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Plain Talk: Autumn Walkabout (303) · Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

• 0:05
  Listeners,
• 0:06
  several years ago.
• 0:08
  I bought one of those
• 0:12
  smart
• 0:12
  scales
• 0:13
  to tell me
• 0:15
  how fat
• 0:16
  I was.
• 0:18
  Well
• 0:18
  it
• 0:19
  I have to tell you it's really doing a good job
• 0:24
  It just
• 0:25
  informed me that I am
• 0:27
  remarkably
• 0:28
  have a low level of physical fitness.
• 0:31
  It's a little bit more information than I actually wanted.
• 0:36
  I need to walk more
• 0:38
  anyway.
• 0:40
  Stay more involved and stay active
• 0:44
  So I'm gonna go on a short walk back here
• 0:47
  to a field that I have written about, talked about, and that
• 0:52
  surely
• 0:53
  one day is going to become a housing complex.
• 0:57
  But for right now,
• 0:59
  It's just a field
• 1:01
  with native plants in it.
• 1:03
  I want to go look at them.
• 1:05
  Listeners, I'm Jim Tew.
• 1:08
  I come to you here once a week at Honey Bee Obscura, where I try to do something.
• 1:14
  that in some way
• 1:15
  relates
• 1:16
  to
• 1:16
  plain
• 1:17
  talk beekeeping.
• 1:19
  Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers
• 1:26
  of the Beekeeping Today
• 1:27
  podcast.
• 1:29
  Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees.
• 1:38
  Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees.
• 1:45
  Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper
• 1:47
  or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.
• 1:53
  I'm here at the goldenrod
• 1:55
  Plant.
• 1:57
  You know, plants are frequently
• 2:02
  not as exciting as they've been built up to be.
• 2:04
  When you read a bee book
• 2:06
  ,
• 2:06
  And you think the golden
• 2:08
  rod
• 2:08
  is a
• 2:09
  is a plant
• 2:10
  that's just going to attract everything being known to mankind, humankind.
• 2:16
  Yeah, there's insects here.
• 2:19
  But it's not like a crowded buffet.
• 2:21
  Here's
• 2:22
  and uh
• 2:23
  about a ten
• 2:24
  square foot area
• 2:26
  There's a butterfly.
• 2:27
  I should know the name of it, but I don't.
• 2:30
  There's two or three honey bees.
• 2:33
  There's a bumblebee
• 2:35
  right
• 2:35
  here
• 2:36
  There's some kind of a fly, a dipterous
• 2:39
  insect.
• 2:40
  Bumblebees collecting pollen.
• 2:43
  There's a thread
• 2:45
  wasted
• 2:46
  wasp.
• 2:47
  Would
• 2:48
  be called a Sphecidae.
• 2:50
  There's the red wasp
• 2:52
  that I've just talked about in
• 2:55
  other
• 2:56
  segments that used to terrify me and sting me to death.
• 2:59
  It
• 3:00
  seems to be a general diversity
• 3:03
  of insects, but not like
• 3:06
  every insect known to humankind, something I've already said.
• 3:11
  Let's go up to a denser planting up here of
• 3:15
  naturally planted
• 3:17
  golden
• 3:17
  rod
• 3:20
  All you beekeepers in my home state of Alabama
• 3:23
  go on these walks.
• 3:26
  And even though I don't think there's been a venomous snake here in Wayne County, Ohio, and
• 3:31
  75
• 3:32
  to 100 years, I always think well
• 3:36
  keep
• 3:36
  an eye out for you know what my grandmother would always say
• 3:38
  now
• 3:39
  you boys watch out for snakes out there
• 3:42
  and
• 3:42
  on occasion
• 3:44
  As you know, they were out there.
• 3:46
  I haven't seen a snake in the wild in years.
• 3:49
  Sounds like famous last words, doesn't it?
• 3:52
  I'm out here in the planting.
• 3:55
  There's honey
• 3:56
  honey bees, honey
• 3:58
  bees, gentle breeze blowing.
• 4:01
  I hope my
• 4:03
  windscreen is
• 4:05
  protecting the microphone so you don't have to hear the wind blowing
• 4:11
  This is just a wide open field.
• 4:13
  It's being reclaimed
• 4:16
  by goldenrod.
• 4:19
  The fall flowers, the little tiny asters
• 4:21
  are just starting.
• 4:24
  So
• 4:24
  I may come back at some point.
• 4:26
  I don't want to bore you to death with this.
• 4:28
  I may come back at some point
• 4:32
  Check out these asters
• 4:34
  because right now they're not competitive.
• 4:36
  Is that by design?
• 4:39
  There's a bald-faced hornet
• 4:42
  I didn't know they did this.
• 4:44
  Let me
• 4:44
  get closer.
• 4:46
  See if I can get stung and give you some
• 4:48
  drama here
• 4:51
  Nope, it took off.
• 4:53
  Too close.
• 4:54
  I got inside his territory.
• 4:57
  There is a lot of insect activity, but you see now I'm doing it.
• 5:01
  When I say there's a lot of insect activity
• 5:03
  I'm thinking there should be tens of thousands, but there's just hundreds.
• 5:10
  The plant's always stuck with this notion of
• 5:14
  how much reward to give
• 5:17
  And when are they giving so much reward
• 5:21
  that it's costing them too much?
• 5:24
  You know, I just realized I don't know how
• 5:26
  golden
• 5:27
  rod
• 5:27
  is pollinated.
• 5:28
  My neighbor
• 5:29
  for years
• 5:30
  has
• 5:32
  uh
• 5:32
  fertilizer lawn and then they captured the clippings, something I've never done, and they would bring them back here and dump the clippings in this field
• 5:42
  And where they dump their clippings, there's goldenrod that's higher than my head
• 5:46
  and outside that area
• 5:48
  is
• 5:48
  goldenrod that's hardly waist
• 5:50
  tall.
• 5:52
  So I'm comfortable saying that golden
• 5:54
  rod
• 5:55
  responds well
• 5:56
  to
• 5:58
  soil fertilizer rates.
• 6:00
  If I was going to do this, I should have worn something besides
• 6:05
  These
• 6:06
  running shoes for a man who doesn't run anymore.
• 6:08
  My machine's already told me that.
• 6:11
  Yep, if I were in Alabama, I'd be uncomfortable right now.
• 6:15
  Trekking up in these weeds
• 6:19
  Well I'm comfortable telling it
• 6:20
  most
• 6:21
  of these bees are mine.
• 6:22
  And if you look up over the horizon, you can see good
• 6:27
  insect flight.
• 6:29
  What what does that mean, Jim?
• 6:30
  I can see 25
• 6:32
  30 insects over
• 6:35
  a hundred square feet of
• 6:38
  whatever here
• 6:39
  of golden
• 6:40
  rod
• 6:40
  primarily.
• 6:41
  He's
• 6:42
  aster.
• 6:42
  Here's Queen Anne's lace, but I don't ever
• 6:45
  see
• 6:45
  bees
• 6:46
  doing anything on that wild carrot or Queen Anne's lace or whatever you call it.
• 6:51
  A lot of the goldenrod hasn't opened yet.
• 6:54
  And
• 6:54
  you know I wonder if if just if there's different species of golden
• 6:58
  rod
• 6:58
  out here.
• 6:59
  I think there's two or three in Ohio and I can't tell them apart.
• 7:04
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• 7:09
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• 7:44
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• 7:49
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• 8:01
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• 8:03
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• 8:10
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• 8:18
  When I went to Auburn
• 8:19
  and stumbled into beekeeping, I got three hives of bees
• 8:25
  Can't recall where I got the third one.
• 8:27
  I got two from my
• 8:29
  uncle.
• 8:31
  And then I got a third one somewhere.
• 8:32
  And I had them outside of Auburn
• 8:35
  on my major professor's property
• 8:38
  And I pulled into the yard one day,
• 8:41
  took my little three beehives, and there was a stink.
• 8:45
  To me
• 8:46
  it was a stink.
• 8:47
  that I had never smelled before and I went into high panic
• 8:52
  that I had American foulbrood so fast, so bad, that the whole bee yard was smelled up by it
• 9:02
  I honestly called
• 9:03
  the state inspector and the county inspector came out
• 9:07
  and politely
• 9:08
  and lovingly told me that that was the fall nectar flow from goldenrod
• 9:13
  But
• 9:13
  I sometimes wonder if goldenrod
• 9:15
  gets the blame
• 9:17
  for what the aster is contributing to.
• 9:20
  But you never get a chance to separate the fall asters
• 9:23
  and the Fall goldenrod
• 9:24
  to see which is responsible for the odor.
• 9:27
  I'm sure a chemist could do it at some point if there are
• 9:30
  reason for it.
• 9:31
  But all I had going that day
• 9:33
  was a good fall golden
• 9:36
  rod
• 9:36
  crop coming in
• 9:39
  I
• 9:39
  learned to like the smell and sometimes with a good flow
• 9:43
  on, I could smell goldenrod
• 9:46
  crop from my bee yard
• 9:49
  to my
• 9:50
  back door.
• 9:51
  And it's 80 yards away.
• 9:54
  And it was a very distinctive odor that primarily seemed to come out at night.
• 10:01
  Don't have a lot of basis for saying that
• 10:04
  We'll see if I can get out of this growth and go to another one of these.
• 10:08
  And I got used to the smell.
• 10:10
  I learned to like the smell
• 10:12
  And I learned to know that that is a strong
• 10:15
  odiferous indicator
• 10:18
  of the fall
• 10:19
  nectar flow going on.
• 10:21
  And when that flow is over
• 10:23
  and that smell goes away
• 10:26
  Then it except just for an occasional
• 10:30
  planting and a flower bed
• 10:32
  someplace, that's it for the year.
• 10:36
  2026
• 10:37
  nectar production year
• 10:39
  is over
• 10:40
  and done.
• 10:42
  Back down nearby
• 10:43
  yard
• 10:45
  I was going to see if what they're doing here.
• 10:47
  Here's butterflies on the aster plant.
• 10:52
  So
• 10:53
  several years ago I had a nine-frame observation hive.
• 10:57
  I
• 10:57
  'm gonna work my way around this
• 10:59
  poison
• 11:00
  ivy.
• 11:01
  I had a nine-frame observation
• 11:03
  hive
• 11:04
  set up
• 11:06
  And
• 11:06
  when the fall flow started, there's a little whiff of it down this bee yard.
• 11:13
  When the fall flow started
• 11:16
  I had that thing inside the porch on my shop.
• 11:19
  I just about couldn't stay in the shop.
• 11:21
  The odor was so strong.
• 11:23
  Just overwhelmingly strong.
• 11:26
  I can't tell that there's any more bees on the goldenrod in the bee yard
• 11:31
  than is on the goldenrod
• 11:33
  up in the field where I just walked back from.
• 11:36
  I'm not really trying to tell you a falsehood here.
• 11:41
  It's a nice day
• 11:43
  and I just wanted to be out
• 11:46
  walking around
• 11:47
  and I didn't want to have to light a smoker.
• 11:48
  I've got a trip coming up Wednesday
• 11:51
  So I'm not trying to start anything big before I leave.
• 11:56
  Be going
• 11:56
  through next Monday.
• 11:58
  And I just wanted to get out for a walk.
• 12:01
  There's not a cloud in the sky, and it's just one of those days
• 12:07
  for no particular
• 12:08
  good reason
• 12:09
  you just
• 12:10
  Feel good about watching the bees come and go.
• 12:13
  This time of the year they can be the least bit cranky
• 12:18
  My daughter gave me a shirt that said, I'm a beekeeper.
• 12:21
  If I run, you should run
• 12:22
  too.
• 12:23
  I know you've all seen those
• 12:25
  and
• 12:25
  my family thought that was hilarious
• 12:29
  So I
• 12:30
  wear it periodically
• 12:31
  so
• 12:32
  they can get a laugh out of it.
• 12:35
  Now I'm at a beehive entrance here.
• 12:37
  There's absolutely beautiful flight
• 12:42
  And
• 12:42
  there's some pollen
• 12:44
  so they're bringing in both.
• 12:45
  There's a tall hive that they're up in the top of it primarily and they got cross
• 12:49
  comb
• 12:49
  up there.
• 12:50
  I think I'll just dread that till
• 12:52
  next spring
• 12:53
  Let that go.
• 12:56
  Apple crop.
• 12:58
  I always get a ridiculous number of golf-ball sized apples because the pollination in this bee yard
• 13:05
  is 100%
• 13:07
  complete.
• 13:08
  Beekeepers is a nice day
• 13:11
  just to be a philosophical
• 13:12
  beekeeper.
• 13:14
  Go for a walk and look at bees doing what they do
• 13:17
  on
• 13:18
  their own, watching the plants do what they do
• 13:21
  on their
• 13:22
  own, watching the other insects that come to the smorgasbord of
• 13:28
  the fall crop
• 13:30
  is all these insects get ready for the upcoming big dearth.
• 13:35
  That will
• 13:36
  definitely be here
• 13:38
  in just uh
• 13:40
  probably a few more weeks
• 13:42
  yet
• 13:43
  Trying not to fall.
• 13:46
  I always have my phone on me.
• 13:48
  When you
• 13:49
  live alone, you always need some kind of an emergency, whatever.
• 13:53
  So I made it back out of the brush
• 13:56
  I'm back out in the ditch.
• 13:58
  I'm hiking back.
• 14:00
  Listen, I really appreciate you hanging out with me.
• 14:03
  I know this is not
• 14:05
  incredibly insightful information, but it
• 14:08
  just feels good.
• 14:10
  It just feels good to be
• 14:12
  able and
• 14:13
  to move and to do as much as I can do
• 14:17
  I can't do the heavy lifting anymore.
• 14:19
  I don't even try.
• 14:21
  So I don't have the best managed bees in the country, but
• 14:25
  I can't tell that they complain much about it.
• 14:29
  Until we can talk next week
• 14:31
  about something.
• 14:33
  probably more beekeepingly relevant.
• 14:35
  We'll tell you bye for now.
• 14:38
  See if I can get back to the house, take a short break, and do something constructive.
• 14:45
  That's all I got for now.