A lot of people are very worried about pesticides.
And the first thing we like to blame
is big AG with their tractors and their crop dusters.
This is what's killing all the bees.
But bear in mind that it's urban homeowners that are the worst abusers
of chemical pesticides because you can buy a can of bug spray at the grocery store.
How bad could it be?
It says on the label, use two squirts.
What do people do?
Use the whole darn can.
It was only $3.
We'll get another one next time we go.
It's on the same aisle with cat food.
It's clearly not that bad, right?
So read and follow all label instructions
with any type of pesticide product.
But a lot of people blame pesticides because that's easy to do.
Somebody else was spraying down the street, and that's why my bees died.
I never checked for mites or anything else,
but obviously it's someone else's fault, so I'll just put the blame over there.
But if you read a lot of scientific literature, which I'm sure you do for fun,
there is a growing consensus that says the reason
bees are disappearing is a lot of different things.
It's not one thing.
It's a lot of things.
None of these stressors act alone.
And the number one cause in all of these big reviews
that have been coming out in the last few years is habitat loss.
There are no more places full of wildflowers.
It's all being changed into agricultural use.
Where we grow monocultures, one crop over 10,000 acres.
Or urbanization, everything is getting paved over.
We'll bulldoze a forest,
then we'll put up houses and we'll name the streets after the trees we cut down.
Everybody gets a quarter acre of zoysia your grass
and one bradford pear in the corner of each yard.
Is that a natural ecosystem?
Oh, you think so?
OK, I'm not going to argue.
But it's that loss of diverse natural forage
that is affecting bee health.
You need lots of different flowers with lots of different nutrients.
No one type of flower
has every amino acid and vitamin and the things that bees needs.
They need all that pollen.
Pathogens are also a problem.
Parasites and of course, pesticides and pollution.
We call those the P's.
So all of that is a problem.
But habitat loss is a big issue.
If you look at the use of pesticides over the last 40 years,
herbicide use is tremendous.
Weeds have always been a big input on the farm.
Combating weeds have always been a big problem.
But this chemical revolution has increased.
And now all of our crops are to the point
where they're engineered to be resistant to herbicides.
So it just kills off everything in a field except for that one plant.
And the bees are on the margins and they're struggling to find stuff to eat.
What a world we're creating for our little bees.
Now, you've seen every possible thing that can go wrong.
You even got the home version to take home and browse there.
And go over the disgusting pictures of disease bee larva.
You can show your friends, it's pocket sized
so you can take it anywhere you want to go.
I don't want to discourage you.
You can do this, if I haven't turned you off of it yet.
But I feel it's my duty to let you know.
This is not necessarily easy.
This is a challenging hobby, but that's just going to make it
all the much more fun when you get it done.
So, you know, most people don't know anything about bees.
That's why people draw beehives like this.
You will never get honey out of a nest that's dangling,
this big paper thing, dangling off of a little stem at the end of a limb.
You can try but you're not going to get much honey out of that thing.
But any self-respecting bee will be back here in a hollow trunk.
As a beekeeper or a potential beekeeper
now, educate people about how important bees are.
They're not dangerous.
If you respect them, it's like fire.
You don't want it on you.
But it's useful for lots of stuff, right?
Bees are so vital for our food supply and for our ecosystem,
not just our food, but think about all the other animals out there.
The whole basis for the food chain is plants and bees.
Not just honeybees, but thousands of native bee species
are keeping all those plants pollinated for all the nuts and berries
and fruits and things that all the other wildlife eats. So
each of us represents the industry.
Most people will never keep bees.
Most people aren't crazy like we are.
But to your friends that only know one beekeeper, that's you.
You represent the whole industry.
That means your bees represent all bees.
If you were the guy in your neighborhood with bees
and your bees are just downright mean, and it happens sometimes.
Sometimes a hive just has a bad attitude
and they're stinging all the neighbor kids.
Your neighbors are
not going to appreciate that, and they're going to think all
bees are horrible and they should all be banned.
And they're going to lobby the city council to get rid of beekeeping.
You don't want to be that guy that gets all the bees banned
and your honey represents all honey.
Sometimes honey
just has a lousy taste, it gets that bitter weed in it or something.
Or you can produce honey that's still got lots of debris
and funk in it, or you harvest it too early and it starts to ferment
and you give that to people and you're so proud of it.
But that makes us all look bad.
If you're your honey is no good.
So only produce good stuff, bottle it up.
Some people are incredibly dogmatic about how to keep bees.
You know, I've stood here and told you what I do for the last three weeks,
but I also give you a whole lot of range and maybe you get frustrated with that.
You just want me to tell you what to do.
And I say, "you could do this or you could do that,
and you've got all these choices" that's just overwhelming, right?
That's because there are lots of ways to do it.
But you get online,
you start reading magazines or talking to people,
and they'll tell you "if you don't do things the way I do,
then you're doing your bees a disservice and you're a horrible human being".
Well,
there are some things that are just plain wrong,
but there's lots of right ways to keep bees, too.
Bees are very adaptable.
They get along
with a lot of things we do, and surprisingly,
they survive in spite of us, not because of us.
Be pragmatic.
When you encounter problems, find solutions.
Find methods that work for you and the particular style of beekeeping
that you want and your goals as a beekeeper.
Because they're going to be different for most of us, but do keep learning.
I told you all the terrible things that can happen to bees, but I left out one.
One of the most dangerous things for honey bees is a second year beekeeper.
You've over wintered your colonies successfully.
You came out the next year and you thought I did it all right.
Man, this is a breeze.
This beekeeping is a snap because you started with bees this month.
You bought them from somebody who treated their bees,
so there was hardly any mites.
You went through the whole year and you fed them lots of sugar syrup.
So basically you had welfare bees for months
and you were able to overwinter them in brand new equipment.
So you start your new year next year
and you think, "I'm not going to change a thing".
So your bees come along,
they've got more mites on them coming out of winter than you thought
they would, but you've never checked because you didn't need to
because you were such a good beekeeper, right?
And now you wait.
And that mite level is going to go up really high in the summer.
And you're going to harvest a bunch of honey because you waited
till your second year like you should,
and now you're just going to feed a bunch of sugar syrup back to your bees
because you took a little too much, but still don't need any mites
because I didn't see any mites, so I don't have any mites.
And then I'm going to put them to bed for winter.
And then for some reason they all died.
I wonder why.
So don't get cocky about it.
Keep learning, keep looking, keep trying to figure out what's going on.
But our bees are always happy to remind us that we don't know it all.
So they're going to surprise us.
Keep track of
your little honeybee health book if you do lose it.
You can also download a full sized version
on 8.5 x 11 if you want to print it out, because I know this is very fine print.
So if you've got old eyes, you can get that
and you can also order printed copies.
But we don't have those on hand.
And we also have, you can go to this website here.
We have this optimized for viewing on your phone.
So if you lose this, you can also have it right there in your back
pocket out there at the apiary and you can pull it out
and you can smear propolis all over your screen trying to find
that picture of a sick larva to compare what you're looking at there.
And that's why we made this pocket size so that if you think "I've got European
foulbrood", well, you can pull that out and you can compare it to exactly
what you're seeing.
So tell you what, you've got my contact information.
If you need anything, call me any time.
Drop me an email.
Just want to chat about bees, you know where to find me.
Thank you all very much for sitting here so patiently for three weeks.
If that's all you guys have. That's all I've got.
Have a good night.
Thank you. And the best of luck to you and your beekeeping.