good, and maybe add a little bit of pearl
like to it, which is easy to find. Okay, Rosemary.
Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Enjoy those

(01:37:18):
plume areas that you have. We're gonna go real quick,
George and Jersey Village. I just got about thirty seconds here,
but let's see if we can help you with those
tomato plants. What's your question?

Speaker 6 (01:37:28):
Okay, they're cherry tomato.

Speaker 13 (01:37:30):
They're absolutely delicious. I don't know what time they are,
but their skin outside is like shoe leather.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
Gotcha, I know it's no what you got. It's the heat, George.
It's the heat and that happens. It just you can't
stop it. There's nothing to fix it. It's just the
temperatures we're dealing with. You chew on the tomatoes and
spit out the cellophane. That's about the best advice that
I can get you. There's not a not a fix,
but thank you. I appreciate that call. And at least

(01:38:01):
with cherry tomates, you have fruit in the summer. That's
the plus on those folks. We're going to take a break.
We'll be right back with doctor Juliana Rangell. All right,
welcome back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we are here to help you have a bountiful garden,
a beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. Don't
forget that last part. It's supposed to be fun. Well,

(01:38:21):
I am privileged this morning to have doctor Jilliana Rangell
as my guest. Welcome to Guarden Line, Doctor Engele, it's
good to have you here.

Speaker 3 (01:38:30):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
Skip Now we have talked on a different radio station
long time ago. Doctor Angel is a bee researcher, and
I'm going to let you tell them about what you
do and some of the interests.

Speaker 5 (01:38:42):
That you have.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:38:43):
Sure, I'm professor of apaculture in the Department of Entomology
at Texas A and M University here in college station, all.

Speaker 1 (01:38:51):
Right, and you do various kinds of things, specifically kind
of focusing on honeybees.

Speaker 3 (01:38:58):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (01:38:58):
So I am.

Speaker 3 (01:38:59):
They be research faculty at A and M.

Speaker 9 (01:39:03):
We recently hired someone for the first time ever in
the history I think of Texas A and M Agrilife
that is doing apiculture extension. Okay, but I am basically
sixty percent research, thirty percent teaching at the college level,
and service ten percent service.

Speaker 3 (01:39:24):
So the smallest the research that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
We do in the lab.

Speaker 13 (01:39:26):
So for those of you.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):
I'm familiar with the line Grende system. We have a
researching component, a research component, a teaching component, and an
extension component. An extension basically is taken the university of
the people. Wherever you live in the two hundred and
fifty four counties of Texas, there's an extension office that
serves you, and the agents there have access to our
specialists at the university and at various centers across the state.

(01:39:51):
And so that's kind of that. I like the way
that they give us percentages, but really it's one hundred
percent this one hundred percent and undred that's exactly right. Yes,
those percentages don't stay in their boxes very well. That's
well good.

Speaker 13 (01:40:06):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
I had asked doctor Rangel to come on the show
today because I was listening to a book called honeybe Democracy,
and I don't even know how to describe that book.
But for those of you who are not knowledgeable about bees,
you know, like doctor angell Is, you listen to it
and you just go that just blows my mind. I

(01:40:29):
had no idea, I had no idea, and the ways
that they figure out how bees decide and think and
do what they do, it's just fascinating. But anyways, listen
to this book on tape driving down there, and all
of a sudden he talks about his former graduate assistant.
I think doctor Wrangell is like, I know that lady,
and it reminded me to have Hey, I need to

(01:40:50):
have you come in and we need to talk sometimes.
That's a great book.

Speaker 9 (01:40:53):
Yeah, it's a great book for basically almost anybody. It's
a you don't have to have any expert teasing bees.
You just want to have some curiosity about the natural world.
And Tom Seeley, who I'm lucky to call my PhD advisor.
He's a wonderful writer. So it just makes people understand

(01:41:16):
very difficult concepts in a very digestible, easy fun way.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
He is an outstanding writer. And for those of you
who don't feel like you have time to sit down
for a book, do it on tape, because I'm telling
you it is the easiest listening. If you got a
four hour trip you're going somewhere, well you need to
make that trip about two or three times, but you
just need to plug that in and listen to it.
It is so cool. So I was one of the

(01:41:41):
things he talks about in the book, I never I'd
never wondered how bees find a place to live and
decide if they should live there and stuff. But if
you think about this, folks, you're honeybees and your colony
is expanding, and it's time for one queen to go
off with some of the colony and find a new home.
How do they find that home and how do they decide?

(01:42:03):
You know, the whole colitay doesn't fly all over the
place checking out each hone. They have people that people
I'm gonna anthropomorphized a lot on bees, I'm sorry, But
they go out and they find places, and they have
ways of measuring how big they are, because if the colony,
if the cavity quality or quantity isn't large enough, they're
not going to be able to throw up enough honey

(01:42:24):
to make through the winter and other things. I'm sitting
here talking like I'm telling talking right, I'm telling you,
But how did that When those bees come back, how
do they tell the colony about that place? And what
if five bees come back and they all have a
different place they think is where they should live. How
do they decide? And in the process of this book,
you're not just going to learn about honey bees. But
you're gonna learn some very interesting things. He does such

(01:42:46):
a great job of showing how even our human decision
making can be can be beneficially influenced by what we've
learned from the bee world.

Speaker 6 (01:42:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:42:56):
One of the interesting and nowog things but that he
talks about is that honeybees are all working towards the
same goal because they're highly genetically related.

Speaker 3 (01:43:09):
They're all basically sisters.

Speaker 9 (01:43:10):
All the workers in the colony are daughters of the
same mother queen, and so they have all the same
interests and they work together for the benefit of the colony.
And we definitely can learn a lot from bees and
trying to build in a more communal way.

Speaker 1 (01:43:32):
Yeah, you know, we have different opinions, like I think
this is great, but you haven't seen that thing. And
you think that is great and I haven't seen that thing.
So how does it not become about me? I want
my place to be the one that with How does
it become what is really the best decision in this group?
And boyd, could we ever improve on that aspect?

Speaker 6 (01:43:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:43:52):
The decision making process of what is talked about in
honeybee democracy. He Doctor C talks about town hall meetings,
and how we could learn from the bees in how
to proceed with those types of decision making processes using humans.

Speaker 3 (01:44:12):
So it's really interesting.

Speaker 9 (01:44:13):
Yeah, I can tell you about the story of how
bees move into their new home.

Speaker 3 (01:44:18):
It's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:44:19):
Actually, well, why why don't we do a little bit
about that. I tell you. One of the things in
the book that fascinated me, as you know, a science
manu person, was the things they did to figure out
the answers to the questions, like the part where they
glued down a little certain gland flap over the bees
body so they could exclude that from being the way

(01:44:42):
that they put a pheromone or something out, you know,
and coming to the it's like these guys are thinkers. Yeah, fascinating.

Speaker 9 (01:44:50):
Yeah, So we had the bees have so many glands
on their bodies to produce so many pheromones, and so
if you want to know if a certain pheromone has
to deal with a specific type of behavior, then you
have you have to block those glands from releasing the

(01:45:15):
pharaomon and see if you get the same result.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
Yeah, yeah, that is fascinating. Well, you know how I
hate to have to take a break when we're right
in the middle of a great conversation. We're gonna take
a little break here, go to a quick break. Call
your friends and tell them to tune in the Garden Line.
They got to hear this stuff. We've got some really
cool stuff coming up. I promise you you're gonna love it.
And also get your kids. Your kids need to know
about these things. We'll be right back all right, Das,

(01:45:38):
Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us.
If you just tuned in, we're talking to doctor Julian Rangel.
Julana is a researcher in bees and also a teacher
at Texa and M University in the entomology department, and
we are picking her brain as best we can this morning,
and we're going to tie this back not just to
the fascination of bees, which is alone. I could talk

(01:46:00):
for a week with her really just picking her brain
on that, but on what do we do as gardeners
because of what we know now about bees? And doctor Ango,
would you talk a little bit about some of the
work that you're doing, some of the research that you're doing,
and then maybe we'll do some application of that from
a home garden standpoint.

Speaker 9 (01:46:19):
Sure, so we have a lot of different projects going
on in the lab at all times. I have anywhere
from two to five graduate students working on different projects
at any given time. But right now, the most exciting
project is a USDA funded grant that is exploring the
effect of diet on honeybee health at the individual and

(01:46:45):
the colony level. So we have a postdoctoral researcher, doctor
Kanan Money and a graduate student Gustafa working with my colleague,
doctor Spence Beemer, who is a nutrition ecologists in the
Department of Entomology, looking at the quality of the food

(01:47:08):
that the bees are collecting in a different landscape level.
So we have agricultural landscapes, rural landscapes, and urban landscapes,
and so we're collecting pollen from well, we put pollen
traps on the colonies to collect the pollen that they
are getting around their colonies. And then we're doing performing

(01:47:30):
the all the nutritional content analysis, elemental analysis fatty acid
analysis of all these pollens, looking at protein content and
lipid content, carbohydrate content at different times of the year.

Speaker 3 (01:47:45):
And so we find that.

Speaker 9 (01:47:48):
Not surprisingly that the quality of food varies depending on
the location. Actually, urban sites have a decent amount of
nutritional quality, which you would sometimes think, well, maybe not
an urban settings, there's a whole lot of variety, but
there actually is variety around urban areas in Houston actually

(01:48:10):
where we collect our urban urban sites, but that the
nutritional quality changes throughout the year.

Speaker 1 (01:48:20):
So what what what is this leading us to kind
of understand in terms of like, let's say I'm a
gardener and I want to support honey bees or maybe
a bee keeper in the backyard, and so what does
the kind of information you guys are learning as you
do this really ongoing research? Uh, tell us about how

(01:48:40):
do we plant?

Speaker 9 (01:48:42):
Yeah, the the key is diversity. Diversity, plant diversity. You
want polyfloral diets at all times of the year.

Speaker 3 (01:48:53):
So the spring is the.

Speaker 9 (01:48:55):
Time of a bountiful garden and wildlinscape. We all know that,
but we need to pay close attention to summer months
in the fall and provide bees with not just diverse pollen,
but also large enough patches of the same resource so

(01:49:17):
that they can come get something really good to eat
and then go and communicate it to their nest mate
so that they can come in a bigger group to
collect from the same nutritional plant.

Speaker 3 (01:49:31):
Because if you only have one or.

Speaker 9 (01:49:32):
Two little flowers per per plant type, then the bees
are just gonna get like a little taste, but they
can't get enough that is a you know, a large
enough amount for it to be worth it nutritionally in
the colony.

Speaker 3 (01:49:47):
So bigger patches of polyfloral seasonal diets, it's the key.

Speaker 1 (01:49:54):
So a variety of different kind of like us, we
shouldn't just eat hamburgers. We need to make our diet up, uh,
and so doing that and then you mentioned something about
user word patches. A lot of times as gardeners, you know,
we go to the garden center and we buy a zennion,
we buy a petunia, and you know, just a few
flowers and for the bees, that's like there's not a

(01:50:17):
lot there right quantity wise. So to use a really
silly analogy, it's like we need to turn our backyard
into a Bucky's where when you drive in, you drive out,
you tell your friends you got to go to that place.
You have got to go check in clean bathrooms, clean bathrooms.
I don't know beesney bathrooms. But you want to create

(01:50:39):
a garden that they feel that way about, meaning they
go back to the hive and there's a lot. And
I've noticed in my garden that there are some plants
that are just good bee plants. Now, now we say
bees as if it's one thing, but we're talking primarily
honey bees right.

Speaker 3 (01:50:55):
Now, but old types of bees pollinators.

Speaker 9 (01:50:59):
Yeah, and we are finding in our research that bees
actually get to decide what food they go for. So
they're not they're not randomly eating. I mean, one thing
is whatever is available at that time of day of
you know, in March or April or May. But out

(01:51:19):
of what's available, they're actually picking and choosing based on
the nutritional quality of the food. Okay, so they're not
eating at random or equal amounts of every food. They
actually kind of shop around for nutrients that they may
be lacking, really, and so they go and get it
from from whatever plant is providing that.

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
I would I would not make a good bee. I
have my favorites, you know. I mean, if enchiladas I
could live on those and nothing, I could have them
for breakfast. So that's interesting that they that they go
out and that they do that so a little bit.
See we've got three minutes here or less before the
next break. But you were talking about how bees decide

(01:52:05):
where they're going to go and do things. So tell
us a little bit about the process of like food finding,
and then whybe'll come back to food finding.

Speaker 9 (01:52:14):
So when a forager bee which is the name for
those that collect food, finds a nutritional source like either pollen,
which is the source of protein for honeybees, or nectar,
which is a source of carbohydrates, they want to tell
others that there's a really good food source. So they
come back to the colony and they perform something called

(01:52:34):
the waggle dance. Calvon Frish received a Nobel Price in
Medicine and Physiology for his discoveries of the waggle dance
in nineteen seventy three. Yes, it's an a shaped motion
that has a waggle phase component in the middle of.

Speaker 3 (01:52:53):
The eight shaped figure.

Speaker 9 (01:52:55):
The duration of that waggle phase is correlated with the
distance to which the which the food is located and
the angle of that.

Speaker 3 (01:53:06):
Waggle phase. It's not random, it's exactly.

Speaker 9 (01:53:11):
Correlated with the direction at which the food is and
so they can communicate exactly where that BUCkies is.

Speaker 1 (01:53:17):
So you're inside a dark hive and I'm already blown
by the fact that they can make perfect six sided
uniform containers and straight lines in the dark. I couldn't
do that with the lights on.

Speaker 9 (01:53:28):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):
And but they're doing this dance and the bees are
watching the dance at the angle of it, so when
they leave the hive, they know, you know, how far
to fly. And then the I think what I learned
from honeybee democracy is their excitement and the number of
times they cycle this dance also is like, are going
you guys have got to see this BUCkies. You know,

(01:53:50):
it's more than just.

Speaker 9 (01:53:51):
The figure of the dance. How many times they do
this dance per unit time. How excited they are is shown.
And also the smell that they have on their body
tells them, well, there's the petunia that we're going for.
Because the smell of the pollen on their body is

(01:54:12):
kind of telling them, well, when you get close in,
go for this smell.

Speaker 3 (01:54:16):
And that's the one that I'm that's.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
Amazing, that's amazing. Well, gosh, when it comes to the
bees and the bringing them into the garden, I've noticed
certain kinds of flowers. And I got to stop hearing
about ten seconds of music from start playing. We'll keep
talking into the music, but I found some that the

(01:54:38):
bees just really really love. They like Munarda, which is
bee bomb or bird. They love the basils. There's a
basil called African blue that just makes a big bush
full of flowers and it is loaded with bees all
the time. There's I know, the vitext they used to
call a beekeeper's fround because it's blooming now and bees

(01:54:58):
and there's a lot of itexts around.

Speaker 3 (01:55:02):
I haven't ten of those in my oh yeah house.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
Yeah, and they love them. So there's things we can
plant that are special favorites of them that would be good.
And then en mass there is another thing you've talked about,
so not just a few flowers and then covering the season.

Speaker 6 (01:55:18):
So that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:55:19):
We won't have time to go into all the flowers
here today during an interview, but as we go on
on guard Line, I'm gonna talk about that more in
the weeks to come about what are the flowers for
summer and fall and even the cool seasons of the year.
The bees aren't as acted, but they are out and
about a bit. Yeah in our content.

Speaker 9 (01:55:35):
As long as they're the temperature is warm enough, maybe
above fifty degrees, they will go and get food.

Speaker 1 (01:55:45):
Sounds good. We'll be right back, folks. Don't go away. Hey,
welcome back to Guardline.

Speaker 6 (01:55:52):
Folks.

Speaker 1 (01:55:53):
I'm okay right to say shirt because I want to
every second we possibly can with our guests this morning.
Doctor Julian Range is ab researcher at Texas A and
M Agrilife at TEXA and M University. She's also a
professor there at the campus, and we're visiting with her
about all things bees, specifically honeybees, but bees in general.

(01:56:14):
And I wanted to come back. We were talking about
honeybee democracy and you were discussing the waggle dance and
how it says, hey, these flowers are so awesome. There's
a BUCkies. I'm beside myself over there. You got to
all go to this one place and all the bees
know exactly where to go, and that's nice. What other
kinds of things about the waggle dance and stuff that

(01:56:36):
someone who's reading that book could learn possible?

Speaker 3 (01:56:39):
Yeah, Well, surprisingly.

Speaker 9 (01:56:42):
The bees will use the same language the waggle dance
to communicate the location not of food, but of potential
home sites, so colonies. We call them super organisms because
they live there almost like imagine each little bee is
like a cell in a body in an organism, they
can live on their own. So the whole colony as

(01:57:04):
a whole, when it reproduces, it needs to split into
two units. And so that's what we call a swarm,
which you find on tree branches in the spring and summer.
So the colony decides to split because it was too large.
The mother queen generally is the one that leaves with
about three quarters of the workers. They stay in that

(01:57:25):
cluster in place. We call it the BiVO whac and
they can stay in that BiVO whac for a few
hours to a few days, it depends on the decision
making process. And so there's about only three to five
percent of the bees in that swarm are active, and

(01:57:45):
they're called nest site scouts, so in not like they're
like food scouts, but in this case they're looking for
potential home sites and they are the ones that are
active and looking for potential three cavities, while the rest
of the colony in the swarm, ninety seven percent of
them are cool quiescent, just kind of letting the knowledgeable

(01:58:10):
scouts decide and they start finding places and then if
they like that place, because they have ways to measure
the size, the size of the cavity, the entrance size,
the height above ground, if it's drafty or if there's

(01:58:30):
if it's wet, whatever that is. They kind of assess quality,
come back and they're like, this is a really good place.
They start performing that waggle dance, and so other bees
will follow. They will get recruited to that side, and
they themselves visited and the side by themselves if it's
worth advertising or not.

Speaker 3 (01:58:53):
And then they keep doing these waggle dance.

Speaker 9 (01:58:55):
But they could be doing the waggle dance for several
locations at the same time time on that.

Speaker 3 (01:59:02):
On that swarm.

Speaker 9 (01:59:04):
But each of these dancers does only as a finite
number of dances. It's like the performance is only maybe
about seven, six or seven times that they will do
the waggle dance, and then they stop. And so the
ones that are have the most vigorous dancers recruit the
more bees, and each one of those bees is going

(01:59:26):
to perform the waggle dance six times that they stop.
So the ones that the location that's most favorable is
gonna get the highest number of dances, and therefore it's
gonna get the favoritism of the of the scouts until
they basically come down to one location.

Speaker 1 (01:59:48):
So that's like a consensus concessus building. And because of
that process, they very seldom get it wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:59:56):
Exactly, it's about it's about eighty of the time they
get it right.

Speaker 1 (02:00:01):
Okay, it's not every time.

Speaker 9 (02:00:03):
It's also not the first one they find. It's never
the or not necessarily the best one or the one
that they will go for. It could even be the
last one they found that they found to be the
best quality one and they will move into Wow, that
is cool.

Speaker 1 (02:00:17):
And then they had that way and that starts a
whole other fascinating process, which is swarm moves through the air,
and how does.

Speaker 3 (02:00:26):
Those same bees.

Speaker 9 (02:00:27):
So if you see a swarm and you think, wow,
this is like a very chaotic cloud of lost bees.
But in reality, those same scouts that know where the
new home is act as streakers. And so they did
the study where they could follow those bees and they're
actually not moving at random. They are going back and

(02:00:49):
forth in a bees line, kind of leading the way
to where they should all move.

Speaker 1 (02:00:54):
And you say streaker because this beag ends up at
the back of the swarm and then he zooms forward.
That's right, and they all see this guy flying. Okay,
that's where you go. And then he comes back and
zooms the one that we need to follow. Yeah. Wow.
And then they get to the right spot and they
have to tell everybody drop down here.

Speaker 3 (02:01:10):
And it's right here.

Speaker 9 (02:01:11):
And so they start producing a pheromone called the Nazonov
glan pheromone, which is the very tip of the abdomen.
You can actually see it quite easily because they open
up the glan and it looks white and they fan
their wings and we call that the homing scent. And
so then they all basically go into into the new box.

(02:01:32):
So they never split up into two groups. Let's say
the rogue bees that decided not to follow suit. No,
they all everyone goes into the same box.

Speaker 1 (02:01:42):
I know where to go. They go in and set
up house. That is that's amazing. And here we thought
bees are just kind of aimlessly wandering around.

Speaker 3 (02:01:51):
Oh my goodness, it's completely the opposite.

Speaker 6 (02:01:53):
They are.

Speaker 1 (02:01:54):
That is cool stuff. Really really concerted on one thing
that I was interested in, and I know we're talking
about book a lot that it's a good book, but
is how bees regulate temperature and it can be very
cold outside or it can be very hot, and the
way they the distance between bees and what. Could you

(02:02:14):
talk a little bit about temperature regulation.

Speaker 9 (02:02:16):
Yeah, so some of one of the most important traits
of bees in this genus APIs is that they actually
do thermal regulation. So they try to keep the brood
nest area where the babies are, it's the most delicate area,
and they try to keep.

Speaker 3 (02:02:31):
It at around ninety five degrees fahrenheit.

Speaker 9 (02:02:36):
So if it's above that temperature outside, they do something
called evaporative cooling.

Speaker 3 (02:02:44):
Okay, they go and get water.

Speaker 9 (02:02:46):
They bring in droplets of water, put it on the comb,
on the surface of the comb, and they fan their
wings to create a cooling mist to drop the temperature.
They also hang out on the outside of the box.
That's called a beard, So it's basically like getting people
out of a room because of the heat, and so

(02:03:06):
that cools down the temperature and if it's too cold,
then they shiver to produce heat to keep the brood warm.
So at all times of year they try to keep
that brude in Asteria at about ninety five ninety seven
degrees fahrenheit.

Speaker 1 (02:03:26):
That's amazing.

Speaker 9 (02:03:27):
In the winter, there's no brood and so they can
live in a colder environment, and they use that honey
that they store over winter as their fuel to produce
calories and to produce the heat. They need to shiver
so that they can survive the cold winter.

Speaker 1 (02:03:46):
That is amazing. All right, Well, we gotta take another break.
We'll be right back. Stay tuned, folks. We're visiting with
doctor Gulana Rangell, Texas and M University entomologists who focuses
her research and her teaching on honey My producer has
a sense of humor. He's playing Beg's music. Oh my gosh,
that's like dad joke, Alejandra, What the heck did you

(02:04:10):
come up with that? That's funny. That's why I'm gonna
use that one. I'm gonna steal it from. Hey, you're
listening to garden Line. I'm your host, skipt Director, and
you're here with doctor jimian Orangel from Texas and M
University Agerlife the entomology department. She researches and teaches about
honey bees, and we were picking her brain about amazing
and fascinating things about honey bees. Right now, we were

(02:04:34):
just talking about how bees find flowers and how they
communicate with each other, how they find their nest, their
new nest when they those swarm breaks apart and goes
into two, and how they communicate and make a good
decision on where to go.

Speaker 2 (02:04:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:04:49):
And I can't even remember all the things we were
going to talk about. Now I know what was the
you had just brought up when we were at break
Their colony losses, the colony colony losses. Yes, thank you,
thank you. Sometimes I hear like all the bees are
going away, We're all gonna die, apocalypse concerns, And then
I hear things like, well they're down, but they come

(02:05:11):
back up again and stuff. Could you help make sense
of that? And where are we right now? You were
telling me about some concerns on current be popular. Yeah, So.

Speaker 9 (02:05:24):
Some researchers and government agencies started doing colony laws survey
right after we had something that was called colony collapse
disorder or CCD around the year two thousand and seven,
where a lot of commercial beekeepers observed a sudden loss

(02:05:46):
of the entire colony population, so all the workers were gone.
There was no pesticide kill, because in pesticide kills you
see the dead bees on the floor of the box
or outside the entrance. But in this case the bees
were just gone. There was still food left, and sometimes
you still have the queen alive with just a few

(02:06:10):
workers around her, and they didn't really know what was
going on. What they did was find a kind of
a post mortem type of forensic analysis of bees that
colonies that had collapsed and whatever was left the bees
that were left, and they assessed most of those colonies
that had collapsed had really high levels of honeybee associated viruses,

(02:06:33):
and not just one or two, but three or four
viruses all acting at the same time. Since that year,
we kept records of colony losses year round, so they
did summer loss, winter loss, and overall loss. And also

(02:06:53):
as the beekeepers a question what percentage of laws is
acceptable to you over winter. It's kind of like keeping livestock.
You have a certain amount of loss that you have to.

Speaker 3 (02:07:07):
Accept.

Speaker 9 (02:07:08):
And so the number was always like fifteen to eighteen percent,
but the reality of the losses were thirty to thirty
five percent. And then in the last five years or so,
we've seen years where we have losses of forty to
forty five percent. Some years are better, so they decrease
down to thirty or so. They haven't gone below thirty
in at least a decade, but something happening. We have

(02:07:32):
not lost less than less than thirty percent per year,
which is incredibly high because it's always twice at least twice,
if not more, the amount that's acceptable to a beekeeper.
And imagine if you own one hundred, no let's say
ten thousand colonies, that's three thousand colonies that you lost,

(02:07:54):
and it's a huge loss of life, a huge monetary
law that you have to get try to recuperate when
the spring comes by splitting colonies, many ways to try
to get up to the numbers that you had before
the winter loss. But lately, lately it has we're basically

(02:08:16):
seeing CCD two point zero. But even worse were the
early reports in February were of a loss of about
sixty two percent of the colonies in the US had
been lost. But at least those beekeepers that reported law
reported their losses, and in this case there were a

(02:08:38):
lot of commercial beekeepers. And so in the US about
ninety five percent of all bees managed colonies are owned
by only about five percent of beekeepers. So if you
get a huge number of commercial beekeepers reporting losses, then
you can actually account for most of the managed colonies
in the US, which the number fluctuates between two five

(02:09:00):
and two point eight million colonies. And so it was
estimated that about one point seven million colonies were lost
last fall.

Speaker 1 (02:09:10):
What are we thinking is causing it now?

Speaker 9 (02:09:12):
So the researchers collected samples again forensic analysis of these
lost colonies, and they just came out with the news
about a week ago that it looks to be the
same old culprit as always. The verroa mite, which is

(02:09:33):
a mite that attacks honeybees. It feeds off of their
blood or hemo lymph and a fat body tissue, all
while transmitting several honeybee associated viruses.

Speaker 1 (02:09:46):
Okay, so just for a picture, folks, the verrom i
think of a dog with ticks on it attached to
the body of the bee. These are sucking blood out
of it. And as so many things that suck our blood,
mosquitoes and others can transmit those diseases.

Speaker 3 (02:10:01):
That's right and to us in the case of this
might varroa destructor.

Speaker 9 (02:10:07):
A bee can get infected or parasitized as a pupa
during metamorphosis or as an adult or both and so
because there are no anti viral drugs for bees, the
only thing that we can do is try to keep
VIRAA levels low. It's almost impossible to keep them off.

(02:10:31):
Almost every colony out there has varroamites, but you have
to basically have them below the threshold level of injury.

Speaker 1 (02:10:40):
Okay, Now, I had a short time as a hobby
bee keeper some hives and we had to deal with
verromite way back in that time, and we had strips
that we hung in the hive. I think there were
apostan strips, but then some people were using like a
winter green oil or something. What are bee keepers now
do to deal with verroit keepers are full scale commercial.

Speaker 9 (02:11:01):
It's actually both ways, both types. So in the nineteen nineties,
the varroa is an ectra parasite of the eastern honeybee
in Asia, and then it swapped hosts and now it
infects our honeybe the western honeybee, and so it's basically
the honeybee. Our honeybee is not accustomed to having this parasite.

(02:11:23):
So when it entered the US in the nineteen eighties
or so, we immediately it almost decimated the beekeeping industry,
and so we used the product you said, epistine is
a pyriethroid fluvalinate. The mites became resistant to it within
about a decade. So then we moved on to a
product called kumafaus, an organo phosphate, and they became resistant

(02:11:46):
to kumafhaus within a decade. And so then we moved
to amitras, which is a for mammidine and luckily for us,
it's been effective for the last twenty years up until now.
So the report about the high viral viral levels that
cause all of these bees to die is because we're

(02:12:08):
seeing more and more amitrized resistance in the my population.

Speaker 1 (02:12:11):
Well, we know from insect control in general that when
you put all your eggs in one basket as the clock, yes,
it's going to end.

Speaker 9 (02:12:20):
So, especially hobby beekeepers, they because they have time and
fewer colonies to treat, they can use organic acids like
oxalic acid formic acid.

Speaker 3 (02:12:33):
Thymal is another.

Speaker 9 (02:12:36):
Type of product that is less harmful to the bees
because there's a lot of sublethal effects of these chemicals
on the bees that we want to protect. But it's
just not very realistic for use in the commercial setting
because there are a lot of temperature and humidity restrictions
when applying these products. So we are kind of in

(02:12:59):
a moment of discovery for new products. There's a new
technology called RNA interference that it's showing promising results that's
stopping the reproduction of the varroamite, and they're trying to
get that product out this year here in the US.
A couple more chemistries that are in the horizon, but

(02:13:23):
there's not a whole lot of new products. It's new
formulations of the same old products that are coming out soon.

Speaker 1 (02:13:30):
So I know a lot of a number of our
listeners do be keeping, amateur beekeeping. Where would someone like
that go for information? I mean, you don't want them
all calling you at home for help with their bees.
So is there like some online Does AGR Life have
any kind of publication, or is your certain books or
what would you recommend?

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
Yeah, I would recommend.

Speaker 1 (02:13:49):
So we have.

Speaker 9 (02:13:52):
Our website, you know, Tamyo Honeybee Lab do edu has
a section for bekeeper resources. Because we're in Texas, we
also have the Texas Beekeepers Association, which has a lot
of useful resources on their website, but one that is
really good. Actually a couple places the Honeybee Health Coalition.

(02:14:13):
It's a nonprofit organization. Honeybeehealth Coalition dot com has amazing
resources for beekeepers. And Project APIs M as in apes Malifa,
which is the the scientific name of the western honeybee.
So Project aps M we call it PAM, has a

(02:14:34):
lot of resources.

Speaker 3 (02:14:36):
Mostly this is for.

Speaker 9 (02:14:37):
Mostly for honeybees, but if you're looking for stuff regarding
other bees, not just honeybees, the Surse Society has a
lot of information as well.

Speaker 1 (02:14:46):
And that's CEO. No, it's with an x x O
x E R r c E SBS Society. Okay, what
was the a n M website?

Speaker 4 (02:14:56):
Did you tam.

Speaker 3 (02:14:59):
Honeybee Lab?

Speaker 1 (02:15:00):
Okay, honeybee Lab? Good, well, wow, that is that is interesting.
We've got about forty five seconds here to to kind
of wind this up. So the bottom line is we're
in a kind of scary spot right now. We've got
the worst resurgence of the problem that we've seen, and

(02:15:21):
our product options are somewhat minimal yep. And so that's
kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (02:15:27):
It is interesting for agriculture, for food security, for biodiversity.

Speaker 1 (02:15:32):
Yeah, because honeybees are an agricultural enterprise, just like a
dairy cattleman has dairy cows and he brings them in
and milks them to get the milk and things. We
professionally manage our little herds honeybees that are out there,
and it does have a significant effect. We're going to
have to take a break here for the top of
the news, but we're going to come back and we'll

(02:15:53):
be spending the next half hour the rest of the
show today with doctor Wrangel. We're with doctor Jianne Wrangel today.
We're going to spend the last part of the show
this morning, the last thirty minutes, talking a few more
things about honey bees. Thank for those of you I
know you'd like to call in. We'll be back live
tomorrow morning six to ten for all your calling questions.

(02:16:14):
So if you have a bee question and I would
like to get it in real quick, we'll be happy
to take a question specifically about something we're talking about
about bees. Doctor Wrangel, I wanted to go into the issue.
We have a problem with crape myrtle bark scale. They
suck the juices on of the plant. They basically excrete
out the sugary substances and we get the black city

(02:16:36):
mold all over our crpe myrtles, and people have a
fix with that. It's hard to control and systemic insecticides,
the neonicotoid types are fairly effective against it, but once
you start putting those into plants, you see reports of
bee losses and things on certain kinds of trees. I
think you guys did some studies a good while back

(02:16:58):
on crpe myrtles and talked to us a little bit
about the importance of craige myrtle's to bees and then
the issue of so how do I can what do
I do about scale if I've got the honey bees.

Speaker 3 (02:17:07):
So crape myrtle is a great.

Speaker 9 (02:17:12):
Type of tree that produces and provides polland to honeybees,
especially in times of year when there's nothing else available.
We did that study on what bees consume in urban settings,
and we actually had it in five different cities across
the US, and here in Texas, we did it around

(02:17:36):
the city of Austin, and we found that crape myrtle
was the one of the primary pollen sources for bees
and urban settings.

Speaker 1 (02:17:44):
You're looking at what bees are bringing back to the
hive in the summer, and craig myrtle was number one.

Speaker 9 (02:17:48):
Yeah, we had pollen traps which collect the poland that
the bees are collecting. We put them at the entrance
of the hive, and so it kind of lets the
little balls that they have of pollend on their legs.
They can't get through these little grits without the balls
falling off, and so then you have a little tray
at the bottom and you collect what the bees are

(02:18:10):
bringing in. And so we did the collection of pollen
every month, once a month, at at least five different
locations per per city, and crape myrtle came to be
one of the most important food sources in not just

(02:18:32):
Texas in Florida as well so in other urban settings
in other parts of the country. What also we found
was we did the pesticide residue analysis of all of
these pollen types, and we were pleasantly surprised to find
that urban pollend doesn't contain as much pesticides as we

(02:18:56):
thought they would have. The polony is relatively clean in
urban settings. Even though we did find some traces of chemicals,
including some nicotinoids, a lot of them were below the
level of detection. What we did find more of for fungicides, Yes,

(02:19:21):
in some of these trees, but again not an alarming
levels like you would find in agricultural settings.

Speaker 1 (02:19:30):
So maybe if someone was going to use you know,
those products have some advantages and that you're not like
nuke and the whole plant. So a honeybee, I mean
lady bee lands on the plant or lace wing, and
it's it's landing on the poison. It's the things that
are sucking juices out of the plant. They get it
because it's in the plumbing of the plant. So that's
a nice advantage. But you're expinning that the damage is

(02:19:52):
a little minimal. So would you recommend maybe trying to
time your applications when it's not like peak.

Speaker 9 (02:19:59):
Exactly, And that applies to any plant if the use
of any systemic insecticide should be done avoiding the peak
blooming time so that the bees don't have access to
potentially contaminated pollen and nectar.

Speaker 1 (02:20:15):
Yeah, during a break we're visiting and I was talking
about squash and squash, you know, have these blooms that
we have to have pollinated because it's separate male and
female flowers, and if you kill your bees, you're not
gonna get any squash. And so finding a time with
something that doesn't last a lot, Like you put seven
dust out there and it's gonna kill bees for weeks,
whereas some things that break down really fast and then

(02:20:38):
timing them when the bees aren't out as a strategy.
So and something we should be aware of our flower
gardens and other things that's right.

Speaker 9 (02:20:46):
We also have to be concerned with, like incidental exposure.

Speaker 3 (02:20:52):
For example, you're trying to spray.

Speaker 9 (02:20:57):
You know, let's say the crape myrtle, well in this
case not as systemic insect as I'm talking more like
spray type of pest society. And so you can have
weeds at the bottom that bees are visiting that may
also get contaminated. So there's that incidental exposure.

Speaker 1 (02:21:16):
Yeah, and wheats are a really important source of pollen
and nectar plants. And I know, I realize I'm a
lot of faithful listening right now. And we've got some
of you who your lawn has to be perfect, weed free, manicured,
you name it. I get that. And then we got
others of you that would just be as happy with

(02:21:37):
weeds blooming and bees flying all over the grass and
everything as anybody would. But there are a lot of
our lawn weeds that are popular with bees, so especially
I always think of chick weed because every time I'm
down in the grass and there's chick weed blooms, it's
like there's honey bees on them. I've just noticed that. Well,
we have a caller that I want to bring in
with a question less in Dayton, Texas, out east of Houston. Hey,

(02:22:01):
lest welcome to the garden line. Do you have a
question for Doctor Range?

Speaker 6 (02:22:05):
I do.

Speaker 5 (02:22:05):
I am a six year bee keeper. I have six
hives and I have gotten one hive that I let well,
I let them all requeen.

Speaker 9 (02:22:16):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (02:22:17):
And it's just something that I wanted a natural uh
set of bees that without having to kill the queen
and not a queen.

Speaker 13 (02:22:25):
I let them requeen.

Speaker 5 (02:22:26):
But I have one hive that has gotten so aggressive
that it's actually put me in the hospital.

Speaker 6 (02:22:32):
So uh.

Speaker 5 (02:22:33):
Any ideas on on uh fixing that or resolving that problem?

Speaker 3 (02:22:40):
Are you ever?

Speaker 2 (02:22:42):
Do you.

Speaker 3 (02:22:44):
Have access to the queen or is it too large
and different?

Speaker 5 (02:22:52):
It's uh, I got four tens uh on it now
so that you know the top to it for honey,
and actually, to be honest with you, it's my biggest
produced and honey hive that I ever had, but.

Speaker 13 (02:23:09):
The queen.

Speaker 1 (02:23:11):
Yeah, I think the easiest.

Speaker 3 (02:23:13):
Sorry, you can keep going.

Speaker 5 (02:23:21):
You said you're afraid what I said, Yeah, you said,
do I have access to the queen. It's to the
point where I'm afraid to even get in there and
look for it because when I go by the hive,
just walking by the hive, I'm covered in bees. That's
with full suit.

Speaker 13 (02:23:39):
So mm hmm.

Speaker 9 (02:23:43):
Yeah, I think the only way to fix that problem
is to re queen that colony. And so one easy
way could be with one of those you can actually
jerry rig your own little swarm box where you can
use a funnel and uh get the with a queen excluder.
So you just kind of dump all the bees into

(02:24:05):
a box through the queen excluder and hope, hope that
the queen will be caught at the top and then
move away so that you can get her.

Speaker 3 (02:24:12):
And requeen the colony.

Speaker 5 (02:24:15):
What are the chance, being in Southeast Texas that they
have all?

Speaker 1 (02:24:18):
Right, there we go, Well, thank you, I appreciate, I
appreciate the call less, and I thank you doctor Rangel
for being with us. We're gonna come back. We got
one more segment today, folks, So hang on with your questions.
Seven one three two one two ktr H. All right,
folks are back the last little segment of the morning.
We are visiting and have been visiting with doctor Juliana

(02:24:41):
Rangel from Texas and M University Entomology Department. She is
a researcher and a professor in bee keeping and bees
and all things bees. If you've been listening very long,
you've already probably had your mind blown about the amazing
world of bees and what we're learning now.

Speaker 6 (02:24:57):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:24:57):
And we have quite a b industry here in the
in the state of Texas.

Speaker 3 (02:25:03):
Yeah, Texas has a lot of commercial.

Speaker 9 (02:25:06):
Beekeepers. We don't have the exact number, but it's several
beekeepers in the state. They actually move quite a bit
because most of commercial beekeepers dedicate a lot of their
enterprise to pollination of crops, agricultural crops, and start off
in February with the pollination of almond in California, California.

(02:25:31):
So about two million colonies of bees are taken to California, Yes,
across from all the way from Florida and the northeast
all the way to the central Valley of California. For
pollination of almond, and then from there the migration kind
of takes off, going to up and down the Pacific

(02:25:52):
northwest and down south California, and then going west to
all the other state and then about some is where
we get our clover honey production in the north and
south Dakota and Minnesota. So a lot of people from
the Texas area have kind of like dual citizenship and

(02:26:16):
they are also staying They stay in Texas for some
part of the year, but then they go and live
in Minnesota or the Dakota's for a few months.

Speaker 1 (02:26:25):
So these bees know what it's like to be in
a rock band on tour. You just jump on the
bus and every night you're in a different town.

Speaker 9 (02:26:31):
And that's right, But imagine being like that in by
the millions. There's a lot of chances of anyone gets
sick on the bus. Yeah, everyone gets sick. So it
happens to the bees as well.

Speaker 1 (02:26:45):
Yeah, we're talking about romaid. So you go somewhere where
there's a problem, and now you're taking it everywhere.

Speaker 9 (02:26:50):
You go, so that new place, they get infected, they
get sick, they get stressed from just being moved around
so much.

Speaker 1 (02:27:00):
Yeah, I bet they typically move at night, right that.

Speaker 9 (02:27:03):
Night, but because they have to go, like if they're
going from Florida to California, it's gonna take more than
just one day.

Speaker 1 (02:27:10):
Well, we got a couple of callers here. I'm gonna
have to folks, just for the sake of time, I'm
gonna refer your calls over here with doctor and go one.
First of all, Bruce and Lagrange had talked about the
Texas Queen not having a queen Breeders Association, I believe,
and some of what doctor or Professor Slater is doing,
we talk a little bit about it.

Speaker 9 (02:27:29):
Yeah, So doctor Garrett Slater, great addition to our team,
got hired about a year ago for extension apa culture,
which we didn't have before, and he is actually very
interested in creating a breeding program for honeybees here in
our state. So I think we just have to stay

(02:27:50):
tuned because I think there will be something similar to
a Queen Producers Association in Texas in the years to come.

Speaker 1 (02:27:58):
And one thing that about that is when you have
a good source of new queens, you can fix a
lot of problems with the hive very quickly.

Speaker 9 (02:28:06):
Yeah, Like the previous caller asking about a very aggressive
colony and what to do with that. You have to
requeen that colony, especially if it's unbearable to work with
because of its aggressive tendencies.

Speaker 3 (02:28:18):
It's just not fun.

Speaker 1 (02:28:20):
Yeah, so you have to requeen. Well, I also have
a call from Mark, and Mark, I'm going to pass
your call along here, but do you have an opinion
about maybe taking honey in the morning to reduce allergies?
And I'm going to expand that question to be pollen.
I had tried. I can tell I'm probably putting it
from the spider, but I tried taking little bits of

(02:28:41):
b pollen and boy, when I took I mean it's
like a less than a quarter an eighth of a
teaspoon of it, my eyes started watering and my nose
it was like I was having an allergy from it.
Do you know of and I know you're not a
medical doctor, but any research that might show that by
doing that you develop benefits or is that a question

(02:29:03):
you'd rather like, Okay, what's the next questions?

Speaker 9 (02:29:06):
I kind of but like my answer to that is
the research that I've read on the benefits of consuming
honey or pollen to.

Speaker 3 (02:29:17):
Fix allergies is very mixed.

Speaker 9 (02:29:20):
And the problem is you are allergic to a specific
type of pollen, which means that you are whatever you
are consuming has to be that pollen, and you sometimes
don't even know what that pollen is or whether it
is a pollen that.

Speaker 3 (02:29:34):
Would be even consumed by bees.

Speaker 9 (02:29:36):
Right, because a lot of these pollens that you're allergic
to our wind pollinated.

Speaker 1 (02:29:41):
Exactly, And that was the point I was going to make.
You know, ragweed pollen and things like that. Golden rod
is not an allergy type pollen, but the heavier pollens
that bees are picking up, now, there could be ragweed
pollen on you know, that bloom of sunflower in your garden.

Speaker 9 (02:29:58):
But yeah, so I mean there is such a thing
as a plus ebo effect and what consuming and consuming pollen,
you know, but it has other benefits, protein and other nutrients, right,
So I'm not saying you should not consume it. But
the problem is you have to be consuming the pollen
your allergic to for it to even be any kind

(02:30:18):
of Yeah, medical treatment.

Speaker 1 (02:30:21):
Is that same, and here we are both getting out
of our league. But that doctors give you the like
the allergy shots, and I think isn't that a like
a lower dose.

Speaker 3 (02:30:30):
That would be a lower dose, but it would be
more for.

Speaker 9 (02:30:34):
Yeah, it would have to be for the pollen that
you're allergic to, or people who are allergic to bees.

Speaker 3 (02:30:40):
They can do that treatment, but that will go with
the venom instead of pollen.

Speaker 1 (02:30:44):
Right, Oh cool, right, well there you go. Oh my, Well,
but I do recommend taking honey in the morning. It
makes you happy.

Speaker 3 (02:30:53):
It's the best sweetener there is.

Speaker 9 (02:30:55):
Right, it's just that it has all honey contains pollen incidental,
so you would have to also be consuming the local
pollen that you might be allergic to from that honey.

Speaker 3 (02:31:06):
For it to be effective.

Speaker 1 (02:31:08):
Yeah, my wife made a lacto fermented type of lemonade,
So basically take lemonade and she put some honey on it,
and you introduce the yeast and it's not making alcohol.
It's only a few days that it's in there. But
it's like you know, all the probiotical kim kimchi and

(02:31:29):
saur krawd and all all of those things that are.

Speaker 9 (02:31:33):
Well, there's a lot of research now being done to
see if all of these or any of these probiotics
can improve be health. Okay, so doing some additives to
the food that we give to the bees in times
of dursts that might improve their health with the use
of probiotics.

Speaker 1 (02:31:51):
All right, I wonder if we could talk to katr
h and say, could you cancel all the shows for
the rest of the day because we're really just getting
started today. That was good. Well, I have about a
minute left and I'd like you to tell again about
your lab, website and anything that you might have that
you'd like to close with, as shurined us.

Speaker 3 (02:32:11):
So well, first, thanks for inviting me.

Speaker 9 (02:32:14):
As I said, we run the research and teaching aspect
of apiculture at Texas A and M, and we have
a very active Facebook page Tamy Honeybee Lab. We have
over six thousand followers from all over the world and
that's where we post the latest news from all the
research that we're performing, all the accolades that students receive

(02:32:37):
for their presentations and their hard work. And we also
have an endowed an endowment fund that people can donate
money too, and so if you want to donate money,
just let us know because we'll always take donations for research.

(02:33:00):
But just remember that honeybees are responsible for pollinating one
third of the food we consume, so keeping them alive
also keeps us alive.

Speaker 1 (02:33:11):
There you go, Thank you, doctor Engel. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 6 (02:33:14):
Thank you.