Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Free number eight hundred eight two three eight two five five.
Good morning. I am Ron Wilson, your personal yard boy,
talking about yarning on this first Saturday and twenty twenty six.
Happy New Year. Let's get it off to a good start,
you know, putting those gardening resolutions together. What are you
gonna do this year? What are you gonna do differently?
You're gonna do everything the same, gonna cut back. If
(00:20):
you're listening to our first hour of our show, I
mean basically what I'm what I was saying there is
as you're looking at your resolutions, maybe you cut back.
Maybe you make it a little bit easier on yourself.
It's okay to do that. Just keep in mind all
the things that you're gonna be doing in addition to
the gardening and yardening and taking care of house plants
in that are you traveling, got the kids involved, a
(00:42):
lot of chakrate net work, all that in because it
does take time, uh, and the weather a little bit
of you know, is gonna be good weather, bad weather, whatever. Uh.
And start doing your resolutions that way and set yourself
up to be successful or a little bit more successful,
rather than putting so much pressure on yourself that you
know it doesn't work out for you, And that's that's
(01:04):
the way I look at it. And I do want
to remind you again as I did in the last hour,
is that you know there's going to be failures and
if you lose things, you lose them. We figure out
why we move forward. That's what guarding is all about.
Being very optimistic. Uh and and it you know you
tr trowel and error, that's what it's all about. And
use your independent, locally owned independent garden centers. They are
(01:27):
the experts.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
If you've got issues, use them, that's what they're there for.
Use us. That's what we're here for. Got a website
for you, you can email us, you can call us. That's
what we're here for to help you be more successful
in all your yarding endeavors. So don't fail to use us,
bother us, pick us, pick on us, whatever may be
during twenty twenty six, because that's what it's all about.
(01:50):
Eight hundred eight two three eight two five five is
the number. Holiday season, Christmas, New Year's now behind us.
Now we start to look forward, uh to twenty twenty six.
Of course, coming up next will be what groundhog day.
Can you believe that in about four weeks that'll be
right around the corner for us. Then Valentine's Day, then
we're into spring, March my birthday, and don't forget, and
(02:10):
we'll make sure you'll give you three or four weeks
advance warning when Danny's Birthday's coming up. He does like
gift cards, he does take cash, but we'll give you
the exact address where you can mail both of those
for his birthday. And now that will be in March. Yeah, sixteenth,
if you think sixteenth, If you if you it, they
hear the sixteenth. Yes, if you think you know, you
(02:32):
won't remember, just mail it first of March and then
you've got it covered absolutely. A couple of things with
your holiday plans that wanted to bring up this time,
and then I'm not going to bring it up anymore
unless you ask, But don't forget on your Amarillis if
you have those, and if you don't, have you been
out to your local garden centers or your local home
improvement stores that sell paper White and Mammarilli's Kids. If
(02:54):
you have it, get out there. They're on sale half
price or more. Make sure you look in the box
and see what kind of condition her in. Sometimes those
amarillas that they've been growing and kind of circling around
in the box not a good idea. Look for other
bulbs that haven't grown quite as much in there. But
you can scarf up some great deals right now on
both of those kits. And if you are growing one,
(03:17):
remember that once it's done flowering, cut that foot, those
stems off. Grow it as a house plan all winter
outside in the summer, feed it heavily, and in late
August stop watering it. Cut it back stored away inside,
cool in the dark, and bring it out right before
the holidays. About six to eight weeks in storage, and
you get it to flower again. And then if you want,
(03:38):
I have a tip sheet on that, just email me
and I'll walk you through the whole process. But don't
forget that on your amarillas. Paper whites. Interesting thing came
up this week. My sister in Lass posted a picture
got a paper white kit, and of course they were
up and flowering and it was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. And
she just set up put a picture up there and
(03:59):
said something and I fired back and said are they fragrant?
And her husband said, uh yeah, if you like smelling,
you know, like a funeral or something. This is horrible.
And it's interesting with paper whites because I've always said
they have a very distinct fragrance. It's very strong. It's
(04:19):
a very divisive scent.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And what's interesting about paper whites the fragrance is that
some people, like myself, when I smell it, I think
it's sweet and floral, like like jasmine or or orange
blossoms that that I think it smells like that. Then
you have other people that find it so overpowering that
(04:44):
it's that they hate it. That smells horrible. I've even
had people say it smells like cat urine or manure
or feces. And it's interesting how they can go both ways.
But it's kind of like cilantro. You know, some folks
love cilantro and some folks hate cilantro. Says it tastes
like soap to them. You can't give me enough cilantro.
(05:07):
I love cilantro, but there's a chemical in the cilantro
that makes you your taste buds react differently depending on
your taste buds, and the same thing happens with paper whites.
It's there are different varieties, obviously, they're stronger than others.
But there's a compound in them called endoli or indole,
(05:30):
and that compound that's in there actually is a found
in feces. It is actually found in feces an equal
eye that's not dangerous to you or anything, but that
particular scent comes from that chemical compound. So some people
pick it up their scents, pick it up as a
(05:50):
fragrant smell, and other people pick it up as a
fece smell. So it just depends on you whether you
like it as a sweet smell or a foul smell.
And they are working. Plant breeders are working on actually
coming up with paper whites that are less fragrant, have
(06:11):
less fragrance. Earlier, I think is when it's out there.
Avalanche's one that's out there, has very low to little smell.
You can't smell very much at all. But again, great
white flowers, great show. And remember when you're doing paper whites,
if you have a hard time with them, they get
tall and they fall over, get real lanky. Two things
One is keep them cooler, helps to keep them shorter.
(06:34):
Grow them in a vase if you want, put some
gravel on the bottom of the vase. Put those down
in the bottom of the vase. The vase holds them upright,
so if they get tall, it doesn't matter. Or when
you do add water to the bottom of your paper
weight bulbs in that gravel, just put a splash of
a clear alcohol like tequila or vodka in that. Just
(06:56):
a splash, splash for you, splash for the plants. Put
that in the water. That actually helps to keep them shorter.
They still flower the same, still smell the same, but
it keeps them shorter. And that's you know. I think
you can use actually any kind of alcohol, but I
think the clear is usually the best. In the vodka
gen you know, tequila is something like that. But just
(07:18):
a splash, not much, just and that's it. And then
you could do a little bit more than if you
need it. But but that'll help to keep them shorter.
But again, I thought it was interesting because that smell,
it always depends on who you are and what you
know your sense is because some people pick it up
as a great smell, other people pick it up as
a horrible smell. And it's because of the chemical compound
(07:39):
called endole or endolay, which is found in actually in
feces and equal high to give it a bad smell,
So it depends on how you pick it up. I
think some maneures don't smell too bad at all. How
about that? All right, we're gonna take a quick break.
We come back, Barbie Bletch you our queen Bee's gonna
be with us. We've got a lot of things to
talk about with Barbie today. A lot of interesting things
(08:01):
we're going to chat about, including looking at the honey bees,
cultivated honeybees from World War two to today. Who had
more during World War two or beekeepers today? We'll find
out about that. We'll look at what's going on with
the bees. Just a lot of great information. We always
learned something from Barbie every time we have her on
our show Here in the Garden with Ron Wilson. You're
(08:25):
in the Garden with Ron Wilson and in his time
for our Queen Bees. She is our retired state apiarist.
I have known her forever. She knows more about bees
and bees know about bees. As a matter of fact,
she sent me a very disturbing video yesterday about queen bees.
We'll talk more about that as well. Ladies and gentlemen,
The one the only miss barbieble Letter. I didn't know
(08:52):
bees could clap like that.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I was gonna say, those bees are really active for
this early in the morning.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, it's warm in here, so they all they dragged
themselves here and now they're all warmed up. Barbie, did
you have a great.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
New Year's I did, Yes, it was happy twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Happy twenty twenty six to you as well. How long
we known each other?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Oh, gosh, twenty some years. I remember Katie when she
was nine. You were talking about Katie's cups.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yes, I think kids.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yes, I knew her when you well, I mean I
didn't know her, but I remember when she was nine
when you were interviewing her.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That's been Yeah, it's been a long, long long time.
I know that you and I really got involved with
the bee situation, not only talking about honey bees, but
you know, we really started talking about the native bees
and bringing there to the forefront is awareness as well.
But it really started to come to really happen back
in twenty was at twenty oh six when the colony
(09:51):
collapse disorder.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I was at Ohio State that time.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, and the colony collapse disorder really bad. Yeah, yeh,
and like everybody was in this what is going on?
And you know, everybody the bees are dying. And of
course it's probably one of the best things that ever
happened because funding and research and everything escalated, and you know,
we know more seriously about bees today, native and honey
bees than we ever have.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, we needed that research and we needed awareness. And
that's you know, one of our biggest problems us the
bee keepers, is we don't have We don't promote ourselves
as well as we sure the average person walking down
the street has no idea how important honey bees are
to their diet, to their nutrition. So it was important.
(10:38):
And now everybody and their brother. You know, if you
tell somebody that you keep bees, everybody wants to know
how the bees are different. And that's wonderful. I'm happy for.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That, oh absolutely. And again I think that I also
look I look at it too, because I mean the
records and what's happening with bees in the environment. Most
of the information is coming from honey bees because they
are cultivated, grown as a crop or as a livestock
or whatever, how do you want to say it, But
you know they're grown. So the records and observing is
(11:11):
much easier than with the native bees. But fortunately it
has brought the situations with native bees at the front
as well. And so now we've got, you know, in
both hands. With one hand we've got the honey bees
and the other hand we have all the native bees.
And you know, a lot of the problems that well,
the biggest problem that's going on with both of them
obviously is lack of habitat, which we know is major.
(11:32):
I mean, and I still I bring this up at
garden talks. You know, what's the biggest issue for both
of these Because we have issues for either, you know,
individually on both hands, but the biggest issue, and of
course misuse of pesticides come up, yep, that's a part
of it, there's no doubt about it. But the biggest
issue that affects both of these is the lack of habitat.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, and to that point, and I just lost my place.
We had no shoot, I just lost my place.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I was just gonna tell you how much we've lost
in Ohio. We've lost six point nine million acres of
farmland just since nineteen fifty. Wow, So we had twenty
six thousand plus acres. In nineteen forty five, twenty six
(12:23):
thousand acres of farmland. Now we have about thirteen I'm sorry,
twenty six million those zeros.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Darn it, Hey it is seven twenty four in the morning.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I mean, hey, no, not a morning bird. Twenty six
million plus acres in nineteen yeah, nineteen fifty, we now
have about thirteen point five million, So we've lost more
than half of our acreage of farms.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah. And again even with that, I mean that the
farms weren't all and farming practices also took I mean,
farmers at one time would leave the you know, twenty
feet from the fence. They would leave that grow up,
you know, et cetera, et cetera. And of course then
they started farming to the fence. And now they're kind
of backing off and adjusting that so they can bring
that back again. That that that habitat. But yeah, the
(13:15):
loss of and of course homes and developments and you know,
downtowns and roads and everything like that takes it all away.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And we have forty nine million acres of asphalt in
the United States.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
That's forty acres, and we're gonna have more. I mean,
that's just reality. That's what that's the way it's going
to be. So we look at facts and figures like that,
and we've all got to be convinced here that it's
up to you and me and everybody out there. We're
not asking people to be keepers b bee keepers, but
to be a bed and breakfast for all the bees,
both honey and native bees that are out there today.
(13:48):
Be a bed and breakfast in your gardening practices, in
what you plant. You know, the old pollinator thing here,
listen you, planning for pollinators is more important now than
it ever was.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Another point with your farming is that they had multiple crops.
You know, they were more or less sustainable for themselves.
So they had you know, coal crops, they had some corn,
they had beans, they had a lot, they had a
lot of diversity in what they grew. And now you know,
it's millions of acres of corn and soybean, so we've
(14:22):
lost that diversity. Bees don't really get any nutrition from
either one of those. They'll get nectar and pollen from them,
but it's not nutritious. So, I mean, you have those
those diverse gardens, you know, of your own cropsure beans
and herbs and whatever. Those bees get so much nourishment
(14:42):
from all those different flowering plants.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Unbelievable. Talk about barbe Ble you she is our queen
Bee and has provided us for all these years twenty
since twenty six, Yeah, that's when we first had you
on here talking about the colony collapse disorder, and have
learned so much from you over the years. You presented
me with some factions figures, and I don't know if
you remember this or not, but you were looking way
(15:05):
back to the amount of high, you know, hives that
are out there today versus the amount of hives that
we had back during World War Two.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yes, and it's it's startling. So an interesting fact that
I'll try to remember is when we well, the Auromites
showed up, we lost a lot of beekeepers and a
lot of colonies. So I'm getting ahead of myself, but
we had like fifty five thousand some colonies in the
(15:41):
early nineteen eighties, and then when a cony collapse disorder
showed up, we went down to twenty two thousands. So
we are now we're back up to fifty five thousand
colonies in Ohio. However, we had two hundred and sixty
thousand back in nineteen forty, and we were the top
(16:03):
third honey producing state in the United States in the
early forties, nineteen forty forty one, forty two, we're the
number thirty or four top honey producing state in the
United States.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Two hundred and sixty thousand hives.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Und sixty thousand.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
In nineteen forty and then today it's back up to
fifty five.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Thousand, back up to fifty five.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Thousand, unbelievable, that's crazy stuff. Talking with Barbie Bletcher, our
Queen Bee. Take a quick break, we come back. We've
got Barbie all the next half hour, so stay tuned.
Lots of great information here in the Gardens with Ron Wilson.
Garden with Ron Wilkes special guest this morning, the Queen Bee,
Barbie b Letcher. We've been talking with Barbie. I've known
(16:53):
it for a long time, but since twenty twenty oh
six when the colony collapses order hit big time and
the b highs they were disappearing, and ever since then
we've been talking about bees. And of course now that
you know it's the buzz out there now is to
you know, be pollinator friendly, bee polite and pollinator friendly
in our gardens, and we try to promote that more
and more. But look at some old stats and I
(17:13):
think that was it just kind of blew me away
with the two hundred and sixty thousand hives in Ohio
in nineteen forty compared to and it was as low
as twenty two thousand in Ohio just a few years ago,
but back up to around fifty five thousand. That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah. Yeah, we were up there with New York, in Iowa, Minnesota,
so it was concentrated over on the eastern saturday United
States except for Iowa. I don't know where they came from,
but yeah, Ohio and New York another one. Yeah, well,
I guess Minnesota and Iowa, sorot not just the eastern side.
(17:54):
But there wasn't too much going on out in the Southwest.
But then about so we had a war going on
in the early forties. Sometime toward the end of the war,
California started to beef up their almond almond production and
then California ended up getting the number one spot for
(18:16):
honey production. But we were I think our max nineteen
forty five, we had three hundred and twenty six million
colonies of bees.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Wow, that's a lot of bees.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Producing ten let's see, I'll get my zero's wrong again.
Ten ten let's see, yeah, ten million pounds of honey.
Ten million pounds of honey.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
So how much honey is produced today? Any idea?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Thirteen? Let's say one point three million in Ohio. Wow,
one point three millions. So yeah, we've gone away and
the other states are like that too, but we're way down.
We're like number twenty five now for honey production in Ohio.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
So as we look at the at honeybee hives and
honeybee raising bees and all, as we look to that
from nineteen forties to today, you know, back then, did
they have colony collapse disorder and issues like that? And
why are we you know, was that an issue? Those
things issues back then? I mean you look at I
(19:29):
look at the insecticide I mean DDT and stuff like
that was out there at that time. You know, I
don't know, but did you know have things changed over
the years.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know what's interesting because I did I did some research,
not not this weekend, but several years ago when they
were going to take the neo nicatory dots the market
completely in the United States. And they've done that over
in Europe and they actually found that without the ne nicketinoids,
(20:02):
they're going back to the harder pesticide some mouth ion
diasmon hydrogenated yeah, or did they lose their crops and
they had to replant two or three times because of
the insects, But they still are they're still losing insects
because they're using harder products, so they're still losing these
(20:28):
so without the neons, So you.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Take the NEOs off the market and then you just
have to next thing, you know, you're using more tools
out of the toolbox.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, they're using the hammers, yeah, which.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You know you would occasionally get out of the toolbox
if necessary, but otherwise you don't. Now you're using more
of the hammers and it's not working out.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, And we had like the dwindling disease and the
Aisle of Dwight disease, but those were back in the
eighteen hundreds, so there wasn't really a big colony collapse
that we knew about in the nineteen hundreds. And of
course that was before social media, so it's kind of
(21:14):
hard to tell. But as far as I as I
could determine, we didn't have any huge be die off
in the nineteen hundreds, so it wasn't until two thousands,
and you know, they determined the causes for that. There
were multiple One was, you know, as we said, lack
of nutrition, and then the vuamite had just shown up,
(21:37):
had been here, you know twenty some years. We were
using harder products trying to control the veramite, and that's
when they really discovered all the viruses. So we didn't
have the royal weed. The scientists didn't have technology to
identify viruses before, you know, in the eighties and nineties
(21:58):
they finally were able to determine all these viruses. And
there's like thirty some viruses that affect honey bees.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Now mostly vectored by the mite.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
By the yes, vectored by the might.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So where did this vara might come from? I mean,
when when did it finally start twenty years ago? You
say that really came to being, Yeah, like the mid eighties.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
It showed up in Ohio. I think it was just
further south earlier than that. I think I was going
to say, Oh, so it came from So there's another
honey bee that's kept over in Asia called the ape
APIs serana it's like a larger bee and honey Those bees,
(22:41):
the APIs sourana, were able to adapt to the veramite.
They have a I think their life cycle is a
little bit faster, so the veramites aren't able to really
take a colony down. So the APIs sorana honey bee
had adapted to this eramite. Somehow, those that apiserana was
(23:03):
brought to the United States, and I don't know if
they ever determined how that was. And the auamites that
were on those bees got into our bees, and our
our honey bees had no no, no way to tolerate it,
no resistance to it, never come in contact with it.
(23:24):
And just like you know, native plants that have a
new invasive past that attack it, they have no way
to break it down. So they're still you know, even today,
you know, honey bees have a poorer tolerance oft of aroamites,
but we do have some that have you know, developed
(23:44):
some tolerance or some way of adapting with it. It
just yeah, it's been a it's been a slow road.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I was gonna say, it just seems like, you know,
with the technology that we have today and the research
is being done, I mean, you and I and again
you and I've been talking about this since twenty oh
and this verral might's been at the top of the list.
It just seems like, like, what's the deal. I mean,
you know, and you you know, you told me one
time think about this though. You know, we're trying to
(24:11):
come up with a pesticide to take care of an
insect and we've got bees, which are an insect. Yeah,
and how do you come up with something that's not
going to harm the bees? But you have to take
this mite out? And you know, of course cultural practices
have come into play. I know you've told me that,
and be breeding obviously, coming up with new varieties that
(24:34):
are more tolerant or you know, of the of this
viol might. But it just seems like something would like
the silver bullet would come along some Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Please. You know, every every four or five years we
have a new product and we all like rush to
use that product and then it doesn't work all that great.
But yeah, you know, this this thing, this erect it
is it's feeding on the mic. So whatever we use
it has to be hard enough to kill the thing
it's feeding on the bee without telling the bee. Yeah,
(25:03):
that that's that that science has just been apparently much
harder to do than we thought.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's crazy stuff. Talking with Barbie Butcher, our queen bee.
You know it's I printed this out. I didn't send
it to you, but I just got a thing in
the from the forget which news releas this is, but
talking about scientists finally identify the cause between behind the
US biggest honey be die off ever recorded, which was
this past winter. U with the with the millions that
(25:30):
were lost, and of course what's the big picture there,
the vermite.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
In the virus, the virus right, and I think, yeah,
I sent you somes in a presentation this fall. It
may show that even five highly virulent veramites, five little veramites,
so that would fit in your finger, those be those
mitra so highly effective that they could kill an entire
(26:00):
yard of bees. And that just blows me away.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, crazy stuff. Talking with Barbie Bletcher, our queen Bee.
It's take another break. We've got more with Barbie Bletcher
here in the garden with Ron Wilson. Welcome back. You're
in the garden with Ron Wilson talking with Barbie. We'll
let you are queen Bee and uh what's going on
with our honeybees out there? You know that at the
end of this uh and this was from Science News,
(26:28):
it was talking about I guess is it amatros amtra
demetris talking about you know, can still consider one of
the least toxic options. But on the same token, if
you spray a lot of it, you can weaken the colonies.
But yet now they're seeing the that they're becoming resistant
to this, and it's just like crazy stuff. And then
there's just nothing they can find, you know, is really
(26:50):
doing the job. So nothing you and I can do
about that at this stage besides helping to support the
funding for this research. But there are things that you
and I can do to help bees, both honey bees
and navy bees get to continue on and be as
healthy as possible.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, A lot of research has shown that if bees
have the proper nutrition they can they can overcome viruses.
You know, I know beekeepers that have hives out in
the middle of nowhere, out in beautiful flowering you know,
beautiful forests and woodlands and fields and pasture lands. They
have their bees have viruses, but they don't have high
(27:32):
enough levels to hurt the bees. They may have some mites,
but they don't have enough mites to damage that, you know,
make the bees sick. So they can tolerate mites and
viruses if they have proper nutrition. And you think about
you and I, you know, we when we're not eating right,
we're not getting enough sleep, blah blah blah, we're more
(27:53):
sustimble to getting sick. It's the same thing with the bees.
So one, we try not to have our hives on
top of each other, which is is difficult to do
with all the cities and the construction and you know
urban areas. So another interesting fact is that you know
beekeepers back in the day, back in the forties, you know,
(28:14):
they would have one thousand colonies each. Now you know,
our average beekeeper has five hives or less because we're urban, right,
So you look at Cincinnati in nineteen forty, your population
was four hundred and fifty thousand. You had four hun
fifty thousand people in the greater Cincinnati area. You now
(28:36):
have one point two million. So where are you gonna
keep bees?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Right? And not everybody wants to be hive in their
next door neighbor's yard.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, you have to train them. You had to bribe
them with honey.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah. True, and to show that you know it's okay
that you're not going to get stung and they don't,
you know, take off after you and they're not going
to chase you and the kids down and the dog
the whole nine year.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yes, So education, we have to educate. We need to
promote beekeeping. We need to have more. Ron Wilson's out
there to talk about you know, let that clover grow,
let the dandelions grow, and you know, we teach beekeeping
every spring, and I know you and I have talked
about that. Even if you don't want to be a beekeeper,
(29:20):
taking those beekeeping classes helps you understand what it takes
to keep colonies alive.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, I still remember I got an email from a
gentleman said that he and his grandson had signed up
for one of the bee classes I think about Knox County,
and they weren't beekeepers. They were going to learn about bees.
And that's why they were taking it, just to learn
about bees and if they became if they became beekeepers, great,
but just to learn more about them. Because if you
know more about them, you know what you need to
(29:47):
be doing in your own yard and garden. And maybe
your homeowner's association and get everybody involved to have these
communities that are now pollinator communities to help out all
the pollinators, including the honey bees and the native bees
and the butterflies in the whole nine yards. You plan
for them that you're planning for all of them and
it helps them all out and things that we can
do to be more friendly in our gardens and more
(30:08):
pollinat or polite. So these classes and they're available. I
just you're talking about the Southwestern Beekeepers Association having their
classes coming up in February. They're all you know, through
our state of Ohio, many of them out there, the
Ohio was it the Ohio Beekeepers Association, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ohiuse state Beekeepers Association has a listing of the most
counties have a beekeeping club, and most of these clubs
teach beekeeping. So I would actually take several because each
you know, you have a group of beekeepers and they
teach a certain way. If you go to another class
somewhere else, they're going to teach you different things.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So gather up all the information. Yeah, and there's a
good chance you might find bar b Bletcher or one
of the three stingers or all the three stingers at
these classes as well. And if they all three show
up at the same time, you're in for a hoop,
trust me. Yeah. Really talking with Barbie Bletcher, our queen bee, uh,
and what you can do to be more friendly in
(31:08):
your yard and gardens, you know, become a bee bed
and breakfast or a pollinator bread and bed and breakfast
and really how and it does work, whether it's a
kind of container or whatever you're doing in your yard
and garden practices, it does work. Talking to Darby Blescher,
I sent her a scenario. I said, I got a
question for you, barb if by chance this time of
(31:29):
the year, of course, the bees are all in their
hives and it was it was interesting. Uh. Nina sent
me a picture of the yellow spots all over the
concrete and she said, oh, it's a poop day where
they'd all gotten out and flown and did their little
poop and then went back in the in the hive.
So they're all gathered around the high And by the way,
does she really wake you up at five thirty this morning?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Well, my phone went off, but I ignored her.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Geez. I went on minded too, and I was like,
you gotta be don't bother her. She got another hour
to sleep anyway, I know, I guess from four in
the morning. He's like, whoa, what are you doing? But anyway,
there so they're all gathered around that queen, protecting her
over the winter time. Obviously, what happens if the queen
bee dies and there's no queen to protect, do they
(32:17):
all fall apart and take off during the winter, or
do they stick with each other and stay in that
hive until the spring season.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It really depends on what tybo winter we have. They
will stick together, especially if there's brood, they will stick
together until so the worker bees and queen bees all
put out of pheromone. You know, wintertime, it's not as obvious,
but as the season goes on. This winter goes on,
(32:46):
it's going to become more obvious that, hey, there's no
queen here, they're not gonna be able to smell her anymore.
Brood will produce a certain pheromone too, I a smell ascent.
So if they're not, if the worker bees don't smell her,
or there was not very many, not a lot of brood,
and there's no new brood coming along, they're gonna realize
(33:08):
that there's something wrong and they'll start to wander off.
But as long as it's really cold, they're gonna stay clustered,
so they probably won't realize. Yeah, well, they won't realize
that there's no queen until it starts getting warm and
they start spreading out.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And part of Barb's answer to me was to send
me a video of two queen bees fighting each other,
stinging each other in the head and in the face
and going at it, and that could be pretty nasty time.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Oh it was horrible. Yeah, I've never seen them actually
stinging each other in the face. That was I thought
they were just beheaded.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I was a little taken back with you sending me
something like that, and you know, actually was kind of
interesting to see that, but wow, kind of crazy stuff.
Talk with Barb Bletcher how important it is for you
to be ee friendly in your in your gardens and
why it's so important. And of course classes out there
over the wintertime, be sure and take There's plenty of
books out there as well. Mm hmm, yeah, Kim f
(34:08):
I think Kim Kim Flopman's is one. I like that book,
especially for beginners.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah, Backyard Beekeeper. He just had a fifth edition shortly
before he passed away, just another one that he did
better Beekeeping, which is an oldie, better goodie. So yeah,
backgyard Beekeeping. You know, a lot of us, like seventy
five percent of the beekeepers in Ohio are backyard beekeepers.
So that book, it talks about disease, It talks about
(34:36):
being kind to your neighbor, It talks about providing food
and flora. It has a little bit about you know,
promoting bees and just biology. So it covers a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And again it's i s stay the same, old, same,
but when you know more about them, it makes it
easier for you to do things in your yard and
garden to make it, you know, to make it right
for them. So you learn more about it through these
great books, through these great classes, through videos hanging out
with the Three Stingers, and you learn a lot from there. Oh,
by the way, thanks, I appreciate your fellow us in
(35:10):
with all this great information. I got one last question
for you very quickly. When you smell paper whites to
smell good, it's the smell bad.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I like the smell. It's a it's a little strong.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
But I like that smell, so you just like spring,
so it doesn't smell like the minority to you.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
No, it's a ya for me.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Queen Bee likes the smell of paper whites, but then
I like cats, So there you go. Barbie Bletcher, always
a pleasure, great information. Happy New Year. I look forward
to talking to you more in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Happy new Year.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
All right, thank you. Barbie Bletcher. Are Queen Bee and
retired state apiarist. Apiarist. No should mess around with apes.
It's uh with bees eight piarist. All right, pick quick, Frank,
come back. Phone lines are open for you. Eight hundred
eight two three eight two five five Here in the
garden with
Free number eight hundred eight two three eight two five five.
Good morning. I am Ron Wilson, your personal yard boy,
talking about yarning on this first Saturday and twenty twenty six.
Happy New Year. Let's get it off to a good start,
you know, putting those gardening resolutions together. What are you
gonna do this year? What are you gonna do differently?
You're gonna do everything the same, gonna cut back. If
(00:20):
you're listening to our first hour of our show, I
mean basically what I'm what I was saying there is
as you're looking at your resolutions, maybe you cut back.
Maybe you make it a little bit easier on yourself.
It's okay to do that. Just keep in mind all
the things that you're gonna be doing in addition to
the gardening and yardening and taking care of house plants
in that are you traveling, got the kids involved, a
(00:42):
lot of chakrate net work, all that in because it
does take time, uh, and the weather a little bit
of you know, is gonna be good weather, bad weather, whatever. Uh.
And start doing your resolutions that way and set yourself
up to be successful or a little bit more successful,
rather than putting so much pressure on yourself that you
know it doesn't work out for you, And that's that's
(01:04):
the way I look at it. And I do want
to remind you again as I did in the last hour,
is that you know there's going to be failures and
if you lose things, you lose them. We figure out
why we move forward. That's what guarding is all about.
Being very optimistic. Uh and and it you know you
tr trowel and error, that's what it's all about. And
use your independent, locally owned independent garden centers. They are
(01:27):
the experts.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
If you've got issues, use them, that's what they're there for.
Use us. That's what we're here for. Got a website
for you, you can email us, you can call us. That's
what we're here for to help you be more successful
in all your yarding endeavors. So don't fail to use us,
bother us, pick us, pick on us, whatever may be
during twenty twenty six, because that's what it's all about.
(01:50):
Eight hundred eight two three eight two five five is
the number. Holiday season, Christmas, New Year's now behind us.
Now we start to look forward, uh to twenty twenty six.
Of course, coming up next will be what groundhog day.
Can you believe that in about four weeks that'll be
right around the corner for us. Then Valentine's Day, then
we're into spring, March my birthday, and don't forget, and
(02:10):
we'll make sure you'll give you three or four weeks
advance warning when Danny's Birthday's coming up. He does like
gift cards, he does take cash, but we'll give you
the exact address where you can mail both of those
for his birthday. And now that will be in March. Yeah, sixteenth,
if you think sixteenth, If you if you it, they
hear the sixteenth. Yes, if you think you know, you
(02:32):
won't remember, just mail it first of March and then
you've got it covered absolutely. A couple of things with
your holiday plans that wanted to bring up this time,
and then I'm not going to bring it up anymore
unless you ask, But don't forget on your Amarillis if
you have those, and if you don't, have you been
out to your local garden centers or your local home
improvement stores that sell paper White and Mammarilli's Kids. If
(02:54):
you have it, get out there. They're on sale half
price or more. Make sure you look in the box
and see what kind of condition her in. Sometimes those
amarillas that they've been growing and kind of circling around
in the box not a good idea. Look for other
bulbs that haven't grown quite as much in there. But
you can scarf up some great deals right now on
both of those kits. And if you are growing one,
(03:17):
remember that once it's done flowering, cut that foot, those
stems off. Grow it as a house plan all winter
outside in the summer, feed it heavily, and in late
August stop watering it. Cut it back stored away inside,
cool in the dark, and bring it out right before
the holidays. About six to eight weeks in storage, and
you get it to flower again. And then if you want,
(03:38):
I have a tip sheet on that, just email me
and I'll walk you through the whole process. But don't
forget that on your amarillas. Paper whites. Interesting thing came
up this week. My sister in Lass posted a picture
got a paper white kit, and of course they were
up and flowering and it was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. And
she just set up put a picture up there and
(03:59):
said something and I fired back and said are they fragrant?
And her husband said, uh yeah, if you like smelling,
you know, like a funeral or something. This is horrible.
And it's interesting with paper whites because I've always said
they have a very distinct fragrance. It's very strong. It's
(04:19):
a very divisive scent.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And what's interesting about paper whites the fragrance is that
some people, like myself, when I smell it, I think
it's sweet and floral, like like jasmine or or orange
blossoms that that I think it smells like that. Then
you have other people that find it so overpowering that
(04:44):
it's that they hate it. That smells horrible. I've even
had people say it smells like cat urine or manure
or feces. And it's interesting how they can go both ways.
But it's kind of like cilantro. You know, some folks
love cilantro and some folks hate cilantro. Says it tastes
like soap to them. You can't give me enough cilantro.
(05:07):
I love cilantro, but there's a chemical in the cilantro
that makes you your taste buds react differently depending on
your taste buds, and the same thing happens with paper whites.
It's there are different varieties, obviously, they're stronger than others.
But there's a compound in them called endoli or indole,
(05:30):
and that compound that's in there actually is a found
in feces. It is actually found in feces an equal
eye that's not dangerous to you or anything, but that
particular scent comes from that chemical compound. So some people
pick it up their scents, pick it up as a
(05:50):
fragrant smell, and other people pick it up as a
fece smell. So it just depends on you whether you
like it as a sweet smell or a foul smell.
And they are working. Plant breeders are working on actually
coming up with paper whites that are less fragrant, have
(06:11):
less fragrance. Earlier, I think is when it's out there.
Avalanche's one that's out there, has very low to little smell.
You can't smell very much at all. But again, great
white flowers, great show. And remember when you're doing paper whites,
if you have a hard time with them, they get
tall and they fall over, get real lanky. Two things
One is keep them cooler, helps to keep them shorter.
(06:34):
Grow them in a vase if you want, put some
gravel on the bottom of the vase. Put those down
in the bottom of the vase. The vase holds them upright,
so if they get tall, it doesn't matter. Or when
you do add water to the bottom of your paper
weight bulbs in that gravel, just put a splash of
a clear alcohol like tequila or vodka in that. Just
(06:56):
a splash, splash for you, splash for the plants. Put
that in the water. That actually helps to keep them shorter.
They still flower the same, still smell the same, but
it keeps them shorter. And that's you know. I think
you can use actually any kind of alcohol, but I
think the clear is usually the best. In the vodka
gen you know, tequila is something like that. But just
(07:18):
a splash, not much, just and that's it. And then
you could do a little bit more than if you
need it. But but that'll help to keep them shorter.
But again, I thought it was interesting because that smell,
it always depends on who you are and what you
know your sense is because some people pick it up
as a great smell, other people pick it up as
a horrible smell. And it's because of the chemical compound
(07:39):
called endole or endolay, which is found in actually in
feces and equal high to give it a bad smell,
So it depends on how you pick it up. I
think some maneures don't smell too bad at all. How
about that? All right, we're gonna take a quick break.
We come back, Barbie Bletch you our queen Bee's gonna
be with us. We've got a lot of things to
talk about with Barbie today. A lot of interesting things
(08:01):
we're going to chat about, including looking at the honey bees,
cultivated honeybees from World War two to today. Who had
more during World War two or beekeepers today? We'll find
out about that. We'll look at what's going on with
the bees. Just a lot of great information. We always
learned something from Barbie every time we have her on
our show Here in the Garden with Ron Wilson. You're
(08:25):
in the Garden with Ron Wilson and in his time
for our Queen Bees. She is our retired state apiarist.
I have known her forever. She knows more about bees
and bees know about bees. As a matter of fact,
she sent me a very disturbing video yesterday about queen bees.
We'll talk more about that as well. Ladies and gentlemen,
The one the only miss barbieble Letter. I didn't know
(08:52):
bees could clap like that.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I was gonna say, those bees are really active for
this early in the morning.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, it's warm in here, so they all they dragged
themselves here and now they're all warmed up. Barbie, did
you have a great.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
New Year's I did, Yes, it was happy twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Happy twenty twenty six to you as well. How long
we known each other?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Oh, gosh, twenty some years. I remember Katie when she
was nine. You were talking about Katie's cups.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yes, I think kids.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yes, I knew her when you well, I mean I
didn't know her, but I remember when she was nine
when you were interviewing her.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That's been Yeah, it's been a long, long long time.
I know that you and I really got involved with
the bee situation, not only talking about honey bees, but
you know, we really started talking about the native bees
and bringing there to the forefront is awareness as well.
But it really started to come to really happen back
in twenty was at twenty oh six when the colony
(09:51):
collapse disorder.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I was at Ohio State that time.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, and the colony collapse disorder really bad. Yeah, yeh,
and like everybody was in this what is going on?
And you know, everybody the bees are dying. And of
course it's probably one of the best things that ever
happened because funding and research and everything escalated, and you know,
we know more seriously about bees today, native and honey
bees than we ever have.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, we needed that research and we needed awareness. And
that's you know, one of our biggest problems us the
bee keepers, is we don't have We don't promote ourselves
as well as we sure the average person walking down
the street has no idea how important honey bees are
to their diet, to their nutrition. So it was important.
(10:38):
And now everybody and their brother. You know, if you
tell somebody that you keep bees, everybody wants to know
how the bees are different. And that's wonderful. I'm happy for.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That, oh absolutely. And again I think that I also
look I look at it too, because I mean the
records and what's happening with bees in the environment. Most
of the information is coming from honey bees because they
are cultivated, grown as a crop or as a livestock
or whatever, how do you want to say it, But
you know they're grown. So the records and observing is
(11:11):
much easier than with the native bees. But fortunately it
has brought the situations with native bees at the front
as well. And so now we've got, you know, in
both hands. With one hand we've got the honey bees
and the other hand we have all the native bees.
And you know, a lot of the problems that well,
the biggest problem that's going on with both of them
obviously is lack of habitat, which we know is major.
(11:32):
I mean, and I still I bring this up at
garden talks. You know, what's the biggest issue for both
of these Because we have issues for either, you know,
individually on both hands, but the biggest issue, and of
course misuse of pesticides come up, yep, that's a part
of it, there's no doubt about it. But the biggest
issue that affects both of these is the lack of habitat.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, and to that point, and I just lost my place.
We had no shoot, I just lost my place.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I was just gonna tell you how much we've lost
in Ohio. We've lost six point nine million acres of
farmland just since nineteen fifty. Wow, So we had twenty
six thousand plus acres. In nineteen forty five, twenty six
(12:23):
thousand acres of farmland. Now we have about thirteen I'm sorry,
twenty six million those zeros.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Darn it, Hey it is seven twenty four in the morning.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I mean, hey, no, not a morning bird. Twenty six
million plus acres in nineteen yeah, nineteen fifty, we now
have about thirteen point five million, So we've lost more
than half of our acreage of farms.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah. And again even with that, I mean that the
farms weren't all and farming practices also took I mean,
farmers at one time would leave the you know, twenty
feet from the fence. They would leave that grow up,
you know, et cetera, et cetera. And of course then
they started farming to the fence. And now they're kind
of backing off and adjusting that so they can bring
that back again. That that that habitat. But yeah, the
(13:15):
loss of and of course homes and developments and you know,
downtowns and roads and everything like that takes it all away.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And we have forty nine million acres of asphalt in
the United States.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
That's forty acres, and we're gonna have more. I mean,
that's just reality. That's what that's the way it's going
to be. So we look at facts and figures like that,
and we've all got to be convinced here that it's
up to you and me and everybody out there. We're
not asking people to be keepers b bee keepers, but
to be a bed and breakfast for all the bees,
both honey and native bees that are out there today.
(13:48):
Be a bed and breakfast in your gardening practices, in
what you plant. You know, the old pollinator thing here,
listen you, planning for pollinators is more important now than
it ever was.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Another point with your farming is that they had multiple crops.
You know, they were more or less sustainable for themselves.
So they had you know, coal crops, they had some corn,
they had beans, they had a lot, they had a
lot of diversity in what they grew. And now you know,
it's millions of acres of corn and soybean, so we've
(14:22):
lost that diversity. Bees don't really get any nutrition from
either one of those. They'll get nectar and pollen from them,
but it's not nutritious. So, I mean, you have those
those diverse gardens, you know, of your own cropsure beans
and herbs and whatever. Those bees get so much nourishment
(14:42):
from all those different flowering plants.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Unbelievable. Talk about barbe Ble you she is our queen
Bee and has provided us for all these years twenty
since twenty six, Yeah, that's when we first had you
on here talking about the colony collapse disorder, and have
learned so much from you over the years. You presented
me with some factions figures, and I don't know if
you remember this or not, but you were looking way
(15:05):
back to the amount of high, you know, hives that
are out there today versus the amount of hives that
we had back during World War Two.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yes, and it's it's startling. So an interesting fact that
I'll try to remember is when we well, the Auromites
showed up, we lost a lot of beekeepers and a
lot of colonies. So I'm getting ahead of myself, but
we had like fifty five thousand some colonies in the
(15:41):
early nineteen eighties, and then when a cony collapse disorder
showed up, we went down to twenty two thousands. So
we are now we're back up to fifty five thousand
colonies in Ohio. However, we had two hundred and sixty
thousand back in nineteen forty, and we were the top
(16:03):
third honey producing state in the United States in the
early forties, nineteen forty forty one, forty two, we're the
number thirty or four top honey producing state in the
United States.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Two hundred and sixty thousand hives.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Und sixty thousand.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
In nineteen forty and then today it's back up to
fifty five.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Thousand, back up to fifty five.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Thousand, unbelievable, that's crazy stuff. Talking with Barbie Bletcher, our
Queen Bee. Take a quick break, we come back. We've
got Barbie all the next half hour, so stay tuned.
Lots of great information here in the Gardens with Ron Wilson.
Garden with Ron Wilkes special guest this morning, the Queen Bee,
Barbie b Letcher. We've been talking with Barbie. I've known
(16:53):
it for a long time, but since twenty twenty oh
six when the colony collapses order hit big time and
the b highs they were disappearing, and ever since then
we've been talking about bees. And of course now that
you know it's the buzz out there now is to
you know, be pollinator friendly, bee polite and pollinator friendly
in our gardens, and we try to promote that more
and more. But look at some old stats and I
(17:13):
think that was it just kind of blew me away
with the two hundred and sixty thousand hives in Ohio
in nineteen forty compared to and it was as low
as twenty two thousand in Ohio just a few years ago,
but back up to around fifty five thousand. That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah. Yeah, we were up there with New York, in Iowa, Minnesota,
so it was concentrated over on the eastern saturday United
States except for Iowa. I don't know where they came from,
but yeah, Ohio and New York another one. Yeah, well,
I guess Minnesota and Iowa, sorot not just the eastern side.
(17:54):
But there wasn't too much going on out in the Southwest.
But then about so we had a war going on
in the early forties. Sometime toward the end of the war,
California started to beef up their almond almond production and
then California ended up getting the number one spot for
(18:16):
honey production. But we were I think our max nineteen
forty five, we had three hundred and twenty six million
colonies of bees.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Wow, that's a lot of bees.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Producing ten let's see, I'll get my zero's wrong again.
Ten ten let's see, yeah, ten million pounds of honey.
Ten million pounds of honey.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
So how much honey is produced today? Any idea?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Thirteen? Let's say one point three million in Ohio. Wow,
one point three millions. So yeah, we've gone away and
the other states are like that too, but we're way down.
We're like number twenty five now for honey production in Ohio.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
So as we look at the at honeybee hives and
honeybee raising bees and all, as we look to that
from nineteen forties to today, you know, back then, did
they have colony collapse disorder and issues like that? And
why are we you know, was that an issue? Those
things issues back then? I mean you look at I
(19:29):
look at the insecticide I mean DDT and stuff like
that was out there at that time. You know, I
don't know, but did you know have things changed over
the years.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
You know what's interesting because I did I did some research,
not not this weekend, but several years ago when they
were going to take the neo nicatory dots the market
completely in the United States. And they've done that over
in Europe and they actually found that without the ne nicketinoids,
(20:02):
they're going back to the harder pesticide some mouth ion
diasmon hydrogenated yeah, or did they lose their crops and
they had to replant two or three times because of
the insects, But they still are they're still losing insects
because they're using harder products, so they're still losing these
(20:28):
so without the neons, So you.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Take the NEOs off the market and then you just
have to next thing, you know, you're using more tools
out of the toolbox.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, they're using the hammers, yeah, which.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You know you would occasionally get out of the toolbox
if necessary, but otherwise you don't. Now you're using more
of the hammers and it's not working out.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
No, And we had like the dwindling disease and the
Aisle of Dwight disease, but those were back in the
eighteen hundreds, so there wasn't really a big colony collapse
that we knew about in the nineteen hundreds. And of
course that was before social media, so it's kind of
(21:14):
hard to tell. But as far as I as I
could determine, we didn't have any huge be die off
in the nineteen hundreds, so it wasn't until two thousands,
and you know, they determined the causes for that. There
were multiple One was, you know, as we said, lack
of nutrition, and then the vuamite had just shown up,
(21:37):
had been here, you know twenty some years. We were
using harder products trying to control the veramite, and that's
when they really discovered all the viruses. So we didn't
have the royal weed. The scientists didn't have technology to
identify viruses before, you know, in the eighties and nineties
(21:58):
they finally were able to determine all these viruses. And
there's like thirty some viruses that affect honey bees.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Now mostly vectored by the mite.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
By the yes, vectored by the might.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So where did this vara might come from? I mean,
when when did it finally start twenty years ago? You
say that really came to being, Yeah, like the mid eighties.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
It showed up in Ohio. I think it was just
further south earlier than that. I think I was going
to say, Oh, so it came from So there's another
honey bee that's kept over in Asia called the ape
APIs serana it's like a larger bee and honey Those bees,
(22:41):
the APIs sourana, were able to adapt to the veramite.
They have a I think their life cycle is a
little bit faster, so the veramites aren't able to really
take a colony down. So the APIs sorana honey bee
had adapted to this eramite. Somehow, those that apiserana was
(23:03):
brought to the United States, and I don't know if
they ever determined how that was. And the auamites that
were on those bees got into our bees, and our
our honey bees had no no, no way to tolerate it,
no resistance to it, never come in contact with it.
(23:24):
And just like you know, native plants that have a
new invasive past that attack it, they have no way
to break it down. So they're still you know, even today,
you know, honey bees have a poorer tolerance oft of aroamites,
but we do have some that have you know, developed
(23:44):
some tolerance or some way of adapting with it. It
just yeah, it's been a it's been a slow road.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I was gonna say, it just seems like, you know,
with the technology that we have today and the research
is being done, I mean, you and I and again
you and I've been talking about this since twenty oh
and this verral might's been at the top of the list.
It just seems like, like, what's the deal. I mean,
you know, and you you know, you told me one
time think about this though. You know, we're trying to
(24:11):
come up with a pesticide to take care of an
insect and we've got bees, which are an insect. Yeah,
and how do you come up with something that's not
going to harm the bees? But you have to take
this mite out? And you know, of course cultural practices
have come into play. I know you've told me that,
and be breeding obviously, coming up with new varieties that
(24:34):
are more tolerant or you know, of the of this
viol might. But it just seems like something would like
the silver bullet would come along some Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Please. You know, every every four or five years we
have a new product and we all like rush to
use that product and then it doesn't work all that great.
But yeah, you know, this this thing, this erect it
is it's feeding on the mic. So whatever we use
it has to be hard enough to kill the thing
it's feeding on the bee without telling the bee. Yeah,
(25:03):
that that's that that science has just been apparently much
harder to do than we thought.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's crazy stuff. Talking with Barbie Butcher, our queen bee.
You know it's I printed this out. I didn't send
it to you, but I just got a thing in
the from the forget which news releas this is, but
talking about scientists finally identify the cause between behind the
US biggest honey be die off ever recorded, which was
this past winter. U with the with the millions that
(25:30):
were lost, and of course what's the big picture there,
the vermite.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
In the virus, the virus right, and I think, yeah,
I sent you somes in a presentation this fall. It
may show that even five highly virulent veramites, five little veramites,
so that would fit in your finger, those be those
mitra so highly effective that they could kill an entire
(26:00):
yard of bees. And that just blows me away.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, crazy stuff. Talking with Barbie Bletcher, our queen Bee.
It's take another break. We've got more with Barbie Bletcher
here in the garden with Ron Wilson. Welcome back. You're
in the garden with Ron Wilson talking with Barbie. We'll
let you are queen Bee and uh what's going on
with our honeybees out there? You know that at the
end of this uh and this was from Science News,
(26:28):
it was talking about I guess is it amatros amtra
demetris talking about you know, can still consider one of
the least toxic options. But on the same token, if
you spray a lot of it, you can weaken the colonies.
But yet now they're seeing the that they're becoming resistant
to this, and it's just like crazy stuff. And then
there's just nothing they can find, you know, is really
(26:50):
doing the job. So nothing you and I can do
about that at this stage besides helping to support the
funding for this research. But there are things that you
and I can do to help bees, both honey bees
and navy bees get to continue on and be as
healthy as possible.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, A lot of research has shown that if bees
have the proper nutrition they can they can overcome viruses.
You know, I know beekeepers that have hives out in
the middle of nowhere, out in beautiful flowering you know,
beautiful forests and woodlands and fields and pasture lands. They
have their bees have viruses, but they don't have high
(27:32):
enough levels to hurt the bees. They may have some mites,
but they don't have enough mites to damage that, you know,
make the bees sick. So they can tolerate mites and
viruses if they have proper nutrition. And you think about
you and I, you know, we when we're not eating right,
we're not getting enough sleep, blah blah blah, we're more
(27:53):
sustimble to getting sick. It's the same thing with the bees.
So one, we try not to have our hives on
top of each other, which is is difficult to do
with all the cities and the construction and you know
urban areas. So another interesting fact is that you know
beekeepers back in the day, back in the forties, you know,
(28:14):
they would have one thousand colonies each. Now you know,
our average beekeeper has five hives or less because we're urban, right,
So you look at Cincinnati in nineteen forty, your population
was four hundred and fifty thousand. You had four hun
fifty thousand people in the greater Cincinnati area. You now
(28:36):
have one point two million. So where are you gonna
keep bees?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Right? And not everybody wants to be hive in their
next door neighbor's yard.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, you have to train them. You had to bribe
them with honey.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah. True, and to show that you know it's okay
that you're not going to get stung and they don't,
you know, take off after you and they're not going
to chase you and the kids down and the dog
the whole nine year.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yes, So education, we have to educate. We need to
promote beekeeping. We need to have more. Ron Wilson's out
there to talk about you know, let that clover grow,
let the dandelions grow, and you know, we teach beekeeping
every spring, and I know you and I have talked
about that. Even if you don't want to be a beekeeper,
(29:20):
taking those beekeeping classes helps you understand what it takes
to keep colonies alive.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, I still remember I got an email from a
gentleman said that he and his grandson had signed up
for one of the bee classes I think about Knox County,
and they weren't beekeepers. They were going to learn about bees.
And that's why they were taking it, just to learn
about bees and if they became if they became beekeepers, great,
but just to learn more about them. Because if you
know more about them, you know what you need to
(29:47):
be doing in your own yard and garden. And maybe
your homeowner's association and get everybody involved to have these
communities that are now pollinator communities to help out all
the pollinators, including the honey bees and the native bees
and the butterflies in the whole nine yards. You plan
for them that you're planning for all of them and
it helps them all out and things that we can
do to be more friendly in our gardens and more
(30:08):
pollinat or polite. So these classes and they're available. I
just you're talking about the Southwestern Beekeepers Association having their
classes coming up in February. They're all you know, through
our state of Ohio, many of them out there, the
Ohio was it the Ohio Beekeepers Association, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ohiuse state Beekeepers Association has a listing of the most
counties have a beekeeping club, and most of these clubs
teach beekeeping. So I would actually take several because each
you know, you have a group of beekeepers and they
teach a certain way. If you go to another class
somewhere else, they're going to teach you different things.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So gather up all the information. Yeah, and there's a
good chance you might find bar b Bletcher or one
of the three stingers or all the three stingers at
these classes as well. And if they all three show
up at the same time, you're in for a hoop,
trust me. Yeah. Really talking with Barbie Bletcher, our queen bee, uh,
and what you can do to be more friendly in
(31:08):
your yard and gardens, you know, become a bee bed
and breakfast or a pollinator bread and bed and breakfast
and really how and it does work, whether it's a
kind of container or whatever you're doing in your yard
and garden practices, it does work. Talking to Darby Blescher,
I sent her a scenario. I said, I got a
question for you, barb if by chance this time of
(31:29):
the year, of course, the bees are all in their
hives and it was it was interesting. Uh. Nina sent
me a picture of the yellow spots all over the
concrete and she said, oh, it's a poop day where
they'd all gotten out and flown and did their little
poop and then went back in the in the hive.
So they're all gathered around the high And by the way,
does she really wake you up at five thirty this morning?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Well, my phone went off, but I ignored her.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Geez. I went on minded too, and I was like,
you gotta be don't bother her. She got another hour
to sleep anyway, I know, I guess from four in
the morning. He's like, whoa, what are you doing? But anyway,
there so they're all gathered around that queen, protecting her
over the winter time. Obviously, what happens if the queen
bee dies and there's no queen to protect, do they
(32:17):
all fall apart and take off during the winter, or
do they stick with each other and stay in that
hive until the spring season.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
It really depends on what tybo winter we have. They
will stick together, especially if there's brood, they will stick
together until so the worker bees and queen bees all
put out of pheromone. You know, wintertime, it's not as obvious,
but as the season goes on. This winter goes on,
(32:46):
it's going to become more obvious that, hey, there's no
queen here, they're not gonna be able to smell her anymore.
Brood will produce a certain pheromone too, I a smell ascent.
So if they're not, if the worker bees don't smell her,
or there was not very many, not a lot of brood,
and there's no new brood coming along, they're gonna realize
(33:08):
that there's something wrong and they'll start to wander off.
But as long as it's really cold, they're gonna stay clustered,
so they probably won't realize. Yeah, well, they won't realize
that there's no queen until it starts getting warm and
they start spreading out.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And part of Barb's answer to me was to send
me a video of two queen bees fighting each other,
stinging each other in the head and in the face
and going at it, and that could be pretty nasty time.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Oh it was horrible. Yeah, I've never seen them actually
stinging each other in the face. That was I thought
they were just beheaded.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I was a little taken back with you sending me
something like that, and you know, actually was kind of
interesting to see that, but wow, kind of crazy stuff.
Talk with Barb Bletcher how important it is for you
to be ee friendly in your in your gardens and
why it's so important. And of course classes out there
over the wintertime, be sure and take There's plenty of
books out there as well. Mm hmm, yeah, Kim f
(34:08):
I think Kim Kim Flopman's is one. I like that book,
especially for beginners.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah, Backyard Beekeeper. He just had a fifth edition shortly
before he passed away, just another one that he did
better Beekeeping, which is an oldie, better goodie. So yeah,
backgyard Beekeeping. You know, a lot of us, like seventy
five percent of the beekeepers in Ohio are backyard beekeepers.
So that book, it talks about disease, It talks about
(34:36):
being kind to your neighbor, It talks about providing food
and flora. It has a little bit about you know,
promoting bees and just biology. So it covers a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And again it's i s stay the same, old, same,
but when you know more about them, it makes it
easier for you to do things in your yard and
garden to make it, you know, to make it right
for them. So you learn more about it through these
great books, through these great classes, through videos hanging out
with the Three Stingers, and you learn a lot from there. Oh,
by the way, thanks, I appreciate your fellow us in
(35:10):
with all this great information. I got one last question
for you very quickly. When you smell paper whites to
smell good, it's the smell bad.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I like the smell. It's a it's a little strong.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
But I like that smell, so you just like spring,
so it doesn't smell like the minority to you.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
No, it's a ya for me.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Queen Bee likes the smell of paper whites, but then
I like cats, So there you go. Barbie Bletcher, always
a pleasure, great information. Happy New Year. I look forward
to talking to you more in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Happy new Year.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
All right, thank you. Barbie Bletcher. Are Queen Bee and
retired state apiarist. Apiarist. No should mess around with apes.
It's uh with bees eight piarist. All right, pick quick, Frank,
come back. Phone lines are open for you. Eight hundred
eight two three eight two five five Here in the
garden with
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