Beekeeping Podcast Hyve Time™: Bee expert interviews and beekeeping news, tips, & discussions.

On today's episode, I sit down with Brian Spiesman, a community and landscape ecologist at the University of Kansas, who is broadly interested in how environmental change affects the diversity and function of ecological communities. He has a focus on understanding how land cover change affects communities of plants and their pollinators. The goal of his research is to wrangle knowledge of complex systems for the effective conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Brian also helped create the Bee Machine™, an application for identifying bumble bee species using machine learning. We discuss the Bee Machine and what it does, how it was developed, how it works, and the future of the application. We also discuss the relationship between habitat and the web of species that rely on each other for survival. Links to Brian's work and SM accounts- Brians Twitter- https://twitter.com/BrianSpiesman Brian's Website- https://spiesmanecology.com/ Bee Machine Twitter- https://twitter.com/BeeMachineAI Bee Machine Website- https://beemachine.ai/ Sponsor- Kinnickinnic Bees If you are looking for package bees or nucs, Kinnickinnic Bees has you covered check it out at -https://www.kinnibees.com/order-honey-bees

Hyve Time™ Podcast Episode #17  We are back at it with this episode as I sit down with Dr. Heather Grab, an Entomologist from Cornell University in NY. We discuss many different topics, such as, habitat on farms and their interactions with local native bee populations and how honey bees may be competing for resources in limited habitat areas, as well as how honey bees as well as native bees interact with the hemp/ cannabis plant.    For more information on Dr. Heather Grab-  heathergrab@cornell.edu  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-grab/ landscape-agroecology.com  https://cals.cornell.edu/heather-grab  Check out our sponsor Kinnickinnic Bees  @Kinnickinnic Bees  -  A place to purchase your hybrid mite-resistant bee packages and nucs www.kinnibees.com/order-honey-bees   Follow Mike, the host-  https://twitter.com/solarwoof13  https://twitter.com/HyperHyve

I sit down with Dr. Kaira Wagoner who has discovered a new, simpler, and more effective way to detect honey bee colonies that express varroa hygienic behavior through the detection of unhealthy brood via odors produced by the brood. This discovery will help the industry with her new business detect and identify much more easily and with higher precision, which colonies may manage diseases and pests like the varroa mite extremely effectively.   Her process involves spraying compounds that have been synthetically processed to mimic the scents injured brood emit when attacked by mites and other pests and diseases. The hygienic colonies then open each cell up by chewing the capping off and within 2 hours you as a beekeeper will have an identifiable score for each colony.    _____________________________________ Links:  Contact Dr. Wagoner- email: opterallp@gmail.com  Research Paper- https://www.hyperhyve.com/dr-kaira-wagoner-ubo-essay-hygienic-bees Support the show @ Patreon: Mike James- https://www.patreon.com/solarwoof13 Citizen Scientist Kit- https://amzn.to/3Q4hU2u

Mike James covers some of the news in the beekeeping world over the past week and if you haven't heard, Australia has its first detection of the Varroa Mite. Also covered is a new discovery on a microbe in the colony that is protecting the honey bee larvae.  Links on some of the news-  https://news.iu.edu/stories/2022/06/iub/releases/27-honey-bee-protective-microbe-study.html https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/biosecurity/seasonal-pests-and-diseases/spring/varroa-mite?fbclid=IwAR0zwEpHCMdBaWQr9OeRoV3zjK81QbfATqkEumtG7En9GGYt3uuisZTKZu4&fs=e&s=cl Help Mike James continue doing the show by supporting him personally at Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/solarwoof13?fan_landing=true

Today we interview Cory Stevens, owner of Stevens Bee Co., out of Bloomfield, MO. Cory started beekeeping the traditional way and quickly discovered the benefits and needs of breeding VSH queen honey bees. His side hustle has him rearing 2,000 VSH queens that he ships out all over the country. We discuss how genetics will replace the need for most chemical treatments and the future of bee genetics role in commercial and backyard beekeeping.    Notes or Treatment efficacy:  Oxalic label dosage- https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/ppls/091266-00001-20151013.pdf  Oxalic Effective dosage- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2021.1877447  Links and Notes:  Annual colony loss reports- www.beeinformed.org  John Harbo VSH level rating for measurement- https://www.harbobeeco.com/measure-vsh/  Stevens Bee Co:  Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfeQNytNL-X94MlaaM-03ug Website- www.stevensbeeco.com

In this episode, we discuss the tasks of inspecting a beehive and how having a list is a great way to keep track of your hive's performance as well as tasks done and needed in the future. We offer this as a FREE Download (link below) including a quick and easy way to grade each of your beehives. What we cover this week: Scoring your beehive performance  The colonies temperament Queens laying pattern How to find the Queen Tracking levels of varroa mites in the hive Locating the queen and tracking her Are their queen cells- What type?  A strong hive population What is the hive's condition? Type of hive equipment you are using Pest and disease management Identifying the problem Are you using integrated management devices? What type of treatments- when were they applied and when were they removed Hive tasks and preparation for Spring, Summer (Honey Flow), and Winter How is your hive configured? We also recorded this and have it posted on our youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsplMNFEZJCXBUmEAK6YQRg where we show a couple of examples of inspections and what to look for as well as a follow along, on the form we are offering for free. Check it out and don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and follow us on all the platforms you listen to and watch us on. Thanks! Youtube Channel- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsplMNFEZJCXBUmEAK6YQRg FREE Inspection Form- https://www.hyperhyve.com/freedownload

This week I am joined by Michael Bush, a beekeeper, speaker, and author of "The Practical Beekeeper, Beekeeping Naturally". This is a 2 part podcast episode where we discuss bees, comb design, natural beekeeping, studies, the experience Michael has in beekeeping, and the knowledge around how we as beekeepers can and should get off the chemical treatment "train".  _______________________________________________ From BushFarms.com Beekeeping Pests So why are we having problems? We have a lot of recent pests and diseases that have made it to North America (and most other places in the world) in the last 30 years or so. As someone once said, "You can't keep bees like grandpa did cause grandpa's bees are dead." Most of us beekeepers have lost all of our bees one time or another in the last few decades and this seems to be getting worse. So part of the problem for beekeepers is the pests, but there are other issues. Shallow Gene Pool We have a narrow gene pool to start with here and between pesticides, pests, and overzealous programs to control Africanized Honey Bees, many of the pockets of feral bees have been depleted leaving only the queens that people buy. When you consider that there are only a handful of queen breeders providing 99% of the queens, that's a pretty small gene pool. This deficiency used to be made up by feral bees and people rearing their own queens. But the recent trend is to encourage everyone to not rear their own queens and only buy them. Especially in AHB (Africanized Honey Bee) areas. _______________________________________________ Show Notes: Observation Beehive Link Bush Farms Observation Hive Link Michael Bush's Books

Our very first interview podcast episode with Dr. Erica Shelley at Best for Bees™. Dr. Shelley is the inventor of ProtectaBee™, which is a hive entrance for honey bees on a standard 10 frame langstroth hive. We discuss her experience in beekeeping and the research projects that led her to inventing the ProtectaBee™ which is now available on Indiegogo™.   Resources-  Dr. Erica Shelley- Linkedin  Best for Bees™- Website  ProtectaBee™- Indiegogo campaign  Mike James- Twitter  Hyper Hyve- Website  Podcast Forum  Secret Indiegogo Perk for our fans only- https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protectabee-all-in-one-adjustable-hive-entrance?secret_perk_token=b5c10c3f#/