Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Our toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five. Good morning. I am Ron Wilson, your
personal yard boy, talking about yarding and where she is
our main source of bee information. As a matter of fact,
every year at the end of the winter we always
have her on to talk about how did our bees
come through the winter, And then at the end of
the summer we say, how did our bees come through
(00:22):
the summer and into the fall season. And I don't
know that she has really good news for us this year.
It's always been kind of up and down. But we're
gonna find out, ladies and gentlemen, she is our queen Bee.
Barbie Bletcher, good morning five. I know, I know you're
(00:43):
not an early riser, you and Boggs and all of
the old extension people and all that you all like
to sleep in late. Never understood that, but we appreciate
you getting up early and talking to us this morning.
And I have actually have a couple of questions to
get you kind of warmed up. Here. We have a
truck driver listens to our show, and he said, can
(01:04):
you ask the queen bee? That he said, I passed
a couple of trucks that were hauling bees. He said
this to me back in early February, and I said,
you were going to have And I told him we're
gonna have you on. We're not sure when, but it
said keep listening. His nickname is the Dipper. But he said,
how hard is that trip on those bees when they're
(01:24):
headed out to California and wherever? And what do beekeepers
have to do before they can actually ship those bees
on those trucks?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, that's a great question. I'm glad you didn't ask
what the insurance is to truck those.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And then what does the insurance cost?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, just kidding, rat, Yeah, I know it's incredibly expensive
to ensure those hives. And I'm not even sure if
they ensure the hives are just the truck itself, because
some of these in some instances, you can't actually ensure
the the beehives. But regardless, so beekeepers they'll have multiple yards,
(02:07):
so when they're getting ready to ship themselves, they start
condensing yards, so they have as many colonies stacked up
in each yard just to make it easier for loading.
And so they'll use we have our very own pallett,
not palette. We put them on a pallet and we
have our very own pallette. Jack, I forget what's called
(02:32):
off hand, but we can actually lift those bee hives
four at a time onto a semi then we put
four more on top, and so we stack them four
per ballot stack them up at least, you know, so
it be eight bee hives high. And so yeah, I
(02:57):
think you can get like four four hundred on a hive,
I mean four hundred on a truck.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And each hibe what do you think I average out
and number of bees in each hive, so they don't.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Have them down to about thirty thousand by.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Them in each hive. Yeah. Wow, it's a lot of bees.
So now once we do you wrap that hive to
keep them inside there or something during that shipping.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's tricky because you don't want them to suffocate, right,
So they have it. They have have each hive condensed
to two deep boxes, so they're too deep boxes high.
They're on a pallette. So the the way that the
commercial beekeepers do it there they only have a lower
entrance to be able to fly in and out. So
(03:49):
when they stack those upsoes basically it's four hives high.
They use either netting or they'll use like that plastic
wrap use for packaging to put it around the whole thing,
but it's not right up against the hives. Okay, so
the bees can get out and fly around, because if
they get overheated, you're gonna end up having you know,
(04:11):
four hundred dead hives. So they'll put either netting over
it and use like tie downs to keep them on
the truck, or they wrap the whole thing loosely with
that plastic wrap, but it's not on the hives. It's
on the supporters around it, so it's not right up
against the beehives. And so they try to fly drives
(04:35):
straight down without stopping or anything.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So you try to keep those on the move until
you get to California where they're going, and then they
unload those there, let them do their thing. Then did
they load those same process and bring them all back
home again.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, it's even more difficult. It's even more difficult then.
So they take them down there and they have like
a loading area with they'll on of them and they'll
have them sit there for you know, a day or
two until they're ready for the almonds, and then they'll
they'll ship them out to the almonds. Four per palette
and spread them around the almonds, so a good colony.
(05:15):
They're looking at strong frames of brood. So not all
of those are going to be accepted to be used
for almond pollination. So they'll go through them again and
move out the ones that are the healthiest to put
into the almonds. So some of them aren't going to survive,
so they'll load them all back up into this storage
(05:37):
yard basically an empty lot, go through them again. Some
of those are going to be sold to people who
be companies that make packages to sell. Some of them
are sold to you know, stay down in Florida or
down California or wherever. And then some of them are
shipped directly up for blueberries or apples or ever. But yeah,
(06:01):
so they will ship them right back the way they did,
but they're smaller quantities, and they're going to go off
to pollinate something else.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And there's a good chance that that beekeeper may wind
up just selling all of the bees that he shipped
out there, okay, because.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It costs so much to ship them back, and.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Then just start everything all over again, get ahold of
Nina Bagley and start getting new queens.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, they called Nina and the order of four hundred new.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Queens, and Nina starts yelling out loud and screaming and.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Oh yes, you would be.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Here, so you know. And of course every now and
then you get to see a news release where a
truck flipped over and all the bees get released accidentally.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, most of those colonies are lost, you know,
they we can't they don't survive. The boxes are crashed,
the clusters are broken up, the queen may be killed.
A lot of times, they'll just go out and start
spring them with extinguishers or hoses to keep them from flying,
and they're they're gone. It's a very expensive accident.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Well, you know, like when we ship nursery plants from
state to state or whatever may be, they're all they
come with a nursery certification, they're been they've been inspected,
and there are regulations. Is that the same thing when
it comes to shipping bees across the.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Country as as far as being inspected, Well, I.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Mean, is there some kind of regulation? I mean, you know,
I know that one of the one of the issues
that you you and I have talked about way back
when is that you know, when you've got a virus
or whatever, sometimes it. You know, it's hard to because
some of those may have it and they're shipping them
to California not knowing it and they show up there.
I mean, is there some kind of an inspection regulation
or not necessarily?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Most states have a have an inspection program. Okay, some
are more rigorous than others. But yeah, to'll be able
to ship them over state lines, they have to have
been inspected, and you know, if there's a decent border patrol,
they will they will inspect them at the borders when
you go into those way stations for trucks, right, they'll
(08:20):
have to have present that certification that they've been inspected.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Ye. Interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So yeah, it's a little different in each state. But
if you take your bees down to California, I can
guarantee you that they're going to be inspected. They checked
the palettes for weeds, for mud, for anything like that.
So the pallettes have to be clean.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, they're really particular down California.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
That's that's good. That's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah. Talking with Barbie Bletcher, she is our queen Bee
and has always been our source. We're talking about not
only the honey bees, we also many many years ago
started talking about native bee which are now very very
much in the news as well as we try to
take care of our bees and our pollinators and all.
And she's just been a great source of information still
(09:11):
is and that's why we still have her on our show.
Let's take a quick break, because coming up after the
break and talk about you know, we get our update
as far as how the bees did over the wintertime
and some of the headlines I'm reading here that I
have in my hands doesn't look good. And we'll see
what Barbie has to say after the break. Here in
the Garden with Ron Wilson, how is your garden growing?
Speaker 4 (09:32):
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Speaker 3 (11:56):
Com talking yard with Barbie Blet, your our queen Bee
this morning and the interesting story about shipping those bees
across the country.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And we want to thank Dipper for asking. He's been
waiting anxiously for Barbie to answer that question as usual,
great information because she knows her bees, thus being the
queen Bee. So you know, we stay in touch and
you let me know how the bees are doing through
the spring, in the summer, in the fall and the
winter and all of that. And I'll tell you and
I are the correspondences we've had over the last three
(12:29):
to four weeks not looking good.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
No, Actually, I think Ohio is better than the western state.
We're about a sixty five survival, which is not great,
but it's better than what they're seeing over in North
and South Dakota and California. We've lost one point eight
million colonies so far.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
One point eight million bee colonies have been lost this
winter so far.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
This is commercial colonies. So we have a million acres
of almonds, which, by the way, California almonds supply eighty
two percent of the almonds in the world, so our
almond cup is incredibly important for the world supply of almonds.
(13:20):
So we have a million acres of almonds, that takes
two million acres of de colonies to pollinate those almonds.
We've already lost two million, well one point eight million colonies,
so they're scrambling to find colonies to pollinate these almonds.
(13:43):
Instead of having two hives two colonies per acre for
the almonds, they're spreading it out to one per every
three acres of almonds. So just between you and me,
don't tell anybody you need to go out and buy
almonds that's the price.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, I mean seriously, I mean so obviously with the
with the lack of bees, uh for pollination, production could
definitely be way down.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, and think of it, the next cop is blueberries.
So where are all these hives going to come from
to pollinate our cranberries, our blueberries, our apples. I guess
the nice thing is that we're going to be requiring
you know, local beekeepers just supply some of that that
pollination service. But in general, you know, we we're going
(14:33):
to be lacking a lot of bees to do this work.
And native bees, you know, God love them, they just
can't do it. They're not efficient enough.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Wow. So yeah, this, you know, and the one of
the one of the that you had sent me, it's
said they're going to be a webinar discussed the scale
and the levels of all this kind of stuff. It's
said that the these losses surpassed historical trends. So I
guess this is like the worst.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, they're calling our colony collapse two point.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Zero colony collapse two point zero. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So they have the Royal Day, they have USDA and
so many other researchers have done in intensive studies they've
been collecting dead bees and dying bees over West. They
have been serving the beekeepers to find out what's going on.
(15:34):
Mites are certainly part of it, but the percentage of
mits in the colonies isn't that much worse to cause
these colony losses. So, I mean, commercial beekeepers know what
they're doing. They you know, they don't make the stupid
mistakes and hobby beekeepers and sideliners might do. You know,
they know what they're doing and they've been successful for
(15:57):
the most part. These are family business is that are
three four generation beekeepers and they they are at wits end.
They don't know why all these colonies are dying.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, they as I read through this, I just you know,
you don't even think about it. I sometimes we have
a tendency to not think about when tornadoes come through
or when hurricanes come through. Uh, you know what's lost
there when just for the bees alone. But they're talking
about right now with what they're seeing with these losses.
The direct colony losses conservatively estimated at two one hundred
(16:31):
and twenty four point eight million dollars. Yeah, and just
alone in any economy four point there are four hundred
and twenty eight million dollar loss. I mean, wow, this.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Is yeah, substantial, this is substantial.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So so, and these aren't just the bees that were
being These aren't the These are the bees that are
at the wherever they're being kept. There are these aren't
have nothing to do with the bees are being transported
and all that. It's it's where they're being raised.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That We've had commercial beekeepers in Ohio who have separed
these kind of losses.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now you I mean they Well, I was going to say,
you told me, I know two or three years ago
we had a thirty percent loss. You said, really, that's
not too bad. Twenty five to thirty percent, it's acceptable,
I guess an average or whatever. Unfortunately, so you know,
this is this is crazy. And I haven't seen much
about it in the news, which has kind of surprised me.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
But you yeah, and you know, I think we've been
crying wolf for so long that it's it just hasn't
you know. We have to be careful how we do this,
because we can't just keep crying wolf. We have to.
We had to find a solution because, yeah, people get
tired of hearing oh, poor poor this and poor that.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
So at this stage in the game. We got about
two minutes to go at this. As in the game,
there's nothing that we can do besides continuing our practices
that we talk about as far as planting for the pollinators,
being friendly in what you do and your and your
cultural practices and all, and try to encourage the local
bees as best you can.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Buy local honeys, I mean that will help a lot.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Buy the local honey support your local honey bee keepers. Uh,
and keep doing that. And in the meantime, you and
I will stay in touch. We'll get you back on
the show as we you know, they try to figure
out exactly what's going on here. Hopefully we don't have
any more losses that were you know, it's a stop
and things to come back. Hopefully it is. But again,
(18:42):
I know you'll keep us posting and I appreciate the
information that you share with us because it's always a
pleasure having you on our show.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well, Happy b DA to your producer.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, Happy be Day to Danny. Absolutely, thank you, and Barbie,
I do appreciate getting early because I know it's not
one of your favorite things to do. Take care all right,
talk to you later. Barbie Bletcher, our queen bee and
it's a serious situation, major loss out there, and of
course it affects pollination. Like you said, the almond crop,
(19:12):
blueberry crop. We'll see what happens. But they're working on
it really hard right now to try to figure out
what the heck is going on quick breaking come back.
Our book is called How the Garden Indoors and Grow
your own food year round. Here in the Garden with
Ron Wilson, Green tom or not.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Ron can help at one eight hundred eighty two three.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
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Our toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five. Good morning. I am Ron Wilson, your
personal yard boy, talking about yarding and where she is
our main source of bee information. As a matter of fact,
every year at the end of the winter we always
have her on to talk about how did our bees
come through the winter, And then at the end of
the summer we say, how did our bees come through
(00:22):
the summer and into the fall season. And I don't
know that she has really good news for us this year.
It's always been kind of up and down. But we're
gonna find out, ladies and gentlemen, she is our queen Bee.
Barbie Bletcher, good morning five. I know, I know you're
(00:43):
not an early riser, you and Boggs and all of
the old extension people and all that you all like
to sleep in late. Never understood that, but we appreciate
you getting up early and talking to us this morning.
And I have actually have a couple of questions to
get you kind of warmed up. Here. We have a
truck driver listens to our show, and he said, can
(01:04):
you ask the queen bee? That he said, I passed
a couple of trucks that were hauling bees. He said
this to me back in early February, and I said,
you were going to have And I told him we're
gonna have you on. We're not sure when, but it
said keep listening. His nickname is the Dipper. But he said,
how hard is that trip on those bees when they're
(01:24):
headed out to California and wherever? And what do beekeepers
have to do before they can actually ship those bees
on those trucks?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh, that's a great question. I'm glad you didn't ask
what the insurance is to truck those.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
And then what does the insurance cost?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, just kidding, rat, Yeah, I know it's incredibly expensive
to ensure those hives. And I'm not even sure if
they ensure the hives are just the truck itself, because
some of these in some instances, you can't actually ensure
the the beehives. But regardless, so beekeepers they'll have multiple yards,
(02:07):
so when they're getting ready to ship themselves, they start
condensing yards, so they have as many colonies stacked up
in each yard just to make it easier for loading.
And so they'll use we have our very own pallett,
not palette. We put them on a pallet and we
have our very own pallette. Jack, I forget what's called
(02:32):
off hand, but we can actually lift those bee hives
four at a time onto a semi then we put
four more on top, and so we stack them four
per ballot stack them up at least, you know, so
it be eight bee hives high. And so yeah, I
(02:57):
think you can get like four four hundred on a hive,
I mean four hundred on a truck.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And each hibe what do you think I average out
and number of bees in each hive, so they don't.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Have them down to about thirty thousand by.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Them in each hive. Yeah. Wow, it's a lot of bees.
So now once we do you wrap that hive to
keep them inside there or something during that shipping.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, it's tricky because you don't want them to suffocate, right,
So they have it. They have have each hive condensed
to two deep boxes, so they're too deep boxes high.
They're on a pallette. So the the way that the
commercial beekeepers do it there they only have a lower
entrance to be able to fly in and out. So
(03:49):
when they stack those upsoes basically it's four hives high.
They use either netting or they'll use like that plastic
wrap use for packaging to put it around the whole thing,
but it's not right up against the hives. Okay, so
the bees can get out and fly around, because if
they get overheated, you're gonna end up having you know,
(04:11):
four hundred dead hives. So they'll put either netting over
it and use like tie downs to keep them on
the truck, or they wrap the whole thing loosely with
that plastic wrap, but it's not on the hives. It's
on the supporters around it, so it's not right up
against the beehives. And so they try to fly drives
(04:35):
straight down without stopping or anything.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So you try to keep those on the move until
you get to California where they're going, and then they
unload those there, let them do their thing. Then did
they load those same process and bring them all back
home again.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Well, it's even more difficult. It's even more difficult then.
So they take them down there and they have like
a loading area with they'll on of them and they'll
have them sit there for you know, a day or
two until they're ready for the almonds, and then they'll
they'll ship them out to the almonds. Four per palette
and spread them around the almonds, so a good colony.
(05:15):
They're looking at strong frames of brood. So not all
of those are going to be accepted to be used
for almond pollination. So they'll go through them again and
move out the ones that are the healthiest to put
into the almonds. So some of them aren't going to survive,
so they'll load them all back up into this storage
(05:37):
yard basically an empty lot, go through them again. Some
of those are going to be sold to people who
be companies that make packages to sell. Some of them
are sold to you know, stay down in Florida or
down California or wherever. And then some of them are
shipped directly up for blueberries or apples or ever. But yeah,
(06:01):
so they will ship them right back the way they did,
but they're smaller quantities, and they're going to go off
to pollinate something else.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And there's a good chance that that beekeeper may wind
up just selling all of the bees that he shipped
out there, okay, because.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It costs so much to ship them back, and.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Then just start everything all over again, get ahold of
Nina Bagley and start getting new queens.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah, they called Nina and the order of four hundred new.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Queens, and Nina starts yelling out loud and screaming and.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Oh yes, you would be.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Here, so you know. And of course every now and
then you get to see a news release where a
truck flipped over and all the bees get released accidentally.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, most of those colonies are lost, you know,
they we can't they don't survive. The boxes are crashed,
the clusters are broken up, the queen may be killed.
A lot of times, they'll just go out and start
spring them with extinguishers or hoses to keep them from flying,
and they're they're gone. It's a very expensive accident.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Well, you know, like when we ship nursery plants from
state to state or whatever may be, they're all they
come with a nursery certification, they're been they've been inspected,
and there are regulations. Is that the same thing when
it comes to shipping bees across the.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Country as as far as being inspected, Well, I.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Mean, is there some kind of regulation? I mean, you know,
I know that one of the one of the issues
that you you and I have talked about way back
when is that you know, when you've got a virus
or whatever, sometimes it. You know, it's hard to because
some of those may have it and they're shipping them
to California not knowing it and they show up there.
I mean, is there some kind of an inspection regulation
or not necessarily?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Most states have a have an inspection program. Okay, some
are more rigorous than others. But yeah, to'll be able
to ship them over state lines, they have to have
been inspected, and you know, if there's a decent border patrol,
they will they will inspect them at the borders when
you go into those way stations for trucks, right, they'll
(08:20):
have to have present that certification that they've been inspected.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Ye. Interesting.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
So yeah, it's a little different in each state. But
if you take your bees down to California, I can
guarantee you that they're going to be inspected. They checked
the palettes for weeds, for mud, for anything like that.
So the pallettes have to be clean.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, they're really particular down California.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
That's that's good. That's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah. Talking with Barbie Bletcher, she is our queen Bee
and has always been our source. We're talking about not
only the honey bees, we also many many years ago
started talking about native bee which are now very very
much in the news as well as we try to
take care of our bees and our pollinators and all.
And she's just been a great source of information still
(09:11):
is and that's why we still have her on our show.
Let's take a quick break, because coming up after the
break and talk about you know, we get our update
as far as how the bees did over the wintertime
and some of the headlines I'm reading here that I
have in my hands doesn't look good. And we'll see
what Barbie has to say after the break. Here in
the Garden with Ron Wilson, how is your garden growing?
Speaker 4 (09:32):
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Speaker 3 (11:56):
Com talking yard with Barbie Blet, your our queen Bee
this morning and the interesting story about shipping those bees
across the country.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And we want to thank Dipper for asking. He's been
waiting anxiously for Barbie to answer that question as usual,
great information because she knows her bees, thus being the
queen Bee. So you know, we stay in touch and
you let me know how the bees are doing through
the spring, in the summer, in the fall and the
winter and all of that. And I'll tell you and
I are the correspondences we've had over the last three
(12:29):
to four weeks not looking good.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
No, Actually, I think Ohio is better than the western state.
We're about a sixty five survival, which is not great,
but it's better than what they're seeing over in North
and South Dakota and California. We've lost one point eight
million colonies so far.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
One point eight million bee colonies have been lost this
winter so far.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
This is commercial colonies. So we have a million acres
of almonds, which, by the way, California almonds supply eighty
two percent of the almonds in the world, so our
almond cup is incredibly important for the world supply of almonds.
(13:20):
So we have a million acres of almonds, that takes
two million acres of de colonies to pollinate those almonds.
We've already lost two million, well one point eight million colonies,
so they're scrambling to find colonies to pollinate these almonds.
(13:43):
Instead of having two hives two colonies per acre for
the almonds, they're spreading it out to one per every
three acres of almonds. So just between you and me,
don't tell anybody you need to go out and buy
almonds that's the price.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, I mean seriously, I mean so obviously with the
with the lack of bees, uh for pollination, production could
definitely be way down.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah, and think of it, the next cop is blueberries.
So where are all these hives going to come from
to pollinate our cranberries, our blueberries, our apples. I guess
the nice thing is that we're going to be requiring
you know, local beekeepers just supply some of that that
pollination service. But in general, you know, we we're going
(14:33):
to be lacking a lot of bees to do this work.
And native bees, you know, God love them, they just
can't do it. They're not efficient enough.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Wow. So yeah, this, you know, and the one of
the one of the that you had sent me, it's
said they're going to be a webinar discussed the scale
and the levels of all this kind of stuff. It's
said that the these losses surpassed historical trends. So I
guess this is like the worst.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, they're calling our colony collapse two point.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Zero colony collapse two point zero. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
So they have the Royal Day, they have USDA and
so many other researchers have done in intensive studies they've
been collecting dead bees and dying bees over West. They
have been serving the beekeepers to find out what's going on.
(15:34):
Mites are certainly part of it, but the percentage of
mits in the colonies isn't that much worse to cause
these colony losses. So, I mean, commercial beekeepers know what
they're doing. They you know, they don't make the stupid
mistakes and hobby beekeepers and sideliners might do. You know,
they know what they're doing and they've been successful for
(15:57):
the most part. These are family business is that are
three four generation beekeepers and they they are at wits end.
They don't know why all these colonies are dying.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Yeah, they as I read through this, I just you know,
you don't even think about it. I sometimes we have
a tendency to not think about when tornadoes come through
or when hurricanes come through. Uh, you know what's lost
there when just for the bees alone. But they're talking
about right now with what they're seeing with these losses.
The direct colony losses conservatively estimated at two one hundred
(16:31):
and twenty four point eight million dollars. Yeah, and just
alone in any economy four point there are four hundred
and twenty eight million dollar loss. I mean, wow, this.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Is yeah, substantial, this is substantial.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So so, and these aren't just the bees that were
being These aren't the These are the bees that are
at the wherever they're being kept. There are these aren't
have nothing to do with the bees are being transported
and all that. It's it's where they're being raised.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That We've had commercial beekeepers in Ohio who have separed
these kind of losses.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now you I mean they Well, I was going to say,
you told me, I know two or three years ago
we had a thirty percent loss. You said, really, that's
not too bad. Twenty five to thirty percent, it's acceptable,
I guess an average or whatever. Unfortunately, so you know,
this is this is crazy. And I haven't seen much
about it in the news, which has kind of surprised me.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
But you yeah, and you know, I think we've been
crying wolf for so long that it's it just hasn't
you know. We have to be careful how we do this,
because we can't just keep crying wolf. We have to.
We had to find a solution because, yeah, people get
tired of hearing oh, poor poor this and poor that.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
So at this stage in the game. We got about
two minutes to go at this. As in the game,
there's nothing that we can do besides continuing our practices
that we talk about as far as planting for the pollinators,
being friendly in what you do and your and your
cultural practices and all, and try to encourage the local
bees as best you can.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Buy local honeys, I mean that will help a lot.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Buy the local honey support your local honey bee keepers. Uh,
and keep doing that. And in the meantime, you and
I will stay in touch. We'll get you back on
the show as we you know, they try to figure
out exactly what's going on here. Hopefully we don't have
any more losses that were you know, it's a stop
and things to come back. Hopefully it is. But again,
(18:42):
I know you'll keep us posting and I appreciate the
information that you share with us because it's always a
pleasure having you on our show.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well, Happy b DA to your producer.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, Happy be Day to Danny. Absolutely, thank you, and Barbie,
I do appreciate getting early because I know it's not
one of your favorite things to do. Take care all right,
talk to you later. Barbie Bletcher, our queen bee and
it's a serious situation, major loss out there, and of
course it affects pollination. Like you said, the almond crop,
(19:12):
blueberry crop. We'll see what happens. But they're working on
it really hard right now to try to figure out
what the heck is going on quick breaking come back.
Our book is called How the Garden Indoors and Grow
your own food year round. Here in the Garden with
Ron Wilson, Green tom or not.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Ron can help at one eight hundred eighty two three.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Talk they say is in the Garden with Ron Wilson. Hi,
(19:56):
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