June 9, 2024 • 43 mins
EP-4 Interview with Rickey Roark of Horizontal Bees
Todays guest is Rickey Roark of "HORIZONTAL BEES"
Today we are talking about how Rickey got into beekeeping. How Rickey got into building horiztontal hives for friends and family and how that turned into a business.
How going to Honey Bee conferences can help you to gain knowledge. The knowledge that you can get from some YouTube videos.
We talk about upcoming honey bee conferences.
If you would like to find more information on, Rickey Roark and "Horizontal Bees", you can visit his website or find him on YouTube.
Horizontal Bees Website www.horizontalbees.com
YouTube www.youtube.com/@horizontalbees3480
___________________________________________________________
Honey Bee Conferences:
Sllidell, Louisiana Honey Bee Conference brought to you by "THE BEE COMMANDER"
Bee Alive Conference https://beealiveconference.com/
North American Honey Bee EXPO-
https://www.nahbexpo.com/
___________________________________________________________
You can also find Kodiak Farm Bees on youtube- YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/KodiakFarmBeesLee
Kodiak Farm Bees Mech Store- https://streamlabs.com/kodiakfarm/merch
$$ If you would like to support the podcast $$- https://streamlabs.com/kodiakfarm/tip
If you would like to be a guest on the show or have some good information that you would like to share with other beekeepers, please Email me:
KodiakFarm@yahoo.com
KODIAK FARM BEES, Beekeeping, Honeybees, Farmers Markets,
Todays guest is Rickey Roark of "HORIZONTAL BEES"
Today we are talking about how Rickey got into beekeeping. How Rickey got into building horiztontal hives for friends and family and how that turned into a business.
How going to Honey Bee conferences can help you to gain knowledge. The knowledge that you can get from some YouTube videos.
We talk about upcoming honey bee conferences.
If you would like to find more information on, Rickey Roark and "Horizontal Bees", you can visit his website or find him on YouTube.
Horizontal Bees Website www.horizontalbees.com
YouTube www.youtube.com/@horizontalbees3480
___________________________________________________________
Honey Bee Conferences:
Sllidell, Louisiana Honey Bee Conference brought to you by "THE BEE COMMANDER"
Bee Alive Conference https://beealiveconference.com/
North American Honey Bee EXPO-
https://www.nahbexpo.com/
___________________________________________________________
You can also find Kodiak Farm Bees on youtube- YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/KodiakFarmBeesLee
Kodiak Farm Bees Mech Store- https://streamlabs.com/kodiakfarm/merch
$$ If you would like to support the podcast $$- https://streamlabs.com/kodiakfarm/tip
If you would like to be a guest on the show or have some good information that you would like to share with other beekeepers, please Email me:
KodiakFarm@yahoo.com
KODIAK FARM BEES, Beekeeping, Honeybees, Farmers Markets,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Kodiak Farm Bees Podcast. Welcome to the Kodiak Farm Bees Podcast.
Today we have a special guest withus is Ricky Rourke of Horizontal Bees.
Glad to have Ricky in here andlet y'all get to know him a
(00:30):
little bit better and maybe what hecan provide for you and help out.
Ricky, if you can give usa little information of where you're from and
what you do. Yeah, Leah, I'll live up in North Carolina,
this far north west corner of NorthCarolina, just a little beady town and
(00:53):
Kristen, North Carolina is the countyof the city that we're in. And
you know, it's uh, it'sa little city that has no red lights.
There's just a few stories around here. So we really live out in
the middle of nowhere. So butit's a great community. If you want
something some help, usually there's alot of friendly neighbors that are willing to
(01:17):
help you out. And when youstart talking about beekeeping, have a lot
of friends. That's very nice.So you a bee keeper in North Carolina
area. How long have you beenkeeping bees? You know, Lee,
We've been keeping bees for about sixyears and it's been a great six years,
but I learned very quickly, especiallyafter my third year, and maybe
(01:41):
my fourth is man I made Imade my biggest mistakes. Then I thought
I thought I knew everything, andat that point you think you know it,
and then that's when you fail.And boy, I made some huge
errors and keeping my bees. SoI would call it from every bodies out
there that, like you know itall, there's always something out there to
(02:04):
learn that's good. Think about thesepodcasts, live streams you get with a
bunch of people that gets online andand and you could say, oh,
well they do this and they dothat. Well, maybe I don't want
to do that, but at leastyou got the information right, So I
think that's really important. So anyway, we, like I said, we've
been keeping bees for six years andI've enjoyed every minute of it. I
(02:25):
am down that rabbit hole on outthe other side you're talking about. I
think we all go through that sayingthat we know everything there is to know
about bee keeping and we know howwe're going to do this. That well,
if anybody ain't familiar with it,they can look up a chart called
the Dunning Kruger effect. YEP,and it's going to show you like a
(02:45):
little chart showing hey, right hereat the beginning, I know everything,
and second or third year in thatchart dropped way to the bottom and reality
sets in. And after that youslowly start building your confidence and knowledge in
everything up and finally figure out whatneeds to be done. And you say,
(03:06):
and we see different people on YouTubesaying hey, I want to try
this, or that it's good totry different things. But when you look
on YouTube or here's something on anotherpodcast or anything like that, you just
have to remember what you're watching orlistening to where that person is located.
Because if they're in California or theymay be up in Canada, what they're
(03:28):
doing is going to be done atdifferent times of the year, so you
want to know kind of what theirweather is at that time when they're doing
that, because it don't mean ifthey've done it on May the first in
Canada, that you're going to beable to do it May the first in
North Carolina or down here in Louisiana. You're going to have to adjust your
temperatures and figure out when they didthat. And that's so rightly, you
(03:51):
know, you're talking about location ofwhere you're at. You know, elevation,
you know, how closer to theocean. You know, so many
actors go into how to keep yourbees and as a as a beekeeper,
you know, six years, I'mstarting to really tune in how I keep
my bees. And you know,I feel I feel pretty confident this year,
(04:13):
on my sixth year. You know, so I just I just don't
want to make I just don't wantto repeat those mistakes. And that's that's
what beekeeping is, don't repeat thesame mistakes over and over again. Yeah,
six years. I can't believe howfast it came and went. Already
I got to look into other daymy phone popped up and said, here
here's the memory. My phone appfrom my photos it keeps track of like
(04:35):
memories lopped up, said here's amemory from four years ago today. And
I looked at the picture. Itwas my first bee or a colony of
bees that i'd got. Yeah,and I'm like, that was four years
ago already. I mean time flies, and you know that's like me Lee,
you know, like how how Igot into bee keeping. You know,
(04:56):
I ended up having a package comein and uh, you know that's
how I got started. Before Igot the package, I got on YouTube,
and you know, I was listeningto Randy the Dirt Rooster and Mister
ed and and all those cut outguys, and you know, I told
my wife, I'm like, weneed bees for the farm, you know,
(05:16):
and so I'm kind of allergic tohim. So how do we how
do we you know, combat that, you know what I'm saying, So,
you know, but you know,backs down all the way. Even
other little things like, uh,my grandfather's kept bees, you know.
And then my friend down the streethe had me come help him in his
bees and they were stacked so highup, like, man, it's gonna
(05:40):
be a little bit better way todo this. But he was kind of
mentoring me at the time. Soyou know, that's kind of how I
got into keeping bees is YouTube.I mean most of it came from YouTube,
and uh there's a lot of greatpeople on there, and I got
to enjoy how to to watch theirmistakes and then I still make some of
(06:00):
those mistakes. It's again, itgoes, it gets horrible, but that
you know, that's kind of howI got into keeping bees is watching the
YouTube channel with Randy and mister Bradler'scutouts, and it kind of had my
mind spinning, how do I wantto keep my bees? Right? You
have in mind what you want todo, but then sometimes that process changes
as you go on also, butyou know, but again it goes all
(06:23):
back to my grandfather's watching them keepbees, and I didn't want nothing to
do with bees. I hated them. I didn't want to get stung with
them. I never thought i'd bea bee keeper. But here we are
today, right yep. Well,a lot of us we don't want to
get stungng. But I mean tome that first one of the year,
when you go out there, yeah, it kind of hurts, makes you
jump and say why do I dothis? But after about ten or fifteen
(06:46):
stings, after a while, it'salmost like a mosquito biting you. You
just kind of flick it off andyou keep going. And as far as
the stings go, I have likearthritis and all in my hands from carpa
tunnel, different stuff being a grainoperator. But if I can go out
there and take a couple of stingsin my hands, the next day when
I wake up, it's like allthe pain is gone because it leaves that
(07:12):
inflammation in my hands and I feelgood. Well, that's awesome. You
know, I hear a lot ofpeople using these things for arthrise, but
you know, I always hate tosee the bees die. But you know,
in your case, if you getstung, it's like, oh,
that's no big deal. That actuallyworks out for me, you know exactly.
Now you was talking about some beekeepersor multiple beekeepers really keep bees in
(07:32):
different ways. Yeah, some ofthem, the majority of the people,
I would say the majority. Theykeep hives that they call Langstrof hives,
and generally they're eight maybe ten frameswide that you can put down in the
boxes. But they have another typeof hive out there that some people hadn't
(07:54):
heard of, and that seems tobe what you kind of specialize in.
What can I have? Would thatbe? You know? I kind of
fell into that niche and didn't reallymean to. So we make horizontal hives,
and you know, again going backto see what raindying and does with
cutouts and how the bees will we'llmove horizontally inside the hives. I felt
(08:15):
like it would be a little easieron my back, you know. And
this this hive is not a verycommon hive in the United States, but
it's growing in popularity. Actually alot in popularity. It's really big in
the UK. They use a lotof these for the cold weather. So
anyway, so I decided, youknow, hey, I'm gonna build me
a horizontal hive and I'm gonna playit in my building, and it's gonna
(08:39):
be over my pasture where I keepmy cheap and goats, so nobody can
get stone. It's kind of fenceding. It's in a barn. It gets
extra insulation, and I just wantto see how that. So I put
my horizontal hive in the building andmany field all thirty four frames out.
(09:00):
It's like, man, this thingis killing it, you know. And
then I said, okay, I'mgonna put a deep in the middle of
it, and so put it deepin there, and then they filled it
all up and it's like, ohmy gosh, this is crazy, you
know. So I'm gonna put ashadow on top of that. Well,
you know, I had to modifymy barn to make those supers fit inside
that barn. But it got inmy head of thinking, you know,
(09:24):
if that works so good, whydon't I build some some different styles and
get them outside the barn. BecauseI've gotten a little bit better keeping the
honey bees right when it's scared.I want scared of people getting the stung
is bad. So I'm like,I need to build some to kind of
get outside. So I ended upbuilding three models, and Cayman Reynolds was
(09:45):
having his first conference of High Life. So I decided that, you know,
I'll I'm mentioning the Cayman hair gotthese horizontals, you know, could
I bring them down? And that'ssent him my message and he was Alex
said, he said, yeah,bring them down, show them the people,
and you know, something a littledifferent. So I didn't expect to
sell any hives in there. Ijust wanted to show a different way of
(10:07):
keeping bees. And man, Istarted getting orders. I was I was
in Mexico and came and dropped hisvideo of one of the hives that we'd
given him, and he was gettingorders left and right, and I'm sweating
all over while we're down there.I'm like, oh no, what am
I going to do? And Iwas telling my wife about it and call
my dad, Hey, go getsome number and let's get this and we
(10:28):
got to get this stuff done.So anyway, it was an exciting road
and God has let us down thispath. And I didn't even know it.
You know, he's always sober,eat to me and more than I
deserve. And I can't appreciate himenough. For sometimes I'm stubborn. He
(10:50):
pushes me into stuff because that's howstubern I am. So I don't know
if you're that way leaving, butI'm definitely stubborn. I don't know if
I've ever met a stubborn beekeeper.Now, I think we all got a
little scovered streak to us, butthe bees. I'll let you know real
quick when you're doing something wrong.So you you was talking about, you
(11:11):
was putting supers and uh mediums andshallows on top of a horizontal hive.
Generally, a horizontal hive is justyour deep frames going all the way across,
however wide you're wanting to build them. Right now, you build a
horizontal hive that has a raised sectionin the center that actually you can put
supers into. How did you comeup with that idea? Well, that
(11:37):
goes right back to that hive thatI ended up having in the building.
I said, well, how amI going to you know, get transfer
that on the outside? And sowhat I wanted the bee keeper to be
able to do is if they wanteda vertical hive right, and you could
still get ten to fifteen frames onthe bottom right and then go into a
(11:58):
deep box and then a medium ontop of that. So I really had
to figure out how to get thehinges correct. And then we did the
pull out wings on the left andright and clip the top to take the
top completely often set back home,and I actually built these two models while
I was at work at ge Aviationand built these two models out of cardboard
(12:20):
to see how it would work orif it would work and outside, and
you know I was. I wasextremely excited with it. So that's how
I ended up with that hive.But technically you could take the super horizonal
hive that we make and go upand down verticley with just a larger brudeness
below it, if that's what youwant, and it works very good that
(12:41):
way. And then you know,we did some other models like the easy
Flow Hive, which is a kickoffof the flow hive someselves for auto frames.
So you know, I wanted somethingthat if somebody was disabled, you
know, this is a way thatthey could extract honey, you know,
get inside of a hive and beeasier on them. So that's been an
(13:05):
interesting hive in itself. But thenI have customers that ask me, hey,
can you build this? And canyou build that? So it just
continues to push the horizontal hives tothe next level. Right, it's my
customer basis, Hey can you canyou add this for me? Or hey
I like this over here, andhe just continues to make my hives better
(13:26):
and better by listening to what thecustomer wants. And I think that's good
business sense exactly. Now you weresaying in there about people that have disabilities.
Now you've built a custom high forsomeone that's in a wheelchair that actually
rotates, so rather than the personhaving to stand up and get in from
(13:46):
the top, it will actually rotateto where while they're sitting in their wheelchair.
And that's correct. And the gentlemanthat got me thinking about that was
the thing justin Ruger. He doeshighs for disability and he was in a
wheelchair. So he called me upsay I love your horizonahives, but I
wanted to be able to rotate soit's easier access for me. And then
(14:09):
it would actually tild enough for thefloat frames to have the honey come out.
And so he actually got me involvedwith a guy at Florida University.
He's an engineer, and we startedtalking about, you know, how to
make this high rotate and when hecomes down to it, it's basically almost
like barstool swivels to go on itto actually make the high rotate for him.
(14:33):
And you know, we've made sixor seven of those now for people
with disabilities. We actually donated oneto Hives to Heroes here in the spring
when we was at the North Carolinabe Association down there at their conference,
So we donated one to the Hivesfor Heroes. And you know, that's
some of the good things that Ilike to do because I like helping people,
(14:56):
and people with disabilities is very specialto me in my heart because if
if I was hurt, I wouldwant someone to come up with something a
little different to help me out.So and that's that's how we did those.
Now as far as building hives andeverything for different people. How long
have you been in business, Well, it was really my fifth year,
I guess is kind of how wegot into business. And again that goes
(15:20):
back down there and going to Cayman'sconference and not expecting to fall down this
rabbit hole, but the mark there'sa huge market for horizontal hives, and
so our fifth was basically our secondyear of bee keeping. We ended up
start building hives for customers, andwe first started building for some just some
(15:43):
of our friends around the local.You fall down in that rabbit hole and
you find yourself a niche in themarket and you can fulfill that niche.
And you know, I don't reallydo any advertisement other than YouTube, and
it's my friends on YouTube that havemy hives that are you know, mentioning
me like Lee, You've got oneof our hoves, and that pushes people
(16:04):
in the market to buy from us. So it's kind of nice to not
have to really go after customers.The customers just continue to come to us,
and you know, we're a littlesmall company, were trying to continue
to grow and hopefully things will youknow, open up for us and we
can get some stuff done here onthe farm to make that happen. As
(16:25):
far as the advertisement goes, theway I look at it, most of
the time that word of mouth isgoing to be better than an advertisement that
you're actually having to pay for becausepeople say, oh, well, you're
trying to advertise, you're having topay somebody to come out there and look
at your stuff or buy. Butwhen they hear word of mouth from someone
else that says, look, Ihave this product and it's good that next
(16:48):
person, they're more likely to buythat versus just seeing a commercial and ad
because they know somebody personally that hasused it and is happy with it.
Correct And you know, I endup building a lot of bonds with people
that have my hives. You know, I have some original customers that I
still talk to and and I'm notlike most business because we're kind of small.
(17:11):
You know, I get to talkto those people and I enjoy talking
to them, and and I becometheir fans, and they become my fans,
and you know, we it's justgrat it's it's how my community continues
to grow with people. I loveit. Now, you building hives and
everything. I know we talked awhile back and you were getting some breeder
queens. Now are you gonna beselling more queens yourself? Or are you
(17:37):
playing on making splits and putting queensin and selling nukes or packages. So
that was a big goal of ARSUSthis year. I actually bought a breeder
queen off the Two Rivers, oneof their new uh Sukov line, Honeybee.
(18:00):
So we was looking at doing somequeen rearing and selling queens and also
selling nukes. We actually ended upbuilding fifty three nukes just a couple of
weeks ago to do splits again andmaybe sell some nukes in the spring.
Just got into doing some grafting,which I'm not great at, I'll be
honest with you, and I continueto learn from my fellow people in my
(18:21):
stream yard to lead me in theright direction. So yeah, we built
those fifty three nukes to do somequeen rearing and to sell nokes in the
spring. Unfortunately, Two Rivers gothit by e F three tornado and absolutely
tore up everything that they had,So I've had to kind of switch up.
(18:44):
And I had a breer queen thatI caught him sworn probably two years
ago, and I've actually lost thatqueen since, but I have a few
of her daughters. So I didsome grafts off of those, and again
I'm not a great grafter, soI'm learning, and these guys on my
streaming yard have been teaching me somestuff. So you know, I had
(19:06):
seven queens out of forty two totake. Yeah, that wasn't good.
With your failures will only make youbetter, and that's what I look at.
So I hope to be able tograft quite a bit here in the
next two months and get those nooksall up and running because I like to
overwinter them. I think that's bettercolonies for spring if you're gonna sell them,
because that's approven queen. She's sorry, laid there pretty pattern, you
(19:32):
know. So that's what I wantto be to do, is I want
to give my customers a good product. So yeah, we would really like
to sell queens and nukes definitely nextyear. That will be something that people
will see on our website coming up. That'd be good. And you're talking
about you got seven out of fortytwo and that you're still learning queen reared.
A lot of people are like,well, I don't know how to
(19:52):
do it. You're not gonna learnunless you get in and try it.
Even if you get one out offorty two, that's one more queen than
you started out with. And thenat the same time you're gonna learn,
Hey, this is how I've doneit last time. Let me change this
up. Next time and you insteadof getting out seven out of forty two,
you might get fifteen out of fortytwo. And every time you do
(20:15):
it, you're gonna get better andbetter. And that's just like anything else,
like riding a bike. You ain'tgonna jump on the bike and just
take off riding for your first time. You have to learn the steps and
you're gonna get better every time.And I think if I could find the
rock mentor to help me out,that would definitely help out. But around
here, we don't end up havinganybody that's rearing, so I'm kind of
(20:40):
left them out up here. Butyou know, if I could get somebody
like Greg Burns and does a tonsof queens, or Jose in California,
if I could just come and workwith him for a few weeks, I
might become a pretty good queen rafterat that point in time. So as
all baby steps and we learn aswe go, I mean, that's the
only way to do it. WayI look at myself, I'm never gonna
(21:02):
know everything there is to know aboutbeekeeping. And if you think you've learned
everything, to me, that's wherethe fund stops at. If you're not
learning something new, and bee keepingyou lost all the fun. I enjoy
learning something new because I mean everytime you learn something, you could tell
yourself or your spouse or your buddysay, hey, look what I learned
(21:23):
this time, and you get moreexcited every time. Yeah. I mean
if you do it yourself and youfail and you succeed the next time,
that confidence continues to build up.Right, And you know, I think
that's important in v keys. Ithink it's important in life. With your
failures, just keep pushing along andif you can't get it right, find
(21:47):
the right people around you that canhelp you, know, basically lift you
up, give you some good advice, and get you on the right track.
I think that's so important in anyaspect in life, but of course
in be keeping allso so yeah,well and bee keeping it if you're not
learning the right way, you're stilllearning. You're learning the wrong way,
(22:07):
and you can teach yourself, Heyi've done this wrong this time. Next
time when I do this, Iknow how not to do it. That's
exactly right. Now, you're talkingabout going to conferences and everything. A
little while ago where you met afew people, what kind of conferences do
they have for beekeepers? Out there. You know, North Carolina has two
conferences and they're usually six hours awayfrom us when they have them, so
(22:34):
they're pretty good long distance away.When Keyman Reynolds had his conference in Severeia
has a couple of hours away fromus, and that was really nice.
I enjoyed that. You know,we've been to Kentucky now and that's that's
been an awesome venue to be andbe part of and continue to watch that
(22:55):
conference grow tend to a massive monster. You know. Funny talking to Cayman
Reynolds before all this happened, andyou know, when I was doing my
beehives and he was laying his planethis goals at saying this is what he
wants. He wanted the biggest vendormarket out there. He knew he did
that he could bring the people inand and he did and and not only
(23:21):
did he do that, you know, he's such in tune with the YouTube
community. He goes to so manyother conferences. They just made it into
being a monster. But we goto our local B association and take part
in it. It's hard to runa business and good car your B meetings
and stuff, but if you canmake it, those are great ways to
(23:45):
get good information locally. That's probablywhere I get most of my my information.
And we have a master bee keeper, and again master doesn't make you
better than anybody else. I'm acertified be keeper, doesn't make me better
than a regular bee keeper. Itjust shows that you try to push your
education a little bit better. Andhere in Ash County they do have an
(24:07):
educational program where they help you getyou know, either a certified bee keeper
or journeyman or master bee keeper.Uh. So those are some good programs
that we have. I'd like tosee more programs for his, especially conferences,
to get the kids more involved.Kim is doing pretty good with that.
I give him some scholarships out soagain we're kind of excluded, so
(24:30):
we don't have a lot, butI try to get to those things.
And just like Lee here, youknow, he's been with us for several
conferences and they have all been greatand and I've enjoyed being with him and
in my whole entire groupe, uhand watching watching the every conference grow.
So and if anybody don't know theconference he was referring to as far as
(24:52):
Kyman Reynolds, that would be theNorth American Honeybee Expo and you can find
that online at n AHB for NorthAmerican Honeybee and then expo dot com.
And I believe this last year inJanuary they had what over two thousand people
show up. Yeah. Yeah,it's been incredible watching the numbers. You're
(25:15):
right. It was two thousand andwhen I went my first time with him,
he had barely had two hundred andfifty n and then you know the
next year it's eight hundred, andthen twelve hundred, and you know,
two thousand, and then you seeit's almost doubling every year. Okay,
is it's gonna be three thousand,it's gonna be four thousand, you know,
man to get that many bee keeperstogether, I swear, I don't
(25:36):
really want to be a vendor,you know, I really don't want to
be a vendor. I just wantto I want to go see people's products,
and I want to get out thereand socialize with all these YouTubers that
are there and have great conversations.So anyway, it continues to grow,
and I appreciate what Cayman does withhis conferences exactly, and anybody that's looking
(26:00):
to get into bee keeping that don'tknow these venues to go through to get
the information. Generally, if yougo online, you can type in your
state's name and then B and it'sgonna usually pull up your B association,
say like Louisiana. You can typeLouisiana Beekeepers Association and it will take you
(26:22):
to the LBA website and you canfind all kinds of resources there, different
events that they're gonna have. Itmight be in your local area, it
might be an hour or so drive. But they've got a lot of information
out there for people that's either wantingto get into bee keeping or just wanting
to know a little information and learnsome new knowledge, even if they don't
(26:44):
ever mess with a bee. I'dsay every conference I've been to, there's
enough information to make it worth yourwhile to pay to go to those conferences,
you know. But there's other peoplelike David Burns. He does online
classes, you know, so there'sanother way of better educating yourself. And
again I didn't quite do it theright way. I was watching cut out
(27:06):
videos with Brandy the Dirt Rooster,but I did watch other people like Frederick
Dunn and his information that he's givenout. So it's out there if you're
a beginner beekeeper. I'm telling you, man, go to one of these
conferences, you're gonna enjoy it.Find you another beekeeper to kind of join
up with at your own a priary, you know, I do suggest a
(27:26):
couple of hives, you know.So overall, I mean, conferences are
great. I mean I can't sayenough about especially Canlan's conference. I mean
there's some excitement there that I haven'tfailed at the other conferences. So I'd
got an email the other day frommy state Beekeepers Association for Louisiana and they
(27:47):
have our state meeting coming up.I can't remember if it's August or September,
but Cayman Reynolds is actually going tobe a speaker at it this year.
Yeah, we was actually supposed togo out to that one. To
Davy Crockett, I think it's wrong. Cooks Field, Is that right?
Lee is where that's gonna be at? King and Reynold's gonna be speaking.
Uh the one we have here inLouisiana that he's gonna be at. I
(28:11):
believe it's in Pineville, Louisiana,up near Alexandria. Okay, I'm sorry
about that. He's he's in alot of different conferences. So he's also
in Tennessee, I think in August. So great speaker to be around and
learn something from, you know.But but I can learn stuff from Lee
also. I can learn from Tomand Melissa and Spanky and everybody that comes
(28:33):
onto live streams. I can learnfrom everybody, And if we can work
together to listen to some good information, it can definitely make us some better
beekeepers in the long run. So, now, what's the next conference that
you plan on being at, whetheryou're a vendor or just going there to
(28:56):
visit and see everything and talk topeople. Yeah, we we was thinking
about going up to Tennessee to theDavy Crockett, but I think I'm gonna
pull back from that one. Andwe were definitely gonna probably be down inside
deal with you and Tom and Melissaand down at that big Louisiana conference.
It's gonna be down there. Ihope I can stand the heat because I'm
(29:18):
a mountain boy and and we don'tget hot up here in the mountains,
so that would be something a littledifferent from me. But I believe that
will actually be the conference. Nextthing I go to will be in Sideal,
but we won't be a vendor there. I just really just want to
go and enjoy the people. Youknow, So if you're if you're in
that area, come on, damnma and I love to talk to you
(29:40):
and say hello and tell me whoyou are and your name, because a
lot of times on YouTube we getpeople that we don't even know and they
just walk up to the habit watchingyou for a long time, and it's
it's been. It's pretty interesting.But I'm just like everybody else, just
a good featherer and I'll sit thereand talk to you about bees all day.
(30:02):
Bones. Yep. Now, thatconference that Ricky's talking about in Slideale,
Louisiana, that's going to be thebe Alive Conference that's going to be
put on by the b Commander outof slide l area. And if you
go online to be Alive Conference dotcom, you can get all the information
there. That's going to be Septemberthe twenty seventh and twenty eighth of twenty
(30:27):
twenty four. Now you was talkingabout people on YouTube getting to talk and
meet new people. My first yeargoing to Tennessee up there to help you
in your booth at the conference,me and Renee went out to eat and
we were sitting there and she decidesshe's going to run to the car to
(30:47):
get her lip bomb, and Itold her she missed my big moment.
You get that feeling that somebody's lookingat you, So I turn and look
and there's a couple sitting at thetable, a couple of tables over from
us, and they wait even They'relike, are you Lee. I'm like,
yes, i am. The chesskind of popped out and I'm like,
well, yes i am. Butit ended up being some bee keepers
(31:08):
out of Florida that recognized me frombeing on YouTube, and I'm like,
man, you just missed my bigmoment. I but it's fun getting out
and meeting those people in person andactually getting to shake their hands. Correct
they don't realize, Matt. Canyou feel that way? Lee? Makes
(31:29):
you feel good? But also yourespect them for saying something to you,
right, and and that they haveThey've uplifted you a little bit. And
I and if you're like me,I want to repay that right. I
want to uplift them because to me, they're the important person. I'm They're
the important person and I love talkingto those kinds of people. That's it.
(31:53):
And in fact, the people thatrecognized me that night when we went
out, that was Miss Melanie andmister Dinner Cruise. And there's at the
slide L conference again this year.It's gonna be good to get to see
them again. Yeah. I thinkwe're just gonna be staying with them with
Tom and Melissa down there in thehotel or a house. So it's good.
(32:15):
It's gonna be great. And there'ssome great people right there. There
were some friendly people and they lovebe keeping. All Right, you've got
your business and everything, and you'vebeen working basically out of your shop,
but you're building a new building.And how big is that building gonna be?
And when do you think you maybe complete and ready? Well,
(32:37):
Lee, I keep saying it's gonnabe in July. I said that last
year, and I said that thisyear. But as you know, we've
ended up getting some of the heaviestrains we've had, so we haven't really
got to work on it that much. The plot is dug out. It's
gonna end up being a fifty fiftybuilding with our shop underneath of it in
a store on top, and youknow, I would really like to make
(33:01):
it very friendly as far as youknow, we could have some classrooms there
that we can have people come andspeak and also you know, help with
maybe some honey extraction. So wegot some big ideas about having a store
here in the mountains in North Carolinabecause for most of us, we have
(33:21):
to drive off the mountain that's twohours in each direction. So I felt
like for my community in Nash County, even though we're kind of out of
middle of nowhere, we can probablypull those people to our location. And
I know this because you know,I went up to seeing Greg Burns and
his new store that he opened upup Air and man, he was pulling
(33:43):
people for four to five hours awayto come up and get some of his
products. So when you can producea great product for the customer and something
a little bit different, I believepeople will come. That's that's our game
plan. And that's something I'd liketo retire to be keeper. Wouldn't that
be awesome for me to actually retireas a bee keeper, you know,
(34:07):
to be outside be with your bees. I mean that would be great for
everybody. But Ruth, who's goesinto anti flact to shock, Yeah,
we've had a little experience with that. Miss Ricky and Miss Ruth visited my
place two years in a row,and the last year when they came,
(34:28):
Miss Ruth was recording the video ofRicky and myself out in the apiary doing
some inspections on some of my hives, and there was a little incident where
Miss Ruth took a sting or letme rephrase that, multiple stings to the
back of her head. Well,getting in your hair like that, it's
(34:49):
somewhat easy to reach back and grabthe bee and pull the bee out,
but that stinger is still stuck inthere. And when you're trying to dig
through darker hair to find a littlestinger, it takes quite a while and
sometimes a little too long. Yep, yeap that that sag is still pumping
in the venom and uh it suredoes. You know, put a wallop
(35:13):
on you, especially around your head. I think that affected her brain some,
just a little bit, you know, being up say that old champion
went anyway, uh you know,but yeah, she's giving me the us
Now I think Ricky's about to receivea sting. Yeah, I'm about to
get the sting the board upside ofmy head. So anyway, but you
(35:37):
that you don't know and be keepingwhether you're super allergic or not. And
she was not allergic at all tobe stings. And actually she doesn't mind
taking a sting. You know,I'm a win, I'm running down through
the yard my hands up, I'mgetting stumb getting stung, right, and
she will just in there and justtake it. That's why we're suit So
(36:01):
I don't want those things. Yeah. I kind of felt bad that day
when Ricky and Ruth come to visitme because here's Ricky and myself, we're
standing there in bee suits and wedidn't give miss Ruth anything to wear,
and she's standing in front of thehives in flight paths, so she had
bees everywhere, and a couple ofthem just decided they wouldn't happy where she
(36:23):
was standing at. That's that's correct. Yeah, I just decided to take
her out, yep. So wedid end up taking a little trip to
the emergency room that day and gota couple of ap pins I believe in
there, yep. Yeah, andeverything come out good. But like you
say, you never know. Somepeople are allergic, some people ain't,
but you can actually build an allergicreaction to them exactly. We have a
(36:46):
couple of other friends, Tim andHannah from Gunline Bees on YouTube. They've
both taken stings and hadn't had aproblem, and one day Hannah took a
sting and the same thing. Theyended up at the mergens room and now
she's allergic to them. Yep.I mean, you just don't know when
your body finally says that's enough,or does your body build up the immunity,
(37:08):
you know, so you have differentways. You're going this way,
your body's building the community right,well you've got another way where you're going
down. Your body is in theopposite direction. So you just got to
be careful those signs. You know, what's amazing to me looking back at
it is that she had gotten stungsome and had broke up in the rats,
so we really didn't pay much attentionto it. And that was probably
(37:30):
the precursor to that when we wentdown to your place and she got those
things, so good good things tokind of watch out for and observe.
And again you go, if you'vegot people on your property, you know,
an eppin is great. I suggestyou get one. And Lee brought
brought us a practice EPIPN that wewe practice with now. So that if
(37:55):
an emergency does come, we canh you know, what's that issue if
it comes up. And like Isay, it's a good thing to have
that on your property when people visit. And I had never really thought about
it before because I've taken stings andno problem, but I never thought about
the fact if somebody else happened tobe here and has a reaction, what
do we do. Well that day, luckily we made it to the emergency
(38:19):
room, but since then, Ido keep EpiPens on site here, So
I would recommend to anybody talking totheir doctor or physician or whatever and say,
look, I'm a bee keeper.I don't know if I'm gonna have
a reaction, but I would liketo get an EpiPen prescription to have it
just in case it's needed. Yep, Yeah, I totally agree with you.
That's that's good good keeping these justin case. We've talked about a
(38:46):
couple of people here and YouTube abit. Now you say they got people
on YouTube that you can ask questionsto that to try to help you out,
and whether we know the answers ornot, I mean, we do
try to either give you what informationwe might know, or we might steer
you to someone else that says,hey, this person may know more on
(39:07):
this subject, and go check outtheir YouTube channel and see if you can
find something there. Now, everyThursday night at eight eastern seventh Central,
Ricky does a live on YouTube towhere people will come in. We'll sit
in the video chat and you gotpeople in the comments on the side and
(39:30):
they can ask questions and Ricky orone of the other guests on screen will
answer, or some of the peoplein the comments may be able to help
you out and you may find somebodythat's in your local area. Yeah,
we do that the b Connection,you know, on Thursday nights, And
like you say, you know,sometimes I know the answers, or you
(39:50):
know the answers, or even Tomand Melissa, but there's always somebody on
the chat itself that will make agreat comment. Uh. You know Shane
last Thursday. I don't know ifI really noticed too much on the the
chats, but I did that nightbecause he made some of the best comments
(40:12):
that night. You know, hereminds me of Rhyn from Fair Street Farms.
You know that they have all thisreally good knowledge and and I learned
from that. You know, someonewill ask you a question I thought,
you know, I've never thought aboutthat, and then someone can give a
good answer. You know. Thethose podcasts are great and there's so many
others out there that are doing them. You know, You've got Samuel Charlie
(40:37):
and uh they've got the stream teamand uh Timahan a great ways to get
some good information. You know,if you as you're driving down the street,
just you know, click that linkand go in and listen to the
conversations that goes on. That's whatI do a lot of times, or
(40:57):
even I'm working in the shop andlistening to those pot cast great information on
him. If anybody out there iswanting to catch Ricky's live stream, if
you look on YouTube under horizontal Bees, you can find his YouTube channel and
give him a sub and come overon Thursday nights and check it out.
And we're looking to give it awaya horizontal Hove coming up hopefully this year,
(41:23):
so you know, come on out, you know and be a part
of that and maybe a win upfree Horizontal Hive that we've done drawings before
in the past. So I lovedoing that and es basically if it's somebody
really kind of close to me,because then I can go deliver it and
get a better friendship from that win. But if anybody wants to get more
(41:45):
information on Ricky and Horizontal Bees,you can check out his website at Horizontalbees
dot com or you can find himon YouTube at Horizontal Bees and Ricky.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming inand talking with us. Hopefully it won't
be too much longer. I'll beseeing you when you come down here to
(42:06):
Louisiana for the conference at be AliveConference. Yeah. Well, I'll tell
you what, it's been a pleasureof being on with you tonight and you
picking my brain just a little bit. But you know, the people out
there in the b world of community, those are the special people. And
we appreciate you guys. And again, if you happen to be in Louisiana,
(42:27):
you know I'll be there and He'llbe there, and we're definitely gonna
have a good time because we werestill don't really man, Oh, definitely,
we're going to go out to lunchand find us some good Southern Louisiana
food down here and spend well twodays together September twenty seventh and twenty eighth,
and just do our little fellowship togetherand talk to fellow bee keepers in
the area and some people coming fromout of state. Ricky's from North Carolina
(42:51):
and he's coming all the way downhere Louisiana, so hopefully we'll be able
to catch a few more people thereand maybe shake a few hands. Absolutely,
I agree with the one hundred percent. All right, Ricky, I
want to thank you for sitting downthis evening and having a little talk with
me, and I hope you havea good evening. You two lead man
(43:12):
and take care brother. If youwant to find any more details on Ricky
Rourke and Horizontal Bees, look inthe description of this podcast. I'll leave
a link to his website, horizontalbeesdot com and a link to his YouTube
page, Horizontal Bees. I'll havea good day.
Welcome to the Kodiak Farm Bees Podcast. Welcome to the Kodiak Farm Bees Podcast.
Today we have a special guest withus is Ricky Rourke of Horizontal Bees.
Glad to have Ricky in here andlet y'all get to know him a
(00:30):
little bit better and maybe what hecan provide for you and help out.
Ricky, if you can give usa little information of where you're from and
what you do. Yeah, Leah, I'll live up in North Carolina,
this far north west corner of NorthCarolina, just a little beady town and
(00:53):
Kristen, North Carolina is the countyof the city that we're in. And
you know, it's uh, it'sa little city that has no red lights.
There's just a few stories around here. So we really live out in
the middle of nowhere. So butit's a great community. If you want
something some help, usually there's alot of friendly neighbors that are willing to
(01:17):
help you out. And when youstart talking about beekeeping, have a lot
of friends. That's very nice.So you a bee keeper in North Carolina
area. How long have you beenkeeping bees? You know, Lee,
We've been keeping bees for about sixyears and it's been a great six years,
but I learned very quickly, especiallyafter my third year, and maybe
(01:41):
my fourth is man I made Imade my biggest mistakes. Then I thought
I thought I knew everything, andat that point you think you know it,
and then that's when you fail.And boy, I made some huge
errors and keeping my bees. SoI would call it from every bodies out
there that, like you know itall, there's always something out there to
(02:04):
learn that's good. Think about thesepodcasts, live streams you get with a
bunch of people that gets online andand and you could say, oh,
well they do this and they dothat. Well, maybe I don't want
to do that, but at leastyou got the information right, So I
think that's really important. So anyway, we, like I said, we've
been keeping bees for six years andI've enjoyed every minute of it. I
(02:25):
am down that rabbit hole on outthe other side you're talking about. I
think we all go through that sayingthat we know everything there is to know
about bee keeping and we know howwe're going to do this. That well,
if anybody ain't familiar with it,they can look up a chart called
the Dunning Kruger effect. YEP,and it's going to show you like a
(02:45):
little chart showing hey, right hereat the beginning, I know everything,
and second or third year in thatchart dropped way to the bottom and reality
sets in. And after that youslowly start building your confidence and knowledge in
everything up and finally figure out whatneeds to be done. And you say,
(03:06):
and we see different people on YouTubesaying hey, I want to try
this, or that it's good totry different things. But when you look
on YouTube or here's something on anotherpodcast or anything like that, you just
have to remember what you're watching orlistening to where that person is located.
Because if they're in California or theymay be up in Canada, what they're
(03:28):
doing is going to be done atdifferent times of the year, so you
want to know kind of what theirweather is at that time when they're doing
that, because it don't mean ifthey've done it on May the first in
Canada, that you're going to beable to do it May the first in
North Carolina or down here in Louisiana. You're going to have to adjust your
temperatures and figure out when they didthat. And that's so rightly, you
(03:51):
know, you're talking about location ofwhere you're at. You know, elevation,
you know, how closer to theocean. You know, so many
actors go into how to keep yourbees and as a as a beekeeper,
you know, six years, I'mstarting to really tune in how I keep
my bees. And you know,I feel I feel pretty confident this year,
(04:13):
on my sixth year. You know, so I just I just don't
want to make I just don't wantto repeat those mistakes. And that's that's
what beekeeping is, don't repeat thesame mistakes over and over again. Yeah,
six years. I can't believe howfast it came and went. Already
I got to look into other daymy phone popped up and said, here
here's the memory. My phone appfrom my photos it keeps track of like
(04:35):
memories lopped up, said here's amemory from four years ago today. And
I looked at the picture. Itwas my first bee or a colony of
bees that i'd got. Yeah,and I'm like, that was four years
ago already. I mean time flies, and you know that's like me Lee,
you know, like how how Igot into bee keeping. You know,
(04:56):
I ended up having a package comein and uh, you know that's
how I got started. Before Igot the package, I got on YouTube,
and you know, I was listeningto Randy the Dirt Rooster and Mister
ed and and all those cut outguys, and you know, I told
my wife, I'm like, weneed bees for the farm, you know,
(05:16):
and so I'm kind of allergic tohim. So how do we how
do we you know, combat that, you know what I'm saying, So,
you know, but you know,backs down all the way. Even
other little things like, uh,my grandfather's kept bees, you know.
And then my friend down the streethe had me come help him in his
bees and they were stacked so highup, like, man, it's gonna
(05:40):
be a little bit better way todo this. But he was kind of
mentoring me at the time. Soyou know, that's kind of how I
got into keeping bees is YouTube.I mean most of it came from YouTube,
and uh there's a lot of greatpeople on there, and I got
to enjoy how to to watch theirmistakes and then I still make some of
(06:00):
those mistakes. It's again, itgoes, it gets horrible, but that
you know, that's kind of howI got into keeping bees is watching the
YouTube channel with Randy and mister Bradler'scutouts, and it kind of had my
mind spinning, how do I wantto keep my bees? Right? You
have in mind what you want todo, but then sometimes that process changes
as you go on also, butyou know, but again it goes all
(06:23):
back to my grandfather's watching them keepbees, and I didn't want nothing to
do with bees. I hated them. I didn't want to get stung with
them. I never thought i'd bea bee keeper. But here we are
today, right yep. Well,a lot of us we don't want to
get stungng. But I mean tome that first one of the year,
when you go out there, yeah, it kind of hurts, makes you
jump and say why do I dothis? But after about ten or fifteen
(06:46):
stings, after a while, it'salmost like a mosquito biting you. You
just kind of flick it off andyou keep going. And as far as
the stings go, I have likearthritis and all in my hands from carpa
tunnel, different stuff being a grainoperator. But if I can go out
there and take a couple of stingsin my hands, the next day when
I wake up, it's like allthe pain is gone because it leaves that
(07:12):
inflammation in my hands and I feelgood. Well, that's awesome. You
know, I hear a lot ofpeople using these things for arthrise, but
you know, I always hate tosee the bees die. But you know,
in your case, if you getstung, it's like, oh,
that's no big deal. That actuallyworks out for me, you know exactly.
Now you was talking about some beekeepersor multiple beekeepers really keep bees in
(07:32):
different ways. Yeah, some ofthem, the majority of the people,
I would say the majority. Theykeep hives that they call Langstrof hives,
and generally they're eight maybe ten frameswide that you can put down in the
boxes. But they have another typeof hive out there that some people hadn't
(07:54):
heard of, and that seems tobe what you kind of specialize in.
What can I have? Would thatbe? You know? I kind of
fell into that niche and didn't reallymean to. So we make horizontal hives,
and you know, again going backto see what raindying and does with
cutouts and how the bees will we'llmove horizontally inside the hives. I felt
(08:15):
like it would be a little easieron my back, you know. And
this this hive is not a verycommon hive in the United States, but
it's growing in popularity. Actually alot in popularity. It's really big in
the UK. They use a lotof these for the cold weather. So
anyway, so I decided, youknow, hey, I'm gonna build me
a horizontal hive and I'm gonna playit in my building, and it's gonna
(08:39):
be over my pasture where I keepmy cheap and goats, so nobody can
get stone. It's kind of fenceding. It's in a barn. It gets
extra insulation, and I just wantto see how that. So I put
my horizontal hive in the building andmany field all thirty four frames out.
(09:00):
It's like, man, this thingis killing it, you know. And
then I said, okay, I'mgonna put a deep in the middle of
it, and so put it deepin there, and then they filled it
all up and it's like, ohmy gosh, this is crazy, you
know. So I'm gonna put ashadow on top of that. Well,
you know, I had to modifymy barn to make those supers fit inside
that barn. But it got inmy head of thinking, you know,
(09:24):
if that works so good, whydon't I build some some different styles and
get them outside the barn. BecauseI've gotten a little bit better keeping the
honey bees right when it's scared.I want scared of people getting the stung
is bad. So I'm like,I need to build some to kind of
get outside. So I ended upbuilding three models, and Cayman Reynolds was
(09:45):
having his first conference of High Life. So I decided that, you know,
I'll I'm mentioning the Cayman hair gotthese horizontals, you know, could
I bring them down? And that'ssent him my message and he was Alex
said, he said, yeah,bring them down, show them the people,
and you know, something a littledifferent. So I didn't expect to
sell any hives in there. Ijust wanted to show a different way of
(10:07):
keeping bees. And man, Istarted getting orders. I was I was
in Mexico and came and dropped hisvideo of one of the hives that we'd
given him, and he was gettingorders left and right, and I'm sweating
all over while we're down there.I'm like, oh no, what am
I going to do? And Iwas telling my wife about it and call
my dad, Hey, go getsome number and let's get this and we
(10:28):
got to get this stuff done.So anyway, it was an exciting road
and God has let us down thispath. And I didn't even know it.
You know, he's always sober,eat to me and more than I
deserve. And I can't appreciate himenough. For sometimes I'm stubborn. He
(10:50):
pushes me into stuff because that's howstubern I am. So I don't know
if you're that way leaving, butI'm definitely stubborn. I don't know if
I've ever met a stubborn beekeeper.Now, I think we all got a
little scovered streak to us, butthe bees. I'll let you know real
quick when you're doing something wrong.So you you was talking about, you
(11:11):
was putting supers and uh mediums andshallows on top of a horizontal hive.
Generally, a horizontal hive is justyour deep frames going all the way across,
however wide you're wanting to build them. Right now, you build a
horizontal hive that has a raised sectionin the center that actually you can put
supers into. How did you comeup with that idea? Well, that
(11:37):
goes right back to that hive thatI ended up having in the building.
I said, well, how amI going to you know, get transfer
that on the outside? And sowhat I wanted the bee keeper to be
able to do is if they wanteda vertical hive right, and you could
still get ten to fifteen frames onthe bottom right and then go into a
(11:58):
deep box and then a medium ontop of that. So I really had
to figure out how to get thehinges correct. And then we did the
pull out wings on the left andright and clip the top to take the
top completely often set back home,and I actually built these two models while
I was at work at ge Aviationand built these two models out of cardboard
(12:20):
to see how it would work orif it would work and outside, and
you know I was. I wasextremely excited with it. So that's how
I ended up with that hive.But technically you could take the super horizonal
hive that we make and go upand down verticley with just a larger brudeness
below it, if that's what youwant, and it works very good that
(12:41):
way. And then you know,we did some other models like the easy
Flow Hive, which is a kickoffof the flow hive someselves for auto frames.
So you know, I wanted somethingthat if somebody was disabled, you
know, this is a way thatthey could extract honey, you know,
get inside of a hive and beeasier on them. So that's been an
(13:05):
interesting hive in itself. But thenI have customers that ask me, hey,
can you build this? And canyou build that? So it just
continues to push the horizontal hives tothe next level. Right, it's my
customer basis, Hey can you canyou add this for me? Or hey
I like this over here, andhe just continues to make my hives better
(13:26):
and better by listening to what thecustomer wants. And I think that's good
business sense exactly. Now you weresaying in there about people that have disabilities.
Now you've built a custom high forsomeone that's in a wheelchair that actually
rotates, so rather than the personhaving to stand up and get in from
(13:46):
the top, it will actually rotateto where while they're sitting in their wheelchair.
And that's correct. And the gentlemanthat got me thinking about that was
the thing justin Ruger. He doeshighs for disability and he was in a
wheelchair. So he called me upsay I love your horizonahives, but I
wanted to be able to rotate soit's easier access for me. And then
(14:09):
it would actually tild enough for thefloat frames to have the honey come out.
And so he actually got me involvedwith a guy at Florida University.
He's an engineer, and we startedtalking about, you know, how to
make this high rotate and when hecomes down to it, it's basically almost
like barstool swivels to go on itto actually make the high rotate for him.
(14:33):
And you know, we've made sixor seven of those now for people
with disabilities. We actually donated oneto Hives to Heroes here in the spring
when we was at the North Carolinabe Association down there at their conference,
So we donated one to the Hivesfor Heroes. And you know, that's
some of the good things that Ilike to do because I like helping people,
(14:56):
and people with disabilities is very specialto me in my heart because if
if I was hurt, I wouldwant someone to come up with something a
little different to help me out.So and that's that's how we did those.
Now as far as building hives andeverything for different people. How long
have you been in business, Well, it was really my fifth year,
I guess is kind of how wegot into business. And again that goes
(15:20):
back down there and going to Cayman'sconference and not expecting to fall down this
rabbit hole, but the mark there'sa huge market for horizontal hives, and
so our fifth was basically our secondyear of bee keeping. We ended up
start building hives for customers, andwe first started building for some just some
(15:43):
of our friends around the local.You fall down in that rabbit hole and
you find yourself a niche in themarket and you can fulfill that niche.
And you know, I don't reallydo any advertisement other than YouTube, and
it's my friends on YouTube that havemy hives that are you know, mentioning
me like Lee, You've got oneof our hoves, and that pushes people
(16:04):
in the market to buy from us. So it's kind of nice to not
have to really go after customers.The customers just continue to come to us,
and you know, we're a littlesmall company, were trying to continue
to grow and hopefully things will youknow, open up for us and we
can get some stuff done here onthe farm to make that happen. As
(16:25):
far as the advertisement goes, theway I look at it, most of
the time that word of mouth isgoing to be better than an advertisement that
you're actually having to pay for becausepeople say, oh, well, you're
trying to advertise, you're having topay somebody to come out there and look
at your stuff or buy. Butwhen they hear word of mouth from someone
else that says, look, Ihave this product and it's good that next
(16:48):
person, they're more likely to buythat versus just seeing a commercial and ad
because they know somebody personally that hasused it and is happy with it.
Correct And you know, I endup building a lot of bonds with people
that have my hives. You know, I have some original customers that I
still talk to and and I'm notlike most business because we're kind of small.
(17:11):
You know, I get to talkto those people and I enjoy talking
to them, and and I becometheir fans, and they become my fans,
and you know, we it's justgrat it's it's how my community continues
to grow with people. I loveit. Now, you building hives and
everything. I know we talked awhile back and you were getting some breeder
queens. Now are you gonna beselling more queens yourself? Or are you
(17:37):
playing on making splits and putting queensin and selling nukes or packages. So
that was a big goal of ARSUSthis year. I actually bought a breeder
queen off the Two Rivers, oneof their new uh Sukov line, Honeybee.
(18:00):
So we was looking at doing somequeen rearing and selling queens and also
selling nukes. We actually ended upbuilding fifty three nukes just a couple of
weeks ago to do splits again andmaybe sell some nukes in the spring.
Just got into doing some grafting,which I'm not great at, I'll be
honest with you, and I continueto learn from my fellow people in my
(18:21):
stream yard to lead me in theright direction. So yeah, we built
those fifty three nukes to do somequeen rearing and to sell nokes in the
spring. Unfortunately, Two Rivers gothit by e F three tornado and absolutely
tore up everything that they had,So I've had to kind of switch up.
(18:44):
And I had a breer queen thatI caught him sworn probably two years
ago, and I've actually lost thatqueen since, but I have a few
of her daughters. So I didsome grafts off of those, and again
I'm not a great grafter, soI'm learning, and these guys on my
streaming yard have been teaching me somestuff. So you know, I had
(19:06):
seven queens out of forty two totake. Yeah, that wasn't good.
With your failures will only make youbetter, and that's what I look at.
So I hope to be able tograft quite a bit here in the
next two months and get those nooksall up and running because I like to
overwinter them. I think that's bettercolonies for spring if you're gonna sell them,
because that's approven queen. She's sorry, laid there pretty pattern, you
(19:32):
know. So that's what I wantto be to do, is I want
to give my customers a good product. So yeah, we would really like
to sell queens and nukes definitely nextyear. That will be something that people
will see on our website coming up. That'd be good. And you're talking
about you got seven out of fortytwo and that you're still learning queen reared.
A lot of people are like,well, I don't know how to
(19:52):
do it. You're not gonna learnunless you get in and try it.
Even if you get one out offorty two, that's one more queen than
you started out with. And thenat the same time you're gonna learn,
Hey, this is how I've doneit last time. Let me change this
up. Next time and you insteadof getting out seven out of forty two,
you might get fifteen out of fortytwo. And every time you do
(20:15):
it, you're gonna get better andbetter. And that's just like anything else,
like riding a bike. You ain'tgonna jump on the bike and just
take off riding for your first time. You have to learn the steps and
you're gonna get better every time.And I think if I could find the
rock mentor to help me out,that would definitely help out. But around
here, we don't end up havinganybody that's rearing, so I'm kind of
(20:40):
left them out up here. Butyou know, if I could get somebody
like Greg Burns and does a tonsof queens, or Jose in California,
if I could just come and workwith him for a few weeks, I
might become a pretty good queen rafterat that point in time. So as
all baby steps and we learn aswe go, I mean, that's the
only way to do it. WayI look at myself, I'm never gonna
(21:02):
know everything there is to know aboutbeekeeping. And if you think you've learned
everything, to me, that's wherethe fund stops at. If you're not
learning something new, and bee keepingyou lost all the fun. I enjoy
learning something new because I mean everytime you learn something, you could tell
yourself or your spouse or your buddysay, hey, look what I learned
(21:23):
this time, and you get moreexcited every time. Yeah. I mean
if you do it yourself and youfail and you succeed the next time,
that confidence continues to build up.Right, And you know, I think
that's important in v keys. Ithink it's important in life. With your
failures, just keep pushing along andif you can't get it right, find
(21:47):
the right people around you that canhelp you, know, basically lift you
up, give you some good advice, and get you on the right track.
I think that's so important in anyaspect in life, but of course
in be keeping allso so yeah,well and bee keeping it if you're not
learning the right way, you're stilllearning. You're learning the wrong way,
(22:07):
and you can teach yourself, Heyi've done this wrong this time. Next
time when I do this, Iknow how not to do it. That's
exactly right. Now, you're talkingabout going to conferences and everything. A
little while ago where you met afew people, what kind of conferences do
they have for beekeepers? Out there. You know, North Carolina has two
conferences and they're usually six hours awayfrom us when they have them, so
(22:34):
they're pretty good long distance away.When Keyman Reynolds had his conference in Severeia
has a couple of hours away fromus, and that was really nice.
I enjoyed that. You know,we've been to Kentucky now and that's that's
been an awesome venue to be andbe part of and continue to watch that
(22:55):
conference grow tend to a massive monster. You know. Funny talking to Cayman
Reynolds before all this happened, andyou know, when I was doing my
beehives and he was laying his planethis goals at saying this is what he
wants. He wanted the biggest vendormarket out there. He knew he did
that he could bring the people inand and he did and and not only
(23:21):
did he do that, you know, he's such in tune with the YouTube
community. He goes to so manyother conferences. They just made it into
being a monster. But we goto our local B association and take part
in it. It's hard to runa business and good car your B meetings
and stuff, but if you canmake it, those are great ways to
(23:45):
get good information locally. That's probablywhere I get most of my my information.
And we have a master bee keeper, and again master doesn't make you
better than anybody else. I'm acertified be keeper, doesn't make me better
than a regular bee keeper. Itjust shows that you try to push your
education a little bit better. Andhere in Ash County they do have an
(24:07):
educational program where they help you getyou know, either a certified bee keeper
or journeyman or master bee keeper.Uh. So those are some good programs
that we have. I'd like tosee more programs for his, especially conferences,
to get the kids more involved.Kim is doing pretty good with that.
I give him some scholarships out soagain we're kind of excluded, so
(24:30):
we don't have a lot, butI try to get to those things.
And just like Lee here, youknow, he's been with us for several
conferences and they have all been greatand and I've enjoyed being with him and
in my whole entire groupe, uhand watching watching the every conference grow.
So and if anybody don't know theconference he was referring to as far as
(24:52):
Kyman Reynolds, that would be theNorth American Honeybee Expo and you can find
that online at n AHB for NorthAmerican Honeybee and then expo dot com.
And I believe this last year inJanuary they had what over two thousand people
show up. Yeah. Yeah,it's been incredible watching the numbers. You're
(25:15):
right. It was two thousand andwhen I went my first time with him,
he had barely had two hundred andfifty n and then you know the
next year it's eight hundred, andthen twelve hundred, and you know,
two thousand, and then you seeit's almost doubling every year. Okay,
is it's gonna be three thousand,it's gonna be four thousand, you know,
man to get that many bee keeperstogether, I swear, I don't
(25:36):
really want to be a vendor,you know, I really don't want to
be a vendor. I just wantto I want to go see people's products,
and I want to get out thereand socialize with all these YouTubers that
are there and have great conversations.So anyway, it continues to grow,
and I appreciate what Cayman does withhis conferences exactly, and anybody that's looking
(26:00):
to get into bee keeping that don'tknow these venues to go through to get
the information. Generally, if yougo online, you can type in your
state's name and then B and it'sgonna usually pull up your B association,
say like Louisiana. You can typeLouisiana Beekeepers Association and it will take you
(26:22):
to the LBA website and you canfind all kinds of resources there, different
events that they're gonna have. Itmight be in your local area, it
might be an hour or so drive. But they've got a lot of information
out there for people that's either wantingto get into bee keeping or just wanting
to know a little information and learnsome new knowledge, even if they don't
(26:44):
ever mess with a bee. I'dsay every conference I've been to, there's
enough information to make it worth yourwhile to pay to go to those conferences,
you know. But there's other peoplelike David Burns. He does online
classes, you know, so there'sanother way of better educating yourself. And
again I didn't quite do it theright way. I was watching cut out
(27:06):
videos with Brandy the Dirt Rooster,but I did watch other people like Frederick
Dunn and his information that he's givenout. So it's out there if you're
a beginner beekeeper. I'm telling you, man, go to one of these
conferences, you're gonna enjoy it.Find you another beekeeper to kind of join
up with at your own a priary, you know, I do suggest a
(27:26):
couple of hives, you know.So overall, I mean, conferences are
great. I mean I can't sayenough about especially Canlan's conference. I mean
there's some excitement there that I haven'tfailed at the other conferences. So I'd
got an email the other day frommy state Beekeepers Association for Louisiana and they
(27:47):
have our state meeting coming up.I can't remember if it's August or September,
but Cayman Reynolds is actually going tobe a speaker at it this year.
Yeah, we was actually supposed togo out to that one. To
Davy Crockett, I think it's wrong. Cooks Field, Is that right?
Lee is where that's gonna be at? King and Reynold's gonna be speaking.
Uh the one we have here inLouisiana that he's gonna be at. I
(28:11):
believe it's in Pineville, Louisiana,up near Alexandria. Okay, I'm sorry
about that. He's he's in alot of different conferences. So he's also
in Tennessee, I think in August. So great speaker to be around and
learn something from, you know.But but I can learn stuff from Lee
also. I can learn from Tomand Melissa and Spanky and everybody that comes
(28:33):
onto live streams. I can learnfrom everybody, And if we can work
together to listen to some good information, it can definitely make us some better
beekeepers in the long run. So, now, what's the next conference that
you plan on being at, whetheryou're a vendor or just going there to
(28:56):
visit and see everything and talk topeople. Yeah, we we was thinking
about going up to Tennessee to theDavy Crockett, but I think I'm gonna
pull back from that one. Andwe were definitely gonna probably be down inside
deal with you and Tom and Melissaand down at that big Louisiana conference.
It's gonna be down there. Ihope I can stand the heat because I'm
(29:18):
a mountain boy and and we don'tget hot up here in the mountains,
so that would be something a littledifferent from me. But I believe that
will actually be the conference. Nextthing I go to will be in Sideal,
but we won't be a vendor there. I just really just want to
go and enjoy the people. Youknow, So if you're if you're in
that area, come on, damnma and I love to talk to you
(29:40):
and say hello and tell me whoyou are and your name, because a
lot of times on YouTube we getpeople that we don't even know and they
just walk up to the habit watchingyou for a long time, and it's
it's been. It's pretty interesting.But I'm just like everybody else, just
a good featherer and I'll sit thereand talk to you about bees all day.
(30:02):
Bones. Yep. Now, thatconference that Ricky's talking about in Slideale,
Louisiana, that's going to be thebe Alive Conference that's going to be
put on by the b Commander outof slide l area. And if you
go online to be Alive Conference dotcom, you can get all the information
there. That's going to be Septemberthe twenty seventh and twenty eighth of twenty
(30:27):
twenty four. Now you was talkingabout people on YouTube getting to talk and
meet new people. My first yeargoing to Tennessee up there to help you
in your booth at the conference,me and Renee went out to eat and
we were sitting there and she decidesshe's going to run to the car to
(30:47):
get her lip bomb, and Itold her she missed my big moment.
You get that feeling that somebody's lookingat you, So I turn and look
and there's a couple sitting at thetable, a couple of tables over from
us, and they wait even They'relike, are you Lee. I'm like,
yes, i am. The chesskind of popped out and I'm like,
well, yes i am. Butit ended up being some bee keepers
(31:08):
out of Florida that recognized me frombeing on YouTube, and I'm like,
man, you just missed my bigmoment. I but it's fun getting out
and meeting those people in person andactually getting to shake their hands. Correct
they don't realize, Matt. Canyou feel that way? Lee? Makes
(31:29):
you feel good? But also yourespect them for saying something to you,
right, and and that they haveThey've uplifted you a little bit. And
I and if you're like me,I want to repay that right. I
want to uplift them because to me, they're the important person. I'm They're
the important person and I love talkingto those kinds of people. That's it.
(31:53):
And in fact, the people thatrecognized me that night when we went
out, that was Miss Melanie andmister Dinner Cruise. And there's at the
slide L conference again this year.It's gonna be good to get to see
them again. Yeah. I thinkwe're just gonna be staying with them with
Tom and Melissa down there in thehotel or a house. So it's good.
(32:15):
It's gonna be great. And there'ssome great people right there. There
were some friendly people and they lovebe keeping. All Right, you've got
your business and everything, and you'vebeen working basically out of your shop,
but you're building a new building.And how big is that building gonna be?
And when do you think you maybe complete and ready? Well,
(32:37):
Lee, I keep saying it's gonnabe in July. I said that last
year, and I said that thisyear. But as you know, we've
ended up getting some of the heaviestrains we've had, so we haven't really
got to work on it that much. The plot is dug out. It's
gonna end up being a fifty fiftybuilding with our shop underneath of it in
a store on top, and youknow, I would really like to make
(33:01):
it very friendly as far as youknow, we could have some classrooms there
that we can have people come andspeak and also you know, help with
maybe some honey extraction. So wegot some big ideas about having a store
here in the mountains in North Carolinabecause for most of us, we have
(33:21):
to drive off the mountain that's twohours in each direction. So I felt
like for my community in Nash County, even though we're kind of out of
middle of nowhere, we can probablypull those people to our location. And
I know this because you know,I went up to seeing Greg Burns and
his new store that he opened upup Air and man, he was pulling
(33:43):
people for four to five hours awayto come up and get some of his
products. So when you can producea great product for the customer and something
a little bit different, I believepeople will come. That's that's our game
plan. And that's something I'd liketo retire to be keeper. Wouldn't that
be awesome for me to actually retireas a bee keeper, you know,
(34:07):
to be outside be with your bees. I mean that would be great for
everybody. But Ruth, who's goesinto anti flact to shock, Yeah,
we've had a little experience with that. Miss Ricky and Miss Ruth visited my
place two years in a row,and the last year when they came,
(34:28):
Miss Ruth was recording the video ofRicky and myself out in the apiary doing
some inspections on some of my hives, and there was a little incident where
Miss Ruth took a sting or letme rephrase that, multiple stings to the
back of her head. Well,getting in your hair like that, it's
(34:49):
somewhat easy to reach back and grabthe bee and pull the bee out,
but that stinger is still stuck inthere. And when you're trying to dig
through darker hair to find a littlestinger, it takes quite a while and
sometimes a little too long. Yep, yeap that that sag is still pumping
in the venom and uh it suredoes. You know, put a wallop
(35:13):
on you, especially around your head. I think that affected her brain some,
just a little bit, you know, being up say that old champion
went anyway, uh you know,but yeah, she's giving me the us
Now I think Ricky's about to receivea sting. Yeah, I'm about to
get the sting the board upside ofmy head. So anyway, but you
(35:37):
that you don't know and be keepingwhether you're super allergic or not. And
she was not allergic at all tobe stings. And actually she doesn't mind
taking a sting. You know,I'm a win, I'm running down through
the yard my hands up, I'mgetting stumb getting stung, right, and
she will just in there and justtake it. That's why we're suit So
(36:01):
I don't want those things. Yeah. I kind of felt bad that day
when Ricky and Ruth come to visitme because here's Ricky and myself, we're
standing there in bee suits and wedidn't give miss Ruth anything to wear,
and she's standing in front of thehives in flight paths, so she had
bees everywhere, and a couple ofthem just decided they wouldn't happy where she
(36:23):
was standing at. That's that's correct. Yeah, I just decided to take
her out, yep. So wedid end up taking a little trip to
the emergency room that day and gota couple of ap pins I believe in
there, yep. Yeah, andeverything come out good. But like you
say, you never know. Somepeople are allergic, some people ain't,
but you can actually build an allergicreaction to them exactly. We have a
(36:46):
couple of other friends, Tim andHannah from Gunline Bees on YouTube. They've
both taken stings and hadn't had aproblem, and one day Hannah took a
sting and the same thing. Theyended up at the mergens room and now
she's allergic to them. Yep.I mean, you just don't know when
your body finally says that's enough,or does your body build up the immunity,
(37:08):
you know, so you have differentways. You're going this way,
your body's building the community right,well you've got another way where you're going
down. Your body is in theopposite direction. So you just got to
be careful those signs. You know, what's amazing to me looking back at
it is that she had gotten stungsome and had broke up in the rats,
so we really didn't pay much attentionto it. And that was probably
(37:30):
the precursor to that when we wentdown to your place and she got those
things, so good good things tokind of watch out for and observe.
And again you go, if you'vegot people on your property, you know,
an eppin is great. I suggestyou get one. And Lee brought
brought us a practice EPIPN that wewe practice with now. So that if
(37:55):
an emergency does come, we canh you know, what's that issue if
it comes up. And like Isay, it's a good thing to have
that on your property when people visit. And I had never really thought about
it before because I've taken stings andno problem, but I never thought about
the fact if somebody else happened tobe here and has a reaction, what
do we do. Well that day, luckily we made it to the emergency
(38:19):
room, but since then, Ido keep EpiPens on site here, So
I would recommend to anybody talking totheir doctor or physician or whatever and say,
look, I'm a bee keeper.I don't know if I'm gonna have
a reaction, but I would liketo get an EpiPen prescription to have it
just in case it's needed. Yep, Yeah, I totally agree with you.
That's that's good good keeping these justin case. We've talked about a
(38:46):
couple of people here and YouTube abit. Now you say they got people
on YouTube that you can ask questionsto that to try to help you out,
and whether we know the answers ornot, I mean, we do
try to either give you what informationwe might know, or we might steer
you to someone else that says,hey, this person may know more on
(39:07):
this subject, and go check outtheir YouTube channel and see if you can
find something there. Now, everyThursday night at eight eastern seventh Central,
Ricky does a live on YouTube towhere people will come in. We'll sit
in the video chat and you gotpeople in the comments on the side and
(39:30):
they can ask questions and Ricky orone of the other guests on screen will
answer, or some of the peoplein the comments may be able to help
you out and you may find somebodythat's in your local area. Yeah,
we do that the b Connection,you know, on Thursday nights, And
like you say, you know,sometimes I know the answers, or you
(39:50):
know the answers, or even Tomand Melissa, but there's always somebody on
the chat itself that will make agreat comment. Uh. You know Shane
last Thursday. I don't know ifI really noticed too much on the the
chats, but I did that nightbecause he made some of the best comments
(40:12):
that night. You know, hereminds me of Rhyn from Fair Street Farms.
You know that they have all thisreally good knowledge and and I learned
from that. You know, someonewill ask you a question I thought,
you know, I've never thought aboutthat, and then someone can give a
good answer. You know. Thethose podcasts are great and there's so many
others out there that are doing them. You know, You've got Samuel Charlie
(40:37):
and uh they've got the stream teamand uh Timahan a great ways to get
some good information. You know,if you as you're driving down the street,
just you know, click that linkand go in and listen to the
conversations that goes on. That's whatI do a lot of times, or
(40:57):
even I'm working in the shop andlistening to those pot cast great information on
him. If anybody out there iswanting to catch Ricky's live stream, if
you look on YouTube under horizontal Bees, you can find his YouTube channel and
give him a sub and come overon Thursday nights and check it out.
And we're looking to give it awaya horizontal Hove coming up hopefully this year,
(41:23):
so you know, come on out, you know and be a part
of that and maybe a win upfree Horizontal Hive that we've done drawings before
in the past. So I lovedoing that and es basically if it's somebody
really kind of close to me,because then I can go deliver it and
get a better friendship from that win. But if anybody wants to get more
(41:45):
information on Ricky and Horizontal Bees,you can check out his website at Horizontalbees
dot com or you can find himon YouTube at Horizontal Bees and Ricky.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming inand talking with us. Hopefully it won't
be too much longer. I'll beseeing you when you come down here to
(42:06):
Louisiana for the conference at be AliveConference. Yeah. Well, I'll tell
you what, it's been a pleasureof being on with you tonight and you
picking my brain just a little bit. But you know, the people out
there in the b world of community, those are the special people. And
we appreciate you guys. And again, if you happen to be in Louisiana,
(42:27):
you know I'll be there and He'llbe there, and we're definitely gonna
have a good time because we werestill don't really man, Oh, definitely,
we're going to go out to lunchand find us some good Southern Louisiana
food down here and spend well twodays together September twenty seventh and twenty eighth,
and just do our little fellowship togetherand talk to fellow bee keepers in
the area and some people coming fromout of state. Ricky's from North Carolina
(42:51):
and he's coming all the way downhere Louisiana, so hopefully we'll be able
to catch a few more people thereand maybe shake a few hands. Absolutely,
I agree with the one hundred percent. All right, Ricky, I
want to thank you for sitting downthis evening and having a little talk with
me, and I hope you havea good evening. You two lead man
(43:12):
and take care brother. If youwant to find any more details on Ricky
Rourke and Horizontal Bees, look inthe description of this podcast. I'll leave
a link to his website, horizontalbeesdot com and a link to his YouTube
page, Horizontal Bees. I'll havea good day.
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