Latest / Honey Bee Obscura Podcast / Plain Talk: Old Hives, New Bees (275)

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Plain Talk: Old Hives, New Bees (275) · Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

0:01
Jim Tew: Listen, I'm getting a hat.
0:03
Jim Tew: Got it on.
0:06
Jim Tew: It's a gem here.
0:09
Jim Tew: Want us to walk back to the bee yard.
0:13
Jim Tew: As is become some bizarre thing I do.
0:17
Jim Tew: Since the weather affects everything.
0:21
Jim Tew: We had a horrific wind yesterday.
0:24
Jim Tew: I'm walking through tree limbs, branches.
0:28
Jim Tew: Horrific.
0:28
Jim Tew: I mean across Ohio there's people without power and
0:33
Jim Tew: American Electric Power sending out notices to be patient that they got 2,700 people working around the clock
0:42
Jim Tew: They know you want your power back.
0:45
Jim Tew: So let's go back and see if I've got beehives blowing all over the world
0:54
Jim Tew: And then I may discuss some harebrain ideas with you.
0:59
Jim Tew: Listeners, I'm Jim Tew.
1:02
Jim Tew: I come to you here once a week at Honeybee Obscura, where I always try to talk about something you do with.
1:08
Jim Tew: Just plain talk beekeeping.
1:11
Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast.
1:21
Introduction: Join Jim Tew, your guide
1:23
Introduction: Through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees.
1:29
Introduction: Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees.
1:36
Introduction: Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper,
1:38
Introduction: are just getting started.
1:40
Introduction: Get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honeybees.
1:46
Jim Tew: By now you all know the barn or the shed, whatever it is.
1:53
Jim Tew: Gotta get this tractor serviced.
1:54
Jim Tew: It's been over a year.
1:59
Jim Tew: Okay, hold your breath.
2:03
Jim Tew: The two package colonies are up.
2:07
Jim Tew: It's just about too cold to fly.
2:11
Jim Tew: Well listeners, everything is okay except one top is blowing off
2:23
Jim Tew: I had a brick on it.
2:24
Jim Tew: That didn't matter.
2:26
Jim Tew: There's bees looking at me.
2:29
Jim Tew: I suspect they want their top back
2:33
Jim Tew: Go.
2:35
Jim Tew: It's wet and heavy.
2:41
Jim Tew: Put the brick back on it.
2:45
Jim Tew: That is really minimal damage.
2:49
Jim Tew: There's a tall colony here that leans like the Tower of Pisa.
2:54
Jim Tew: But it was leaning into the wind.
2:56
Jim Tew: I hope that helped
2:59
Jim Tew: So good good I had come back here expecting or accepting the possibility that I would have bees sprawled everywhere and
3:12
Jim Tew: Weather is not good today.
3:13
Jim Tew: They can just barely fly, but I bet you there's nothing in bloom.
3:17
Jim Tew: It's about 42 degrees.
3:20
Jim Tew: So good job.
3:23
Jim Tew: I lucked out.
3:25
Jim Tew: Got some trees right next to my house
3:29
Jim Tew: My daughter called me and told me to go sit in the basement, but kinda turned into a philosopher and I thought, well, if it's time, it's time.
3:38
Jim Tew: I'm not gonna sit in the basement for how long?
3:40
Jim Tew: Hours.
3:42
Jim Tew: So the trees took it.
3:45
Jim Tew: Well tell your story.
3:47
Jim Tew: I've already told you before, no doubt, because this story had a profound effect on me
3:54
Jim Tew: Many, many, many years ago, I had an international B program at Ohio State.
4:02
Jim Tew: And at the time, it was it was really enjoyable.
4:05
Jim Tew: I'd got to travel all over.
4:07
Jim Tew: I went to Myanmar and to Indonesia and China.
4:14
Jim Tew: Thailand, I really saw a lot of bees, a lot of different places, and a lot of different beekeepers.
4:20
Jim Tew: And then as as time passed,
4:24
Jim Tew: Those people, some of those students would come and matriculate in my program.
4:29
Jim Tew: So you know they had their own style of beekeeping.
4:33
Jim Tew: So in many instances
4:35
Jim Tew: I would get them and provide the equipment and we would build beehives.
4:44
Jim Tew: That were like what they used.
4:46
Jim Tew: I'm going back in the shop.
4:47
Jim Tew: It's cool out here and sound like I just got one long trying to walk and talk to you.
4:53
Jim Tew: So we set up this yard.
4:56
Jim Tew: A brand new yard.
4:59
Jim Tew: Way outside of town on the back of one of the university's cornfield plots.
5:05
Jim Tew: And at the time it was not just top bar hives.
5:10
Jim Tew: This is so long ago they were known as Kenya top bar hives.
5:15
Jim Tew: And that'd be a full segment to go into that, so I'm not going to do it.
5:21
Jim Tew: And we put those Kenya hives up and we put them just like the just like the Kenyans did.
5:28
Jim Tew: We had them suspended with with uh on each corner with a cable
5:34
Jim Tew: that attached to two post, one on either end of the top bar hive, so that the hive was hanging on cables.
5:42
Jim Tew: Would gently sway in the wind.
5:44
Jim Tew: We had a botswana long hive.
5:48
Jim Tew: We had this thing I called a pod hive.
5:51
Jim Tew: It's a huge hive.
5:52
Jim Tew: The frames must have been 24 inches deep from somewhere in Eastern Europe.
5:57
Jim Tew: We just had all these things out there.
5:59
Jim Tew: We had some very, very early expanded polystyrene.
6:05
Jim Tew: And
6:06
Jim Tew: Just because it would kind of seem to fit in, we put eight-frame equipment out there that had four four eight-frame deeps, bottom board and the top.
6:17
Jim Tew: That was it.
6:18
Jim Tew: Everything had bees in it.
6:21
Jim Tew: And we would take international students out.
6:23
Jim Tew: We would take visitors out and let them look at this menagerie of hives and different styles and designs.
6:31
Jim Tew: And you know how life is, it never stands still.
6:36
Jim Tew: We we were getting funding from USAID and from other agencies like that to maintain this program, and bit by bit, people to people and
6:45
Jim Tew: The Heifer Project and all these things that were providing funding for us began to get weaker and weaker funded.
6:52
Jim Tew: And I gotta tell you the truth, right about then, Africanized bees really became all the rage.
6:57
Jim Tew: And Varroa Mites was killing everything in sight.
7:01
Jim Tew: So the funding dried up, the international program dried up.
7:04
Jim Tew: At some point I asked my technician to go out to that yard and break it down.
7:11
Jim Tew: And he said he did.
7:13
Jim Tew: And I believed him, but those all those bizarre hives, you know, there's just no reason to really maintain them just for
7:21
Jim Tew: the occasional tourist now.
7:23
Jim Tew: They required extra work and unique work.
7:26
Jim Tew: And we didn't destroy them.
7:28
Jim Tew: We stored them in the in the barn.
7:31
Jim Tew: That subsequently blew away, and with that tornado that blew the barn away, all those unique uniquely designed hives were destroyed too.
7:41
Jim Tew: But here's the story.
7:43
Jim Tew: Because it was an eight-frame standard hive, he left that one there.
7:50
Jim Tew: And I remember telling you this early on.
7:52
Jim Tew: I'm sorry to repeat it, but I'm trying to get somewhere by retelling this
7:56
Jim Tew: And when I would drive down the highway, I'd look across that cornfield, back into the edge of that forest.
8:02
Jim Tew: And when the win when the winter leaves had gone, had dropped
8:07
Jim Tew: From about a thousand yards away, maybe maybe fifteen hundred yards, I could just barely see into the trees, and I thought, that looks like a beehive.
8:16
Jim Tew: And listeners, this was five, six years later.
8:19
Jim Tew: So the summers would come, summers would go, another year or two passed, and it was winter again, you drive by and you think that really looks like a beehive back there.
8:28
Jim Tew: But that yard has been closed down for years and that program shut down.
8:31
Jim Tew: And so one day I locked in the front hubs on that old four-wheel drive truck I had, went down the farm path.
8:38
Jim Tew: Made the short turn and went back to that cot to that location.
8:43
Jim Tew: And it was the land that time forgot.
8:45
Jim Tew: There were the post, there were the hive stands.
8:48
Jim Tew: Hives were all gone except
8:51
Jim Tew: For that fourth deep eight frame colony.
8:56
Jim Tew: The top was 80, don't exaggerate, the top was 60% rotted away.
9:03
Jim Tew: and the bees had filled in that rotted space with propolis.
9:08
Jim Tew: The bottom board and the landing board had essentially was ninety nine percent rotted away, and the pive was just sitting
9:16
Jim Tew: on two railroad tumbers that we were using.
9:20
Jim Tew: And it was full of bees and had been there by itself.
9:25
Jim Tew: for around all total probably 10 to 12 years.
9:30
Jim Tew: Nothing ever done to it, nothing whatsoever.
9:32
Jim Tew: It had never been treated for mites.
9:35
Jim Tew: I'm sure it had mites, but it never been treated, never been re-queened, nothing.
9:42
Jim Tew: It just sat there rotting away.
9:45
Jim Tew: And I I want to tell you that the equipment
9:48
Jim Tew: The boxes were oddly okay.
9:52
Jim Tew: Now I don't know if you know how long bees can maintain the outside of wood, but they definitely kept the inside.
9:59
Jim Tew: under control.
10:00
Jim Tew: It was a motley hive.
10:02
Jim Tew: If I can find the pictures and Jeff can be patient with me, I'll try to put up a picture of this thing.
10:09
Jim Tew: Here's what I'm trying to get to.
10:11
Jim Tew: I ask you, in my articles that I write, what should I do with this colony?
10:19
Jim Tew: Should I put it in new equipment and refurbish this thing?
10:25
Jim Tew: It had taken care of itself, let's just say 10 years to keep from exaggerating too much.
10:30
Jim Tew: It had taken care of itself for ten years and had seemingly been doing a good job of it.
10:36
Jim Tew: And I was really surprised that most of the r of the well by far, most of the readers
10:44
Jim Tew: Wrote back and said, Leave it alone.
10:48
Jim Tew: That that hive was the master of its fate and it was the captain of its soul.
10:52
Jim Tew: It deserved its independence and it free and its freedom
10:56
Jim Tew: I mean, nine people out of ten, ninety percent, said leave it alone.
11:02
Jim Tew: So I did.
11:04
Jim Tew: I didn't do anything to it.
11:06
Jim Tew: I left it just like I'd found it, and then for the next year or two I'd drive up and down.
11:11
Jim Tew: And I'd look over there at that hive and see it sitting there and know that it was still hanging on.
11:16
Jim Tew: So how does the story end?
11:18
Jim Tew: Let's just take a break, and when we come back, I'll tell you all about it
11:23
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11:32
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11:42
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11:45
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11:49
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12:00
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12:01
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12:08
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12:12
Jim Tew: Uh maybe two to three years later, I decided I'd go check on that unit again, and I'd noticed that it was not as visible as it used to be, but maybe the forest has changed over the decades
12:25
Jim Tew: So maybe three years later, it's been about 13 years now, I drove down there and the colony was was still alive.
12:36
Jim Tew: A sh straight wind had come through and ripped up a big maple tree, and when the tree went up, the root system flipped up that hive and laid it on its back.
12:47
Jim Tew: But it was still alive.
12:49
Jim Tew: I mean the bees were just, you know, bizarrely in a difficult situation with their comb orientation all the wrong way.
12:56
Jim Tew: So without thinking
12:58
Jim Tew: I set the hive back up and just a short distance away on the same timbers, and as I'm inclined to do, I wrote about it and I was admonished.
13:10
Jim Tew: I had bothered that hive's fate.
13:13
Jim Tew: I had stepped into its destiny.
13:17
Jim Tew: But at the time, it's like, you know, putting an animal out of its misery or trying to help a bird with a broken wing
13:23
Jim Tew: I did it almost spontaneously.
13:25
Jim Tew: The high was not in great shape.
13:28
Jim Tew: And when I went back later, uh, this time it was just a few months.
13:34
Jim Tew: It was dead.
13:36
Jim Tew: So in keeping with the program and the protocol that I've been following, those four deeps are still out there, and the last time I went, they had collapsed
13:47
Jim Tew: into a heap and were rotting away.
13:50
Jim Tew: So that's where the story ends.
13:54
Jim Tew: Hmm
13:55
Jim Tew: Kinda now for now.
13:57
Jim Tew: Why did I put you through all this?
13:59
Jim Tew: Well, I don't want to keep bringing it up, but it was such a profound effect on my life, on what I just went through with my wife.
14:07
Jim Tew: and the f the sabbatical that I had to take during her illness years.
14:13
Jim Tew: And I've told you time and again that I just went back to those seven or eight hives in my backyard and said, you guys are on your own
14:19
Jim Tew: I'll come back and talk to you periodically, but I'm doing it just from my mental sanity.
14:25
Jim Tew: But I'm not gonna be opening colony, smoking, control control, requeaning.
14:30
Jim Tew: I I thought they'd die.
14:31
Jim Tew: I thought they'd die the first year
14:33
Jim Tew: Now, listeners, don't try this at home.
14:35
Jim Tew: This is not proper beekeeping.
14:38
Jim Tew: It's not even logical beekeeping, but I was in an illogical place.
14:45
Jim Tew: But for four years.
14:47
Jim Tew: For long years, those colonies managed themselves.
14:51
Jim Tew: I'm just going to ask you this time.
14:55
Jim Tew: Should I go back and work on those colonies, or have those colonies essentially because of my lack of attention, have they been freed from my maintenance?
15:09
Jim Tew: You see where I'm trying to get to with this question, I've ordered five packages and I was considering trying to find the different yard.
15:17
Jim Tew: and put those packages up because I don't know if those bees have set up some kind of protocol, some kind of natural resistance or s whatever
15:26
Jim Tew: I'm kind of comfortable saying with not a shred of science, and I've said this in other podcasts, that I bet you
15:35
Jim Tew: That the bees are more traumatized by us opening the colony than we realize.
15:41
Jim Tew: But others could say, Jim, that is highly anthropomorphic and you're just getting all carried away.
15:47
Jim Tew: So who's to know right now how you measure the mood and the response of what's going on?
15:53
Jim Tew: But I was actually considering just an observation.
15:57
Jim Tew: If see if I put the packages in the same yard, then I bring in outside genetic material.
16:03
Jim Tew: And I I don't know what they've done.
16:05
Jim Tew: Listeners, maybe they've done absolutely nothing, or maybe they have suited themselves.
16:12
Jim Tew: In ways unknown to me that's helped them stay alive during times when I really thought they would be hammered dead.
16:20
Jim Tew: I need to insert a caveat here now.
16:22
Jim Tew: I'm not suggesting anybody try this.
16:25
Jim Tew: And I'm not suggesting abandoning your beehives as being a traditional standard way of living with bees.
16:33
Jim Tew: But I am intrigued and I do have a unique situation where I've got six colonies that have not been opened by anybody else in about four years.
16:42
Jim Tew: Well, you know, I'm close to five years now
16:47
Jim Tew: So I need to add a year to that because time has been passing while I was telling this story.
16:52
Jim Tew: So I'm considering trying to find a separate yard and s and absolutely I really want to set up an observation hive.
17:01
Jim Tew: And I want that to meet most of my needs and my concerns for my beef fixes and whatever.
17:07
Jim Tew: And I guess I wouldn't mind if you write and tell me.
17:10
Jim Tew: Should I should I get off my pity party horse and
17:14
Jim Tew: Start working bees again or is this a situation where I was just absolutely lucky and the bees were lucky for not dying?
17:23
Jim Tew: I don't think I found some miracle cure
17:27
Jim Tew: for anything.
17:29
Jim Tew: But it's just a strange situation because of the the the position that my w life went into
17:37
Jim Tew: So I'll put you through that whole first story about that abandoned beehive and how it too didn't die, even with Varroa present.
17:45
Jim Tew: Now why don't you write me and tell me, hey Jim.
17:48
Jim Tew: That may have been the f the eighth swarm in that equipment, and that would be a valid statement that maybe the colony routinely died, and maybe swarms just refilled it.
17:59
Jim Tew: So maybe it was not the same bees.
18:01
Jim Tew: I've told farmers time and time again who said, yep, yep.
18:05
Jim Tew: There's been bees in that tree back there for 40 years.
18:08
Jim Tew: Well, it's not the same colony.
18:10
Jim Tew: They would be gone for a while and then the the system would work and the wax moths would do their thing and the squirrels would move out and the bees would move back in.
18:20
Jim Tew: So maybe that's all that happened.
18:22
Jim Tew: And I do I do need to tell you, for perfect clarity, that two of those colonies did die and they they were replaced with swarms.
18:35
Jim Tew: So when I told you this story before, I remember saying that maybe by having swarms that and those colonies swarming
18:44
Jim Tew: Maybe that knock the mites down.
18:46
Jim Tew: Maybe, maybe, maybe.
18:47
Jim Tew: What if, what if, what if?
18:49
Jim Tew: I'm just guessing like crazy here because
18:52
Jim Tew: This is a strange situation.
18:54
Jim Tew: I'm thinking about it.
18:56
Jim Tew: If you r if you mob me with or have you lost your mind kind of responses, I'll probably slap myself on both cheeks and
19:04
Jim Tew: Put the colonies back there.
19:05
Jim Tew: I don't know what I'm gonna do.
19:07
Jim Tew: I'm just playing.
19:08
Jim Tew: I'm at a point in my beekeeping life where I'm curious
19:12
Jim Tew: As I've always been about bee behavior and bee biology, but I am seriously opposed to any heavy work and stern responsibility.
19:23
Jim Tew: I like to be laid back and just be an old man having a nice time.
19:29
Jim Tew: If you're so inclined, let me know what you think.
19:33
Jim Tew: I don't yet know what I'm going to do.
19:35
Jim Tew: I can still cancel the packages.
19:37
Jim Tew: That one colony needs to be straightened up.
19:39
Jim Tew: It is going to fall over.
19:41
Jim Tew: So it it needs to be leveled out.
19:43
Jim Tew: It's on a a plastic hive stand.
19:46
Jim Tew: I gotta stop talking.
19:48
Jim Tew: I I enjoy talking to you.
19:49
Jim Tew: I really do.
19:50
Jim Tew: I enjoy talking to you, and I really deeply appreciate you listening.
19:54
Jim Tew: Thanks so much, and I'll talk to you again next week.
19:57
Jim Tew: Bye-bye.