Latest / Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam / A Coffee with Richard and Amber Ozero from Good Morning Honey

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A Coffee with Richard and Amber Ozero from Good Morning Honey · Coffee In The Park with Jennifer and Cam

• 0:12
  Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the ABA Coffee In The Park.
• 0:17
  My name is Cam Milliken, and I am here with my co-host extraordinaire, Jennifer Herrick.
• 0:22
  Good morning, Jennifer.
• 0:23
  Good morning, Cam.
• 0:24
  How are you today?
• 0:25
  Oh, if I was any better, the sun is shining.
• 0:27
  It's a beautiful winter day here in Edmonton, and in the heart of beautiful downtown Acheson.
• 0:35
  That's right.
• 0:35
  And we're coming to you live from the Wall Coffee Roasters.
• 0:38
  So if you hear some noises in the background, a little bit of clinking of glasses, baby screaming, whirring of machines, it's because we're live at the Wall Coffee Roasters.
• 0:45
  We sure are.
• 0:46
  We love to do this podcast.
• 0:47
  We love to do this podcast from the Wall Coffee Roaster.
• 0:50
  And if you've never been, you need to come because it makes some of the best coffee you'll ever taste this side of...
• 0:55
  I was going to say Regina, but even further than that.
• 0:57
  So yeah.
• 0:58
  So hey, tell us about some very important people.
• 1:00
  Well, we would like to thank our Gold Corporate Sponsors, which include the Myshak Group of Companies, Genics, Parkland County, and Bow Valley Credit Union.
• 1:08
  Right on.
• 1:09
  And without them, we could not do what we do.
• 1:11
  And so we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.
• 1:13
  We sure do.
• 1:13
  Yeah.
• 1:14
  So I'm excited about today.
• 1:16
  So am I.
• 1:17
  Because this is a topic I never would have imagined in a billion years that we ever would have talked about.
• 1:22
  Well, no.
• 1:23
  But you and I have talked about this topic before, just on a personal level.
• 1:28
  Yeah.
• 1:29
  Because we get excited about some of this stuff.
• 1:30
  I do.
• 1:31
  I get it.
• 1:31
  Well, I'm not going to give it away until you introduce them, but I get excited about the by-product.
• 1:35
  I don't get excited about the thing that makes the product.
• 1:38
  They scare the crap out of me.
• 1:39
  Am I allowed to say crap?
• 1:40
  Oh yeah.
• 1:41
  Nobody cares.
• 1:41
  So yeah, they do.
• 1:42
  They scare me.
• 1:43
  But that's okay because we're going to learn.
• 1:45
  That they're not that scary.
• 1:46
  So by the end of today, I will be okay.
• 1:48
  You will.
• 1:48
  Yeah, it's good.
• 1:49
  So why don't you introduce our guests?
• 1:50
  Our guests today are Richard and Amber Ozero from Good Morning Honey.
• 1:55
  So welcome to you both.
• 1:56
  Good morning.
• 1:57
  Good to be here.
• 1:58
  I like that name.
• 1:58
  Good Morning Honey.
• 1:59
  That's a cool name.
• 2:00
  Yeah, it worked.
• 2:02
  That was something that really...
• 2:02
  How did you come up with that name?
• 2:04
  Did you like wake up one morning and go, Good morning, honey.
• 2:06
  No, no.
• 2:07
  Coming up with a name for your new company is one of the hardest things to do.
• 2:12
  And it just plowed through my brain and just went through all kinds of silly stuff that didn't work.
• 2:18
  You're trying to be clever and cute.
• 2:19
  And then it just happened.
• 2:21
  Luckily, it popped into our head.
• 2:23
  And I thought that's a great thing.
• 2:26
  It has a nice warm thing to it, a nice play on words.
• 2:29
  Yeah, no, it's a great name.
• 2:31
  I think it served us well.
• 2:32
  I think so.
• 2:33
  When people hear that, because that's how I answer the phone.
• 2:35
  I say, Good Morning Honey, Richard speaking, and it catches everyone off guard.
• 2:38
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  With a smile on their face.
• 2:40
  Does it ever get slapped when you say it?
• 2:41
  No, no.
• 2:42
  Some of the ladies say, Good Morning Honey back, but I was going to say, that could get a little, yeah, and then whack.
• 2:47
  Oh, sorry, no, I saw Honey, that's the name.
• 2:49
  Okay, so here's the question that everybody's, okay, tell us a little about yourselves.
• 2:55
  What did you do in your past lives before Honey?
• 3:00
  Yeah, so this is fascinating.
• 3:01
  Yeah, it's a bit of an awkward or strange transition, but both Richard and I worked in television.
• 3:07
  So we were both in television news and Richard was a meteorologist.
• 3:10
  Yes.
• 3:11
  So we met at NAIT when we went to Radio and Television Arts.
• 3:14
  Okay, I was going to ask this question, where they met.
• 3:16
  Fell in love at NAIT?
• 3:18
  Well, she didn't, I did.
• 3:20
  It took her a while.
• 3:20
  Tell us about that.
• 3:21
  Oh, okay, tell us a little about that.
• 3:23
  This is always the good part, because it's always the guy.
• 3:26
  I fell in love with the women, and I got a chance.
• 3:28
  We were friends first, and then, you know, he grew on me.
• 3:31
  How did he win your heart?
• 3:36
  Well, I mean, why wouldn't he?
• 3:40
  I finally came to my senses.
• 3:42
  We went to school, then we ended up going separate ways and working in different small towns and working our way through the industry.
• 3:48
  And then we we ended up working together at RDTV, which used to be a popular television station in Red Deer.
• 3:55
  That's where the magic happened.
• 3:57
  The magic happened in Red Deer.
• 3:59
  So every time you go to Red Deer, it's just, yeah, well, that's really awesome.
• 4:02
  And then, OK, sorry, go ahead.
• 4:03
  Well, are you both from the area originally or where did you grow up?
• 4:07
  I grew up in Lacombe.
• 4:09
  So I come from I grew up in town, but I come from a long line of farming.
• 4:13
  OK.
• 4:13
  And then Richard grew up on a farm in Bonneville.
• 4:15
  Yeah, I come from a long line of peasant farmers.
• 4:18
  So he goes back to the...
• 4:20
  No, Bonneville.
• 4:21
  I dated a girl once in Bonneville.
• 4:23
  That's a whole other story.
• 4:24
  That's a whole other story.
• 4:24
  But anyways, yeah, no, that's great.
• 4:26
  OK.
• 4:27
  And then, so from there, from, did you move?
• 4:31
  To go to school.
• 4:31
  To go to school?
• 4:32
  Or did you just move to the big city?
• 4:34
  How did that work?
• 4:34
  I came to Edmonton.
• 4:35
  I took biological sciences as my first schooling at NAIT.
• 4:38
  Really?
• 4:39
  And then a month into that, I'm like, I don't want to do this.
• 4:42
  No.
• 4:42
  I want to be a television or a radio star.
• 4:45
  And so I continued on with the biosciences, and I ended up with radio and television.
• 4:49
  Okay.
• 4:50
  And that's where we met.
• 4:52
  Yeah.
• 4:53
  Same?
• 4:53
  Yes.
• 4:54
  So I came up wanting to, I wanted to be an actress and then realized that that was probably a far-fetched dream for a little Lacombe girl.
• 5:03
  So I took radio and television arts, and originally I wanted to be on camera, and then I fell in love with the behind the scenes.
• 5:09
  So I started camera and editing.
• 5:11
  Yeah.
• 5:11
  So, yeah.
• 5:13
  And how long were you in Red Deer?
• 5:15
  Oh, I was there three or four years.
• 5:17
  You were there a couple.
• 5:18
  I think about a year and a half, 18 months, something like that.
• 5:20
  Then we moved up to Edmonton.
• 5:21
  Moved up to Edmonton, worked at A Channel.
• 5:23
  CTV Global.
• 5:25
  CBC.
• 5:26
  We worked at all of them.
• 5:27
  CTV.
• 5:27
  Yeah.
• 5:28
  So people would recognize Richard probably from the weather.
• 5:32
  Yeah, for sure.
• 5:32
  During the weather.
• 5:33
  So how many years, Richard, at CTV?
• 5:36
  I was at CTV from 2000 to 2012, and I did The Weekend Weather there, and a lot of behind the scenes stuff as well.
• 5:42
  Okay.
• 5:42
  And then I went to Global Television for three years, like 2012 to 2015, where I was the week night, like a late night show, the main weather guy there.
• 5:53
  And then I went back to Casual, because we started the beekeeping business in 2011.
• 5:57
  So I was trying to decrease my TV hours to increase the time I could spend on the beekeeping, because the beekeeping was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it was 20-hour days.
• 6:08
  Right, right.
• 6:08
  And I was just, it was a grind.
• 6:10
  So I went to Global to get a part-time job, so that we could devote more time to the business.
• 6:15
  So this is the segue.
• 6:17
  This is the segue.
• 6:18
  So how do you go from being TV to...
• 6:22
  To bees.
• 6:23
  I want to do bees.
• 6:24
  I want to be a beekeeper.
• 6:25
  Yeah, like what, how does that happen?
• 6:27
  We bought a farm, and we just wanted to raise our kids out in the country, and Richard had a big farming background.
• 6:34
  So we just kind of started out, we called it our little funny farm.
• 6:36
  We had chickens and pigs and sheep and geese, and we had all sorts of little animals flowing around.
• 6:43
  And before we bought the farm, I had ran into this guy, I was cold calling, because this was the time when it was tough to get farmland, and we knew the prices were going to be skyrocketing soon.
• 6:52
  So I was cold calling farmers, and I ran into this beekeeper during that process.
• 6:55
  And he was a, I didn't understand at the time, but he was a really big bee, one of the biggest beekeepers in Alberta.
• 7:02
  And so, once we did buy our farm, like Amber said, we were looking for all kinds of animals.
• 7:07
  We wanted to be the Noah's Ark type of homesteading thing.
• 7:10
  And I'm, oh, we should get some bees.
• 7:11
  I love the Noah's Ark, it's awesome.
• 7:14
  Because my parents had bees on their farm, from a beekeeper in that area in Bonneville.
• 7:19
  And I thought, oh, bees would be super cool.
• 7:21
  And this is back in like 2006.
• 7:23
  So I went back to this beekeeper, said, hey, would you put some hives in our land?
• 7:26
  I'll help you work them when you come here.
• 7:28
  I'll learn a thing or two, and then maybe I'll buy one or two hives in a couple of years once I understand what I'm doing.
• 7:35
  Sure.
• 7:36
  So before this, you really didn't know anything about bees.
• 7:38
  But you thought it was cool.
• 7:39
  Yeah, I thought it was cool.
• 7:40
  And so this fellow in the meantime decided to retire.
• 7:45
  And he was always saying, you should buy my company.
• 7:47
  And I'm like, I don't need your company.
• 7:49
  I'm a big, famous TV guy.
• 7:52
  You heard it here first, folks.
• 7:54
  Confessions of a TV star here on the podcast.
• 7:57
  And I didn't understand how big this guy was.
• 7:59
  And the more I looked at what he had around him and what he'd built over 30 years, it was super impressive.
• 8:04
  And he explained the business to me.
• 8:06
  And the harder you work, the more potential there is.
• 8:09
  And I was kind of topped out in the TV thing.
• 8:12
  I couldn't go much unless you wanted to move to a different city.
• 8:14
  And I didn't want to. We had the farm.
• 8:15
  We were laying the roots, had our kids.
• 8:17
  And so we decided to purchase some equipment from him.
• 8:23
  But when he says some, so Richard comes to me.
• 8:26
  Now comes the real story right here.
• 8:29
  Yeah, so when he comes home one day and says, He says, I want to get some.
• 8:32
  Good morning, honey.
• 8:33
  I want to do bees.
• 8:34
  Yeah, so I bought a couple of hives.
• 8:36
  Like, you know, I didn't really understand, but Richard does everything 150%.
• 8:43
  So we went from zero hives to 920 hives.
• 8:48
  920 hives?
• 8:50
  Yeah.
• 8:51
  Yeah.
• 8:52
  But I do trust Richard because I know when he's doing something, he puts all his effort into research and, you know, he's thought it through.
• 9:00
  So I said, yeah, sure.
• 9:03
  920 hives.
• 9:05
  Did you buy out the guy or did you?
• 9:07
  No, no, no, no.
• 9:07
  You started your own?
• 9:08
  He was too big.
• 9:09
  He had 12,000 hives at the time.
• 9:11
  There are people with 12,000 hives.
• 9:12
  There are people with 20,000 hives.
• 9:14
  Come on.
• 9:16
  See, I know nothing about beekeeping.
• 9:18
  Nothing.
• 9:19
  This fascinates me.
• 9:20
  Unbelievable.
• 9:20
  Usually the people with the larger amount of hives are also doing pollination contracts down in southern Alberta.
• 9:25
  That's a very important part of Alberta's agriculture, is pollinating the hybrid canola seed.
• 9:31
  So you have to have big numbers to cover all the acres down in southern Alberta that are planted.
• 9:37
  Sorry, just in my understanding, it's something we're losing, and we need to be very careful about that, right?
• 9:42
  Because we need the bees to do that.
• 9:43
  Oh, of course, yeah.
• 9:44
  You need the bees.
• 9:46
  It's a natural fit.
• 9:47
  You want to have the bees able to pollinate.
• 9:49
  There are all kinds of native species as well that do a lot of pollination work that we've got to be mindful of as well.
• 9:56
  So it's every pollinator you should be concerned about, but we put a little more effort into it.
• 10:01
  Now you have 920 hives.
• 10:04
  Yeah.
• 10:04
  So the first year we had 920 hives, and that's exactly it.
• 10:10
  Richard was still working full time.
• 10:12
  So he's working full time, and he's managing bees.
• 10:16
  We get great guys.
• 10:17
  So we started taking two of the previous owner's employees.
• 10:21
  Yeah, they decided to come and work with us as well.
• 10:23
  So they're seasonal agricultural workers from Mexico.
• 10:26
  Okay.
• 10:27
  And they are the most amazing.
• 10:28
  They're beekeepers in Mexico.
• 10:30
  Oh, really?
• 10:30
  So they have the knowledge and the experience.
• 10:32
  I was going to say, you probably do have to know what you're doing.
• 10:35
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:35
  There's a lot.
• 10:36
  It's super science.
• 10:37
  It's not just a bee.
• 10:39
  I do have bees.
• 10:40
  You have to know what you're doing.
• 10:41
  It's like bees are basically a domesticated animal now, the way we keep them.
• 10:46
  So there's science behind everything.
• 10:47
  There's critical timing issues throughout the entire year that you have to service these hives and just help them whatever they need.
• 10:55
  You got to get for them nutrition-wise.
• 10:58
  So here's the question.
• 10:59
  You're in Alberta.
• 11:01
  It's warm for five months of the year.
• 11:04
  And then the rest, it's deep freeze, except for today.
• 11:07
  Yeah, today's is that way.
• 11:08
  Everybody wants to know, where's the bees in the winter?
• 11:11
  There are two different models of winterizing your bees.
• 11:14
  So for us, we do all outdoor.
• 11:17
  Okay.
• 11:18
  So we just keep them in the field that they're in all year long.
• 11:21
  And in the fall time, either late September, early October, we wrap them with a big insulated hive.
• 11:27
  And so that's just to keep the wind out.
• 11:29
  Yeah.
• 11:29
  And bees are, honey bees are naturally adapted to cluster together and thermal regulate.
• 11:35
  So they just make like a ball of bees and they'll get either tighter or looser to whether they need to be warm or cooler.
• 11:41
  Queen stays on the middle and they just move around the hive like one big mass and eat the reserves that they have during the winter time.
• 11:49
  And when you have a day like today where it's going to be seven, 10 degrees outside in the middle of winter, they'll go out and fly and clean the bathroom break.
• 11:56
  They have a cleansing break because they don't go to the bathroom in their hive.
• 11:58
  So if you see little brown dots all outside the hive, that's them using the washeroom.
• 12:02
  I am learning so much today.
• 12:04
  Way better than National Geographic.
• 12:06
  I'm telling you right now.
• 12:07
  This is unbelievable.
• 12:08
  Yeah.
• 12:11
  I did not know any of this.
• 12:13
  This is just fascinating.
• 12:15
  Like this is incredible.
• 12:16
  Bees are naturally resistant.
• 12:18
  Yeah.
• 12:19
  As a lot, your job as a beekeeper is to keep them healthy.
• 12:21
  Right.
• 12:22
  I often kind of joke with Richard now that we're not beekeepers, we're bee doctors.
• 12:27
  Yeah.
• 12:27
  So with all of the way the world works now, it's harder and harder to keep healthy bees.
• 12:33
  Yeah.
• 12:33
  So your job is to keep healthy bees and then they will do the rest.
• 12:37
  Like if you have healthy bees, they will survive.
• 12:39
  But if you don't have healthy bees, the colony won't survive.
• 12:41
  So is it, I mean, what is, what's the biggest demise right now for bees?
• 12:47
  Like what do you have to worry about?
• 12:48
  Yeah, there's this pesky little mite called the Varroa mite, which is decimating hives.
• 12:53
  And it's harder and harder to manage.
• 12:57
  They kind of have become adaptable.
• 13:00
  And the tools that we had to keep our hives healthy aren't working as much anymore.
• 13:05
  So Varroa mites, one of the biggest ones.
• 13:08
  The Varroa mite will climb within the segments of the bees and sort of make a hole in the bee's body, suck out some of the fat bodies, the nutrients that the bees store there.
• 13:18
  There's good stuff in for surviving and fighting disease and all that.
• 13:24
  And these mites are also a vector for other diseases.
• 13:26
  So they'll pass along viruses into the hive.
• 13:29
  So if you have a high mite population, and then it just makes it worse and worse, and eventually your colony does off of that.
• 13:37
  How do you combat that?
• 13:38
  How do you get rid of them?
• 13:39
  There's numerous ways.
• 13:40
  There's lots of scientists working on the problem.
• 13:43
  There's synthetic chemicals.
• 13:45
  There's organic acids.
• 13:46
  There's stuff that's safe for the honey.
• 13:48
  That's the biggest thing is because when you're trying to get rid of one insect on another insect, and also keep your food safe, it's a fine balance.
• 13:57
  So there's been millions and millions of dollars spent, lots of research being done to find that.
• 14:02
  That's incredible.
• 14:03
  You have something that works for a while, and then the mites will eventually become resistant to it.
• 14:08
  Just like antibiotic resistance, there's resistance to these tools that we have.
• 14:12
  Okay, I have to admit something right now.
• 14:14
  So, I go to the store, I see the honey on the shelf, I just think that's great, I take the honey.
• 14:19
  I now have a new respect.
• 14:20
  Don't you?
• 14:21
  I do, because it's just honey, you buy the honey, you take it home.
• 14:24
  This is unbelievable.
• 14:26
  I never knew none of this.
• 14:27
  This is incredible.
• 14:28
  Do you still have 900?
• 14:30
  How many hives do you have?
• 14:31
  No, we grew them the rest of our lives.
• 14:34
  We were at 5,000 last year, so we're a medium-sized operation, I would say.
• 14:39
  That's where I think we'd stay somewhere around now.
• 14:40
  Do you have any way of calculating with 5,000 hives how many bees that is?
• 14:46
  Well, there's peak population of a hive in the summertime, because it varies throughout the season.
• 14:52
  In the springtime, you'll probably have about 10,000 bees like coming out in the winter, then it peaks at around 60 to 80 in the middle of, you know, excuse me, in July, and then it dwindles down for the winter again.
• 15:04
  That is unbelievable.
• 15:06
  That's a lot of bees.
• 15:07
  That's a lot of bees.
• 15:08
  Okay.
• 15:08
  So, but you started out with collecting all of these bees.
• 15:13
  Yeah.
• 15:13
  Did you think you were going to go into producing honey, or was this just something you're going to add to your hobby farm, and we're going to just do this?
• 15:20
  When we started with 920, we knew that we were at a commercial scale already.
• 15:24
  Right.
• 15:25
  Yeah.
• 15:25
  So the goal is, you know, to sell the honey and all the other byproducts.
• 15:29
  You get beeswax there.
• 15:32
  You can collect bee pollen as well, which is edible by humans and high in protein.
• 15:38
  There's a little substance called propolis, so the bees take the resin from the trees and they use it.
• 15:43
  They will eat it for kind of tummy issues that they're having, but they'll also patch up their hive.
• 15:47
  It's quite a sticky substance.
• 15:49
  So they'll patch up their hive if there's wind or something coming in.
• 15:52
  That's a building thing for them as well.
• 15:55
  Right.
• 15:55
  So this is fascinating because obviously, you don't just have bees and you get the honey.
• 16:00
  You now have to set up a whole shop.
• 16:03
  Shop, processing, is processing plant the right word?
• 16:06
  Yeah.
• 16:07
  So tell us about that.
• 16:08
  Tell us about that.
• 16:09
  Yeah, that's a big investment as well.
• 16:10
  I was going to say.
• 16:11
  Yeah.
• 16:11
  Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize that Alberta produces the most honey in Canada and we're the fifth largest producer of honey in the world.
• 16:18
  So there's a lot of commercial scale beekeepers.
• 16:20
  And with that comes infrastructure.
• 16:22
  So the first few years, we rented the shop from the previous beekeeper, but it was going to be much easier to have it on our own land so we could work together.
• 16:30
  The kids were young.
• 16:32
  I could go and help instead of driving to another shop.
• 16:34
  So we invested in our land and put up a fairly reasonable size shop there.
• 16:40
  And then, it's never big enough.
• 16:44
  We're bursting at the seams.
• 16:47
  Yeah, we're bursting at the seams.
• 16:48
  But you can take your business in many directions.
• 16:53
  Some producers just sell bulk.
• 16:55
  We sell bulk and we also have our branded Good Morning Honey that's in stores as well.
• 16:59
  You can just do retail.
• 17:02
  There's farmers markets.
• 17:03
  There's lots of ways to sell your honey.
• 17:06
  But a lot of the commercial people will do bulk sales.
• 17:09
  Sell in 45-gallon drums.
• 17:12
  So walk us through.
• 17:15
  You get the honey from the hive.
• 17:17
  Walk us through how that gets into the plant and how it gets out.
• 17:21
  Tell us the process of that.
• 17:24
  You go to the field, the bees make surplus honey.
• 17:28
  They keep enough for themselves.
• 17:29
  They make extra.
• 17:29
  You have supers.
• 17:30
  We call them honey supers.
• 17:32
  You just keep stacking them up during the spring and early summer.
• 17:34
  The bees build the wax, build the honeycomb, fill it with honey, put a layer of wax over top of that honeycomb once the honey is dried down.
• 17:43
  Because the bees go to the flowers, get the nectar and they come back.
• 17:47
  It's very high water content.
• 17:49
  So it's the minerals and natural sugars and stuff from the flowers.
• 17:53
  The bees bring it back and they dehumidify their hive to draw that moisture down to below 18.6% moisture content.
• 18:01
  Otherwise, it would ferment.
• 18:02
  So once the bees, and they know how to do all this, once they have it, they will cap it, and then we bring it back to our honey house in the big boxes with the frames of honey.
• 18:14
  And then we have machines that will grab those frames out of the box, all nine frames out of the box, put it into a machine that has blades and spin around and uncaps, takes that layer of protective wax off there, and then we shove it down the line, and then we have a centrifugal machine that just spins all those frames out, and the honey splatters on the walls inside this stainless steel bin where the frames are spinning, and then we pump that out, and then we've got our honey.
• 18:40
  Then we have another machine that separates the wax, whatever wax is left in there, and honey, and we just barrel it from there.
• 18:46
  I didn't know any of this.
• 18:48
  I feel so bee dumb.
• 18:50
  I did not know any of this.
• 18:52
  I have such a new respect for honey.
• 18:55
  This is, I pictured you guys going out, and everyone thinks it's very, getting the bees, and they'll just give us a bucket of honey.
• 19:03
  So here's where I'm super afraid of bees, and there's a reason for that.
• 19:06
  But nonetheless, I think you're getting stung all over the place.
• 19:10
  You're wearing one of those suits, you're pulling them out yourselves, you're scraping the honey off, but that doesn't happen.
• 19:16
  Well, it does if you're a hobbyist bee lover.
• 19:18
  But you're next level.
• 19:21
  So we're commercial scale.
• 19:22
  So we start extracting honey usually mid-July.
• 19:26
  And then it depends on the year, depends on what's going on in the weather and the nectar flow.
• 19:30
  We're usually done by kind of mid-September.
• 19:34
  Sometimes it goes a little further than that.
• 19:36
  But we're continually extracting honey from July till probably September.
• 19:40
  And the bees produce it that fast?
• 19:43
  Bees naturally overproduce everything.
• 19:45
  So we leave the bottom two boxes is where they live.
• 19:47
  We don't touch that because that's to keep your bees healthy and that's their home.
• 19:52
  As long as there's nectar flow, whatever you put on top, they will fill.
• 19:56
  They're naturally overproducers.
• 19:57
  Therein that is a good lesson, that the bees overproduce.
• 20:01
  I know.
• 20:02
  Business people overproduce.
• 20:04
  This is a good lesson from the bees.
• 20:06
  That's incredible.
• 20:07
  And so then you have all the equipment and everything to bottle it or package it or do whatever you need to do.
• 20:13
  We've invested this past year, we bought some new equipment because we were doing, we have a lot of retail orders and we've built up a nice little retail outlets around Edmonton.
• 20:26
  We also do delivery.
• 20:27
  Okay.
• 20:29
  We'll get to that.
• 20:29
  We have a bunch of stores that we work with.
• 20:31
  So we were bottling honey for them almost since day one.
• 20:34
  We do farmer's markets as well.
• 20:36
  But this past year, we finally were able to get a little bit more infrastructure and have some more automation in our packing.
• 20:42
  It's still very hands on, but it just helps us do more per hour.
• 20:46
  And we're doing that all year round is the bottling.
• 20:50
  So how was it getting into some of the retail around?
• 20:54
  Because when you talk about Alberta being a powerhouse for honey, is there a lot of competition out there?
• 21:01
  There is.
• 21:02
  Yeah.
• 21:03
  And so unfortunately, there's a lot of competition from fake honey as well.
• 21:07
  From other countries.
• 21:08
  Oh, let's talk about that.
• 21:11
  I didn't know there was fake honey.
• 21:13
  What is fake honey?
• 21:14
  So it's adulterated honey.
• 21:16
  So it can be anything from honey that's been blended with other syrups.
• 21:21
  It can be honey that has stuff in it that shouldn't be in it, like harsh chemicals that other countries not allow their beekeepers to use, but don't punish them for using.
• 21:32
  So the biggest one though is the adulterated honey coming from overseas, it gets, they'll make syrup out of it.
• 21:43
  It's not honey.
• 21:45
  It looks like honey, but it's not honey.
• 21:47
  Rice syrup or whatever, and they'll just beat the systems that can test for it.
• 21:51
  Really?
• 21:52
  So the problem is that consumers don't really know that.
• 21:55
  You pick up a jar of honey and it says honey on it, but does it...
• 21:58
  What about the ingredients?
• 21:59
  Do they have to put the ingredients?
• 22:01
  They don't have to do that.
• 22:02
  So you don't know.
• 22:03
  Yeah.
• 22:04
  So what we tell consumers is buy local or read the label.
• 22:10
  If it's coming from Bee Maid, that's Canadian honey.
• 22:15
  If you look on the back and it says pure honey and it's from Canada, product of Canada, that would be my go-to.
• 22:22
  But if it's not and it's really cheap too, that's the other thing.
• 22:27
  Because honey is not cheap.
• 22:28
  It is not.
• 22:29
  It is expensive.
• 22:29
  They'll dump this adulterated honey for below production costs of what you can even make real honey for.
• 22:34
  So it drives our prices down, which is not fair.
• 22:37
  I equate honey to maple syrup, pure maple syrup.
• 22:39
  Yeah, for sure.
• 22:40
  But you want quality, so you buy it and it's good.
• 22:42
  Okay, so cheap honey, don't go there.
• 22:44
  That's right.
• 22:45
  Buy Canadian.
• 22:46
  Buy Canadian.
• 22:46
  Buy Albertan.
• 22:47
  Buy local.
• 22:49
  Buy Good Morning Honey.
• 22:49
  That's right.
• 22:50
  we like that.
• 22:52
  I did not know this, fake honey.
• 22:54
  Yeah, so just read your labels and be aware.
• 22:56
  And I mean, it's with any food, right?
• 22:57
  Yeah, for sure.
• 22:58
  You really have to be careful.
• 22:59
  Honey is in the top 10 of adulterated foods in the world.
• 23:02
  Is that right?
• 23:03
  Same with olive oil and Parmesan Cheese.
• 23:06
  If you've never heard of those, but honey unfortunately is in there.
• 23:09
  So like Amber said, it makes it tough when you're trying to produce the best, highest quality product.
• 23:13
  You have lots of labor going into it and lots of management.
• 23:18
  So you have all these input costs that you can't...
• 23:21
  Control.
• 23:23
  Sure, and you get stuck with having to compete with someone who's bending every single rule.
• 23:28
  Yeah.
• 23:28
  So buy from your local beekeepers.
• 23:31
  That's the best way.
• 23:33
  That's just unbelievable.
• 23:34
  This is amazing.
• 23:35
  I know.
• 23:37
  So let's just detour just for a second, talk about you guys a little bit.
• 23:42
  My favorite subject.
• 23:44
  Yeah.
• 23:45
  This is your full-time job.
• 23:46
  Yes.
• 23:47
  You're not doing weather anymore.
• 23:48
  I haven't seen you on anything.
• 23:51
  So you have a family?
• 23:53
  Yeah.
• 23:53
  We have two grown kids now.
• 23:55
  So yeah.
• 23:56
  They were raised working in the honey.
• 23:57
  They absolutely were.
• 24:00
  That's why they're not in it.
• 24:02
  This is hard work.
• 24:04
  I don't want to do this.
• 24:05
  So they're not going to take over the family business?
• 24:07
  Not at this point.
• 24:09
  Are they working, in university?
• 24:11
  Yeah.
• 24:12
  So we have a daughter in university.
• 24:13
  She does work for us during the summer, so she does all of our farmers markets.
• 24:17
  She's a great salesperson.
• 24:19
  And then our son is actually a firefighter.
• 24:21
  No.
• 24:22
  Where?
• 24:23
  So he just got on at Edmonton Fire.
• 24:25
  Fantastic.
• 24:26
  And he's also a paramedic as well.
• 24:27
  Okay.
• 24:28
  So for when you get those bee stings?
• 24:30
  Yeah.
• 24:31
  Yeah, that's right.
• 24:32
  That pen thing.
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:35
  Working in a beekeeping farm can prepare you for a lot of stuff.
• 24:38
  I bet it can.
• 24:39
  It's hard work.
• 24:41
  It's heavy.
• 24:41
  Sticky.
• 24:42
  They don't want to do bees right now.
• 24:44
  No, but they're glad to help.
• 24:46
  They've been great help.
• 24:48
  They've been working with us since they were young.
• 24:50
  And you know what it did was it gave them a really good work ethic.
• 24:54
  Absolutely.
• 24:55
  Work ethic.
• 24:56
  In agriculture, that's the best.
• 24:58
  That is the best for you.
• 24:59
  There's no fooling the bees.
• 25:01
  No.
• 25:02
  And so, how many staff do you have right now?
• 25:05
  At the peak of summer, we're up to about 13, 14, depending on the year.
• 25:09
  Yeah.
• 25:09
  This year, we'll have 10 beekeepers besides myself.
• 25:13
  Before when we started, it was me and two other guys for the first several years, as we were building and could afford, we had one more guy.
• 25:20
  Next year, add another guy.
• 25:21
  And then this year is going to be the most we've had, which will be 10 beekeepers.
• 25:25
  That's incredible.
• 25:26
  That really is.
• 25:27
  So when you say beekeeper, now, is that an official certification?
• 25:31
  No.
• 25:32
  Did you take a beekeeper course?
• 25:33
  No, I didn't take a beekeeper course.
• 25:35
  You can if you're going to do a hobbyist thing, you have to take it because you need to know what you're doing because if you're just going in blind on that.
• 25:46
  Like I was lucky because I had a mentor.
• 25:47
  Sure.
• 25:47
  So that's a different story.
• 25:48
  That's a big difference.
• 25:49
  If you had somebody who's going to teach you all the ins and outs, that's fine.
• 25:52
  But if you're starting from nothing, go and get a mentor or go take this beekeeping course so you can understand the biology of everything and what you can do.
• 25:59
  Because you can cause issues.
• 26:01
  Obviously, there's a billion things to know here.
• 26:03
  Yeah.
• 26:04
  Wow.
• 26:05
  So we also had those first two beekeepers that had worked for our previous mentors.
• 26:10
  So they knew how to keep the bees.
• 26:11
  They knew the machinery.
• 26:12
  They knew the yards where we kept the bees.
• 26:14
  And that was my big teaching moment for me as well, is just having them help guide me through the first little while as I got to know everything.
• 26:22
  So what's the future for Good Morning Honey?
• 26:25
  Oh, gosh.
• 26:25
  You guys think about that often or not?
• 26:27
  Yeah.
• 26:28
  I mean.
• 26:28
  Just let it happen.
• 26:29
  Well, we started a honeycomb business.
• 26:31
  Full-style honeycomb, yeah.
• 26:32
  Honeycomb in the past couple of years.
• 26:34
  So that's making little round sections of, it's the whole thing.
• 26:38
  It's the honeycomb, the wax, the honey right inside there in its own little container.
• 26:42
  And so then you can just eat that with charcuterie or by itself or however you want.
• 26:46
  Ice cream topper, drink topper.
• 26:47
  Basically straight from the hive, no processing, no nothing.
• 26:50
  Just put it in a container and sell it like that.
• 26:53
  And people love it.
• 26:54
  So we've been working on growing that side of the business as well.
• 26:58
  That, I had no idea.
• 27:00
  I had no idea that you could do that.
• 27:02
  Yeah, we also started a delivery service.
• 27:04
  It actually kind of happened through COVID.
• 27:05
  We would have a couple customers from some older folks or whatever that we used to deliver to just here and there, but we didn't really have a system.
• 27:13
  And then when everything shut down, we decided to deliver honey.
• 27:16
  So we put it on our website and people can just order right on our website.
• 27:19
  And now it's grown.
• 27:21
  We have a van that's all wrapped up and you can't miss it.
• 27:25
  It's got a little honey bee on it.
• 27:28
  Good Morning Honey Van, driving around.
• 27:30
  And on the side, it says, Good Morning Honey, I love you, because that's our little slogan.
• 27:34
  Oh, this is so good.
• 27:37
  So we get a lot of traction from that and a lot of people buying honey because it comes straight to your door.
• 27:41
  So we'll do the Edmonton area.
• 27:42
  So just as a side note, they met Michael from the Wall Coffee Roasters.
• 27:47
  They did.
• 27:47
  I think Michael's going to use Good Morning Honey.
• 27:49
  We're going to convince Michael to use Good Morning Honey.
• 27:50
  We're whispering because I don't know where Michael is, but we'll work on it.
• 27:53
  We will.
• 27:54
  So anyway, yeah.
• 27:55
  So yeah.
• 27:56
  So you're delivering honey, you're at the farmer's market.
• 27:58
  Do you sell in any retail?
• 28:00
  Yep, we do.
• 28:00
  We're in all of Freson Brothers.
• 28:02
  I'm going to say Freson's.
• 28:03
  Yeah, they're a great buyer.
• 28:04
  My favorite Freson's.
• 28:05
  Yeah, they gave us a shot, and we've done well with them.
• 28:07
  They're a really good group to work with.
• 28:09
  We actually helped them.
• 28:10
  They wanted to put bees on their Rabbit Hill location in Edmonton.
• 28:14
  So they asked us, would you help us get started on that?
• 28:16
  So we did that, and that was a fun project.
• 28:19
  It makes really nice honey up there on the roof because they've got lots of clover around the Henday and everything.
• 28:24
  Wow.
• 28:24
  But I remember buying their honey before Freson's.
• 28:28
  I bought it at, well, now the Brick House in Spruce Grove.
• 28:33
  That's where I could find it, and that was great.
• 28:35
  We searched out, we tried to get in with people who would be great partners.
• 28:39
  Sure.
• 28:40
  And Brick House Smokery was one of them, of course.
• 28:43
  Genuine.
• 28:43
  Yeah, we went with Homegrown Foods in Stony Plains.
• 28:46
  Jim Shep, he was another great partner.
• 28:49
  These people who you can really stand behind their product.
• 28:53
  Absolutely, they're product.
• 28:54
  So how much honey do you produce a year, like just honey?
• 28:58
  It ranges anywhere.
• 29:02
  So from 500 45-gallon drums up to 1,000 45-gallon drums of honey.
• 29:09
  Yeah, every year is different depending on the nectar flow and what's going on in the weather.
• 29:13
  Yeah, the weather is like since 20...
• 29:14
  The first five, six years were much easier.
• 29:18
  You had a more consistent average of honey.
• 29:20
  And then as we went on, we've had weather really impacting us with too dry, too windy, too much smoke.
• 29:26
  The fires.
• 29:28
  I bet the bees don't like smoke, do they?
• 29:30
  No, and then the flowers also don't produce the nectar when there's that smoke.
• 29:36
  So there's all kinds of things to take into account.
• 29:38
  I'm swimming in honey and bee knowledge.
• 29:41
  This is unbelievable.
• 29:42
  It's been so great.
• 29:43
  I know.
• 29:43
  And like we said...
• 29:45
  30 minutes has gone by.
• 29:47
  We could do this for like 4 hours.
• 29:48
  Because there's so much to know.
• 29:49
  I feel like, yeah.
• 29:50
  I might need another coffee.
• 29:51
  Yeah, no.
• 29:52
  We can arrange that.
• 29:52
  Absolutely.
• 29:53
  But this is unbelievable.
• 29:55
  Because again, you just take it for granted.
• 29:57
  I guess we do that with a lot of stuff.
• 29:58
  But I have it now.
• 30:00
  It's just I'm going to...
• 30:00
  A new kind of respect.
• 30:01
  No, a new respect.
• 30:02
  And I'm going to eat more honey.
• 30:03
  I know.
• 30:04
  Good morning, honey, honey.
• 30:05
  Local honey.
• 30:06
  Yeah, anyway.
• 30:06
  Yeah.
• 30:06
  Yeah.
• 30:07
  So...
• 30:09
  What's the best piece of advice?
• 30:11
  I'm going to ask you both separately.
• 30:13
  The best piece of advice you've been given, either personally or professionally, that you carry with you to this day.
• 30:19
  And Amber, we'll start with you.
• 30:20
  Oh, gosh.
• 30:23
  Oh, that's a hard one.
• 30:25
  You know what?
• 30:25
  I'm going to get a little sentimental here.
• 30:27
  We actually just went to a funeral of a beautiful lady who was 82 and just passed away.
• 30:32
  And her mantra was, get busy living or get busy dying.
• 30:38
  A little Shawshank Redemption, but it was...
• 30:40
  No, no, I love that.
• 30:43
  It stuck with me because she was just a wonderful lady and she lived her life to the fullest.
• 30:47
  And although we work really hard, to just enjoy life and work as hard as you can, but also play hard and enjoy the people around you.
• 30:58
  So that's a personal one.
• 30:59
  Get busy living or get busy dying.
• 31:01
  I love that.
• 31:03
  And that's care of Lou Parker.
• 31:04
  Okay.
• 31:05
  And for me, I don't know if I can articulate it properly, but it's trying to find efficiencies without being cheap.
• 31:12
  Okay.
• 31:13
  Do what needs to be done.
• 31:14
  Yeah.
• 31:14
  You know, don't cut corners.
• 31:16
  Don't cut corners.
• 31:16
  I like that.
• 31:17
  You know.
• 31:18
  I like it.
• 31:18
  You know, don't be wasteful either.
• 31:20
  So don't buy fake honey.
• 31:21
  Don't buy fake honey.
• 31:22
  Real honey.
• 31:23
  It's worth a couple extra pennies to get real honey.
• 31:27
  Absolutely.
• 31:27
  Wow.
• 31:28
  Incredible.
• 31:29
  Tell us how do we find Good Morning Honey?
• 31:32
  Easiest is to go on to our website, GoodMorningHoney.ca, and we're also on social media.
• 31:37
  Yep.
• 31:37
  Yep.
• 31:37
  Instagram, everything, Facebook.
• 31:39
  And also tell us, because I want our listeners to know, it's not just plain honey.
• 31:45
  Yeah.
• 31:46
  You do different flavors of honey.
• 31:48
  Yeah.
• 31:49
  So we have creamed honey.
• 31:50
  We have liquid honey.
• 31:51
  We have dandelion honey, blueberry honey.
• 31:53
  Cinnamon honey is one of our top sellers.
• 31:55
  Wow.
• 31:56
  We do the honeycomb as well, bee pollen, propolis and beeswax candles.
• 32:00
  Amazing.
• 32:02
  It's just overwhelming.
• 32:04
  It really is.
• 32:05
  I know the rest of the day, this is all I'll be thinking about.
• 32:08
  I may as well just pack it in and go get some toast and honey because this is just unbelievable.
• 32:12
  You can also put it in your coffee.
• 32:13
  That's a good place to put honey.
• 32:14
  I put it in my tea all the time.
• 32:17
  Everyone can put it in their tea, but try it in your coffee.
• 32:20
  I'm going to try it in my coffee.
• 32:21
  Michael needs Good Morning Honey because his honey...
• 32:24
  Anyway, we won't get into that.
• 32:25
  I think it's fake.
• 32:26
  But anyway, we won't get into that.
• 32:27
  But it just doesn't taste good anyways.
• 32:30
  Well, Richard and Amber, this has been our absolute pleasure.
• 32:34
  Thank you so much for coming and sharing your story with us.
• 32:37
  Appreciate it, you guys.
• 32:38
  You're amazing.
• 32:39
  Buy Good Morning Honey.
• 32:41
  Yes, for sure.
• 32:43
  Well, that was absolutely fascinating.
• 32:46
  I learned so much about bees and honey.
• 32:50
  I'm a little Speechless. I had no idea.
• 32:53
  I know, me too.
• 32:54
  I had no idea, Jennifer.
• 32:55
  Like, like this is incredible.
• 32:57
  Again, you take it for granted.
• 32:59
  You go to the store, you see the honey, you buy the honey.
• 33:01
  You have no idea what it went on to actually produce that.
• 33:05
  This is why we do this podcast.
• 33:06
  I know.
• 33:06
  The story behind the story.
• 33:07
  The story behind the story.
• 33:08
  In Richard and Amber, were fantastic.
• 33:11
  Amazing people, nice people, honest, hardworking business people.
• 33:16
  Love it.
• 33:16
  I love it.
• 33:17
  They're living their dream.
• 33:18
  They are.
• 33:18
  And I think that's pretty cool.
• 33:19
  So that's really incredible.
• 33:20
  Hey, anything else we want to tell people?
• 33:23
  Well, we have, when people are listening to this, we'll be having our first live Coffee In The Park event.
• 33:29
  Yep.
• 33:30
  So it will be Thursday, January 30th, with our special guest, Mayor Allan Gamble from Parkland County doing a Q&A.
• 33:36
  Q&A.
• 33:37
  He'll answer any question you have.
• 33:38
  It'll be a lot of fun.
• 33:39
  So I think we're, are we full for that?
• 33:42
  I think we're getting pretty close.
• 33:44
  But you can go to our website and check it out if you want.
• 33:46
  Absolutely.
• 33:46
  So yeah.
• 33:47
  So yeah, great.
• 33:48
  I'm glad you listened, everybody.
• 33:49
  And thanks for doing that.
• 33:51
  And make sure that you tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your coworkers, tell your enemies.
• 33:55
  If you don't have any friends, make one so you can tell them about the podcast.
• 33:58
  But, Cam, you know what else we want people to start doing?
• 34:01
  No.
• 34:02
  We want people to start subscribing.
• 34:04
  Yes, subscribe.
• 34:05
  So that they can be notified when there's a new episode every Thursday.
• 34:10
  So subscribe to our podcast.
• 34:11
  Tell your friends to subscribe.
• 34:13
  Get everybody to subscribe.
• 34:14
  And then you'll know when we've got a new one coming out.
• 34:16
  That's right.
• 34:17
  Really awesome.
• 34:17
  Thanks, everybody, for listening.
• 34:19
  Thanks, everyone.
• 34:19
  See you next week.
• 34:20
  See you next week.