Katie r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip rictor
It's sho Crazy Trip. Just watch him as the septazy gas not a Simon
credits. Well, Hello, and welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad
you're listening today. And as I've been telling you this morning, we have
some folks from the b Supply here today and we're gonna be talking about bees
for the next hour. So if you have questions, anything you want to
know about bees or be keeping, we're going to be giving you a lot
of information. And in fact, if you are not even a beekeeper or
thinking about being one, you're going to want to hear about this. The
wonderful world of bees is something that every time I learn more about it,
it just fascinates me. It's it is amazing with those little creatures, what
they can do. I want to welcome Paul to the show. Paul from
the Supply in Data and Texas. Tell us about the be supply. Okay,
we basically we supply bees. We have lots lots of bees. We
sell beekeeping products to beekeepers. We really focus mostly on the hobby beekeepers right
at the store, and so we we the thing that we really pride ourselves
on is all of our education that we do. We have lots of classes
we have you know, anytime someone wants to come in and talk about bees,
we're there. We're happy to do that, answer questions and and it's
it's really our goal to have everybody be successful. Well, I I picked
that up the first time I was out there. I just got the sense
of it's not like a shop. We're here, go buy some stuff and
I go leave us alone. You welcome people coming back and asking you eight
hundred questions. I know that must get old at times, but you understand
what it's like being a new bee keeper and it's like I need help here,
I need more information than you guys. Just provide that service after the
sale and on and on, because you know, if they're successful, then
everybody's happy. Right, Yeah, that's our goal. We'll do a good
job of that. We'll think. I like the classroom you guys have set
up in there. That's kind of nice where people can come in and do
some in the store education. And then you got bees outside where I guess
you take them. Tell us a little bit about like if I were interested
in becoming a be keeper, would what would it mean to go to a
class there? Well, you can. We have classes. We'll have classes
at least once a month from January through November during and then during b season
from I guess February through June, will have two classes a month, and
it's a it's a pretty much an all day class on a Saturday, but
we do spend time. It's it's the beginning beekeeping class, and that's what
we'd really recommend because we do cover all the basics and really help set a
good foundation for beekeeping. And then in the afternoon we will put on our
beekeeping suits and go out into the b yard and let the participants actually do
high inspections for themselves and see what they need to look for. And while
we're out there helping answer questions and guide them as they do that. And
it's been a it's been a really good class. Kyle and I both teach
the class, and we've had we've had a lot of good reviews from from
the class, and so we're we're we love teaching that class and seeing the
success that people have. Well, you know, I kept bees for a
while back in Willis, Texas up North Conroy area. I had bee hives
and took care of him. And when I went into the store, I
visited with you guys. I don't know, it's probably an hour or more,
and I learned so much more about bees just in talking to you.
It's like it's an unending topic of information and fascination. I just I just
think it's great. Yeah, there's there's there's always something to learn. Yeah.
One of the things, and I probably have said this to you myself,
but one of the things that amazes me is that when you think about
what bees are able to do. We think of bees as well, they
make honey, But what's involved in that? And you open up a beehive
and you have all these little six sided cells that are in perfect lines,
straight lines across the combe, and they do all that in the dark.
I couldn't draw that with a pen with light shining down on the paper,
and yet these guys are working in the dark and they do all that perfectly.
And the whole process of taking from an egg all the way to an
adult bee. Could you talk to us a little bit about how how that
happens, Like an egg is laid, and what are the what are the
workers and everybody do that makes that bee turn into what it's going to turn
into. I'm kind of leading you into the okay. Well, whenever the
queen lays the egg, the first thing is she can lay her body weight
and a half every day in eggs, up to two thousand eggs a day.
And so the first three days of bee's existence, the older, the
bees that are two weeks old ten to her, and then after that the
younger bees take care of her. The reason why for the first three days
they feed the egg roll jelly, which is again without going into a lot
of bee biology, it's female hormone, okay, And so it turns the
eggs fully into females. And then they continue growing up for twenty one days
that they're in the egg in the cell, and then the day that they're
emerged. The thing that's so fascinating to me about bees is from that moment
on they are working. They literally are cleaning the cells around them before they're
even born. Wow. And then so they they come back into the cell
that they were just hatched out of and they clean it some other bees come
in and they reline it and within about three or four hours in the springtime,
there'll be another egg in that safe. Right after they hatch out,
they have to clean their room. I mean that teenagers that are listening to
this, it's not as tough as you think. You're saying how many times
their weight. That'd be like a lady having what twelve to fifteen babies a
day. Yeah, that's an accomplishment right there every day. Wow, that
what a reproductive potential. That's amazing. Yeah. So basically what I always
say is is bee lived six weeks. They the first week they clean and
ten for the for the young. The second week they ten for the young,
The third week they make wax, the fourth week they learn how to
fly, the fifth week they do fly, and the sixth week they die.
Wow. That we're gonna I hate to stop it in the middle,
but you talk about a teaser. We'll be right back. I've got to
take a break for a commercial. But those six weeks is an amazing I
want to come back to that right when we get back. Hey, you're
listening to garden line. I am visiting with folks from the bee supply today
and we're gonna talk all about bees. If you got any questions, call
us at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back
to garden Line. We're glad you're listening. Our phone number is seven one
three two one two fifty eight to seventy four. If you've got a question
about bees, be keeping, the world of bees, we're talking about all
that kinds of stuff. Uh, just before we went to break, we
were talking about the steps of the bees, the stages of the bees life,
like a week doing this. Would you repeat that and then let's continue
a little bit with that. Okay. So one of the first things is
in the springtime, about eighty five to ninety percent of the bees in a
bee hive or female. Male bees really don't have any purpose other than being
male bees. They can't they can't grow pollen, they can't make honey,
they don't have stingers, they can't defend the hive. So there's really no
purpose other than reproduction. And so bees are so incredibly efficient that the queen
literally won't make male bees. And she has that choice. She can decide
before she lays the egg if that egg's going to be male or female.
How does she decide that she turns her semen sacks on and off? Are
you kidding me? Oh? Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. So the
joke in the bee businesses is a male bee has a grandfather but has no
father. And the reason why is so because the queen has a father,
but there's no semen in makeing a male bees, so it doesn't have a
father. And so that sounds like a country song. Go ahead, I'm
sorry, I didn't mean to do that. It's just the first thing that
came to mind. Well, the old hill Billy and Me comes out right
there, but yeah, we'll leave that one on the table. So but
anyway, so the as the the bees age, different metamorphosis happens in their
bodies and they and they do different things, and so they can go backwards,
but they can't go forwards. So like if if something happens in a
beehive and you don't have one week two week o bees, a three week
o bee can come back and feed the the eggs, but not as efficiently
as they can. And so that's the reason why different ways of getting easier
because you have all six ages of bees, and so the first week of
their life, they're able to they're not able to make royal jelly, so
they feed the eggs that are older that don't need role jelly, and then
the second week of their life, they can produce roll jelly, which comes
from a secretion from behind their heads, and they feed the bees roll jelly.
Now, to make a queen, they have to feed them that role
jelly the entire time that they're in the egg. And that's what makes the
queen super female. So instead of it just being a worker female, they
feed it that way, and suddenly it turns into a queen and they make
the little cell bigger for that. They do make a special sale for her
so that she can hold her whole reproductive organs because the rest of the of
the bees. Again that's a forty five minute discussion, but a normal every
day can't lay a reproductive bag. She can never be a queen. And
so then after the third week they start making wax and they and they produce
all the wax that the hive needs, and they can't really control it,
so they have to make wax. And so that's the reason why you'll see
wax and a hive that's that's not really doesn't have a purpose because they're like
kids. They're chewing bubble gum and they got to put it somewhere. They
just stick it places, so generally they do put it where they need it
to be. And then the fourth week of their life they do their orientation
flight and they start learning how to fly and where they live, and because
where they live is critically important because they have to go back to their home.
They're not they're not welcome back in any other hive around. And then
the fifth week of their life they actually do go out and start forging,
and they will everything the hive needs. They'll make honey, and they'll make
profl which is like bee calk and what keeps the eye sterile. They also
gather water, and then, unfortunately, the sixth week of their life,
generally the ones that do make it to be six weeks, which is probably
about one percent of the bees. Oh wow, the birds get a lot
of them, cars get them, pest aside and all the other things.
They become guard bees and they also carry the dead bees out of the hive,
and that's really all they do. And then they die. So you
ask while ago, which is quite kind of fascinating to me how honey is
actually made. So the forger bees go out and they gather the little part
of them drop of honey, and they bring it back to the hive,
and they go mouth to mouth with another bee and they pass it mouth to
mouth like a bucket brigade. Then that bee swallows it and puts the enzyme
of the age of bee that she has in that drop little honey. Okay,
Then they bucket bagated over to another bee, and it continues bucket brigading
up until it moves up to the honey cell. But each one of those
bees is a different age, and each one of them swallows it, and
each one of them has a different set of enzymes in their mouth. And
so generally anywhere from seven to eighteen bees will swallow that drop of honey before
it makes it actually into that cell, and each one of them will add
another little piece of that honey to change the flavor profile and add the microbials
and all the other things that that honey actually needs. Wow, And I've
never heard that one. I just assumed one bee brought it in. I
always think it's interesting. I've asked gardners before. I said, you know,
bees get nectar and they make honey. But you've ever seen a bee
carrying a sack or a bottle? No, And there's only one way into
an organism, and there's two ways out of an organism, and neither of
them is a very pleasant thing to think about as to where you're a honey
comes from that those bees are ingesting the nectar into a special stomach that they
then regurgitate out and you're saying, pass it along through several bees before it
ends up as honey. Honey is an amazing substance too. Maybe we can
get to that in a minute. I want to talk a little bit about
some of the things you guys are going on. I know you have something
called a concierge service, and I'd like to hear a little bit about that
out at the bee supply well. So the concierge service is really going to
be for people who like who would like to get and ag valuation or were
commonly known as an aag exemption on their property, but they don't necessarily want
to work bees or any livestock or anything like that. So what we would
do is we would come out and put the hives. The number of hives
that the County requires on the property and maintain the boxes and just completely take
care of them for the for the customer. Oh wow. And then we
would give a detailed about what the hives produced, since that's a part of
it. They do have to be able to produce things. We would give
a detailed letter to the landowner about that so they could continue having that evaluation
on their property. Wow. And so it's a it's it's a new thing
that we're that we're looking at doing. And Kyle would probably be the main
one going out and working the hives and taking care of all that. But
it's because we've had a lot of people ask over the years if we do
that, and so I finally decided that, you know, hey, let's
let's do it. So yeah, that's a great idea. That's amazing.
Well, so if someone listening is interested in maybe becoming a beekeeper, what
would you recommend? And I know they need to come and take a class
and things, but what are what's some of the basic set up? We've
got about two and a half minutes here for the next break. What are
some of the basic setup that they would need to come in and do?
What would what would you say step one, two three. Whatever they need.
Well, first thing is, of course, you know you need to
find out if you know that you need bees. And so what we would
do is is different bees, have different species of bees that which all have
different characteristics, and we'll just pick out a bee that works best for you
for what you want it to do. So a honey bee is not a
honey bee. There's a lot of there's some variations. So tell us just
a little bit about what that means. Okay, So like different what the
analogy I use is just easier for people to understand. You can eat a
whole steing cow and milk and angus, but you're not going to be very
successful at it. Gotcha. Well, bees are the same way, good
earth. There's some bees that are better at making honey, some bees are
better suited for living in town. Some bees are better suited for living in
the country because of their temperament and all the other things that they do.
And so that's kind of the way that we do it now. I mean,
again, it's as easy as working with cows. There's all different types
of bees, and all different bees have different characteristics, and so whatever characteristics
you're looking for, we can make that bee do that. And so after
you find the bees, we will get you protected. People ask me every
day do you get stung? I do, But I'm not very smart.
Whenever I teach a bee keeper, I teach them not to be stung.
But you know, I'm an ol'hill billy in so I get kicked by cows
pretty often too, you know, but you don't have to, but I
take unnecessary risk. And so but you know, that's the thing that people
ask about getting stung. And really I'd rather be bit by bee than stung
by a fire in any day of the week, because it's a whole lot
less. You know, people think about, you know, when I'm gonna
put bees in your backyard that I'm gonna put I'm gonna put sixty thousand wasp
in your backyard. A huge difference. I have battled a red wasp and
I've been stung be honey bees more than one on and yeah, there's yeah,
it's not in day difference, No, not day difference. Well,
that is interesting. I want to come back to the circle though, so
as people come in, you probably have a little we have about thirty seconds
here about a little setup, right that like here, here's what you need.
Here's your options. We can say some bees, we can say hive
and everything. When we come back from break, I'd like to talk a
little bit about what are the basic options for getting started in that? Will
you give the phone number for your store? Do you have that on top
of your head? I kind of catch you, catch you off guard.
If not, I here, I'll grab it. Yeah, it's uh it's
eight hundred three five six four two two nine. And the Dayton store is
Extension three. Eight hundred said again, eight hundred three five six four two
two nine, and the Dayton store is Extension three. All right, we
want to take Nikki in the news and we'll be right back to talk more
about bees. Our number if you'd like to call and ask about bees seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to garden Line.
Boy Josh is doing a heck of a job playing bee music as we
come in here. Listen. If you are looking for a quality nursery that
has a lot of different kinds of things that you just can't live without,
that is buchanans native plants in the heights. If you can't specialize in native
plants, but they got everything, I mean all kinds of things from house
plants. By the way, they still have plenty of Christmas trees on the
lot. Get you set up with that, as well as wreaths and other
things. But you just need to check them out. And those native plants
I got some cool stuff. Like next time you're by there, ask them
about their rough leaf dogwood. That's different than the East Texas dogwood. This
is a very drought hardy Texas native that is just beautiful and by the way,
it even has good fall color, the rough leaf dogwood. Now,
Buchanans is on Eleventh Street in the Heights and their website is Buchanansplants dot com.
You need to stop by there. They're open Today, be a good
day to get out and do that. I think what we're going to do
next here is go talk to Angel and Conro. Hello, Angel, are
you there? Yes, I'm here. How can we help today? I
would like to know how many hives it would take to produce or how many
how many how much honey would each hive? Does each hive produce? All
right? Good question, le right. Well, one thing is we're lucky
in this part of the of the state. This is what the beekeepers call
the Golden Triangle of honey, and so we make more honey in this part
of the state than to do any other part of the state. Generally,
what I would say is is a good strong bee hive is going to make
you somewhere between forty and one hundred pounds of honey per year. And a
pound is like a pint of honey. Or how does it? How does
volume wise? Sixteen ounces? About sixteen ounces roughly? Okay, yeah,
so that's about yeah, sixteen ounces. And that's an o hard translations for
bees, because we bee keepers we sell pounds on hunting, right but be
but consumers buy ounces of honey. So that's that's always tricky for us.
People ask while ago, how much honey will one bee make? Yes,
and so in a bee's six weeks life span, they will make a twelfth
of a teaspoon of honey in the whole life of the worker, in their
whole, entire life of the work. So how many did you were sand?
That was? How many bees does it take to make a pound of
honey? So if if my math is correct on that, I think I
figured up it's one fifty two bees to make one pound work work in their
whole six week life. Yeah, make a pound makes you appreciate that pound
of honey absolutely So you were saying that, But a typical hive here,
assuming it's a decent year, is going to produce how many pounds between forty
and one hundred pounds. It's a lot of honey. Angel, Can you
eat that much? You have no idea. I go through one or two
pounds a week. I mean, I'm baked with it. I have it
in my tea. I love it. Well. I think you need to
slap a label on it. And you've got Angel's perfect Christmas gift for friends
and family right there, the Angel Honey Company. Hey, thank you.
I appreciate the call. I appreciate that very much. That is pretty amazing.
So if someone is coming in and they're going, Okay, I want
to get started, What do I need to buy? What kind of equipment
do I need? What's the starting I know there's you know a lot of
answers to that, but basically, what do I need to get going?
Actually there's really not. That's the funny thing about bees. The hive that
ninety percent of people run was built by doctor Langford in the early eighteen hundreds,
and we're still running that exact same bee hive every day, the same
box, the same box. Looking at some of my granddad and great granddad's
equipment, I think we're still running some of that stuff in my face.
But anyway, the same exact box. And it's American standard. And so
if you decide to get a box and then you want to go to some
of the other boxes that all the equipment still entered locks with each other.
It all works. It's all standardized sizes. And so if you were to
get computer manufacturers to do that, yeah, that wouldn't that be great.
So if you were going to get into bees, basically all that all that
you do is is you just get a box of bees. And unfortunately it
is extremely precise on because what we refer to as as bee travel is an
eighth of an inch, and so it's pretty hard to make a box.
But you can buy a box pretty easy, and so you really only have
a few options on the way that a box is configured. And so then
you get your boss and then basic a couple of basic hand tools and some
basic protection and all that's in different levels and how much protection and how much
time you want to actually spend in your bees. And so in reality,
it's actually a reasonably cheap hobby to get started in. There's not a cheap
hobby out there, and so you can spend as much money or as little
money as you want to and just depending on how much you know you want
to get into your bees. So it'd be easy to kind of start small
and work work your way into it. We have a call from Mike.
Let's go. I think Mike has a question about b B breeds. Hello,
Mike, are you there, Mike? Hello, Yes, sir,
Yes, sir, i do have a question about the best breed. I've
my wife and I have tried Italian bees a few times and we've lost our
hives either they've warmed or something else. But what we've lost those hides and
we're trying to to set in. Part of the issue why we did Italian
was that that I have a moderate allergy to bees. My wife actually takes
care of the bees for the most part. We'd heard that maybe re requeening
with a Texas uh bee and making a hybrid would be good. What what
would you suggest? The first thing is is the breed of bee probably wasn't
your problem. That goes back to what we were talking about earlier with classes
mentors. What probably happened was the bees probably got sick and left, or
I mean that's generally what happened is they got sick and left. But a
Texas breed is better. One of the one of them that we run is
called the Texas five thousand, and it's simply spectacular bee, but it's an
Italian Carnolian cross. I would tell you that I would either run a probably
a Carnolian bee. It's a little bit more docile than an Italian bee.
All right? Does that helped me? And and they're hardy there. They're
gonna tolerate maybe some some disease or something a little bit better or mites or
yeah, better than the Italian. I'm out the saying most all your commercially
purchased bees are going to have the might resistance in them. But you're still
going to have to address that in some way. All right, Mike,
we're gonna have to run to a break if you want to hang on,
if you got to follow up, you're welcome to do that. But thank
you, thank you very much for that call. Our phone number is seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We are visiting with Paul
and Kyle from the b Supply and we'll be right back. Well goo ahead
after or good morning. Still you're listening to Guardenline. I'm your host,
Skip Richter. We're here to answer your gardening questions. It is. Our
phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Right
now we're talking about bees uh with Paul and with Kyle from the Bee's Supply
company. Hey, someone called earlier about a tree problem and I was telling
them about Martin spoon Moore, an affordable tree service. Now Martin has been
doing this for a very long time. He He's got decades of experience taking
care of Houston's tree So if you need something done, you need to call
Martin Spoon Moore. The number is seven one three six nine nine twenty six
sixty three. Listening someone comes to trim your trees. If they don't know
what they're doing, they have messed those trees up for a lifetime. I've
seen botch jobs all the time. Trees look like hat racks. They weren't
proune properly. And you can try to help the tree back, but it's
never going to be the same. Don't do that. Just because they own
a pickup truck and have a business card to sticking your door does not make
them a tree person. Call Martin seven to one three six nine nine twenty
six sixty three, or go to the website aff Tree Service dot com.
You need to call him soon though, telling me from the garden line.
That puts you at the front of their line. And he's already booking things
up for the wintertime. And so get on the schedule now, even if
you're not going to get the work done until later, go ahead and get
on the schedule. Because someone that does things right and treats their customers right,
they stay busy. That's how that's how life works. And that is
certainly true of Martin an Affordable Tree. We're gonna go now back to Mike
out here, and I think Mike you had a follow up question. Uh,
yes, sir. As far as trying to maintain the health of the
bees, how often should you be getting into that hive to maintain God would
say every two weeks or sos ok, yeah, daring be season now this
time of year, most everybody's got their bees what we call lockdown, and
so if it's about sixty five degrees, you can get into your bees,
but if it starts getting below sixty five degrees, you really need to leave
a bee. I've closed and there's not really much happening there this time of
year, but in April through June or July, you should be in it
every couple of weeks at least, especially until you know really what you're looking
at. Okay, I'm sorry, going to keep bugging you. One last
thing. So different sources talk about feeding your bees versus not feeding your bees,
and what's your take on that. My take on that is is it's
livestock. And so if your bees are are healthy and wealthy and wise,
then you don't really have to feed them much. But if they have ran
into some kind of problem or or human intervention has kept them from it,
then you do need to feed them. I've spent in the last two months
making a sugar brick that we feed through the winter that's got all types of
nutrition and different things, and it's like a bee super feed and so we
but if your bees are healthy, they should be able to be self sufficient.
So if they're having to be fed. Don't just throw food on them.
You need to find out what's wrong with them and why they're not self
sufficient. Well that's good, that's good, Mike, thank you. I
appreciate that call very much. And along those lines, you guys, if
someone didn't buy their bees from me, they didn't buy their highes from you,
they can still come out to the store and ask you any question because
you're not about just selling my product. You're about helping them. And so
I just want to make that point, you know, for Mike or anyone
out there, that's what you're there for. I mean, if they got
a hundred questions, just come on out and y'all will help them. Right.
Oh. Absolutely. We are a family owned in Texas, own business,
and the man that owns our company. The chances are really good that
Blake's out somewhere to day talking about bees, and and I travel all around
the state and the country talking about bees. And it's a pretty good drive
out to Dayton. But we made a really pretty store out there, So
we're okay with you staying a couple of hours and and sitting and talking with
us and and but that's what we do. Yeah, we talk about that
store, and when we come back from the next braavey that that's true.
Yeah, we're we're out there, just really wanting to talk about bees.
I made the joke to Skip when I came in here. He said,
we're going to talk about bees. I said, that's reason when my wife
won't go anywhere with me, because wherever I'm at, I'm going to talk
about bees. There you hit me an opportunity. I'm going to talk about
bees. All right. Well, we're going to run out now to Spicewood
and we're going to talk to Clara. Clara, believe you have a question
this morning. Hello, Hello, we're here, Kay, Yes, I
have a question on I'm new to bees, and they were just kind of
dumped on us in a sense because we weren't used to doing it's never done
bees. But the lady you brought him is not here, not with me
anymore. I guess that might bees. Uh. All of these are on
one on the upper on one side of the hives, there's the lower.
On the bottom four slats there's no bees and there's no no activity. And
on the other five there might they might be working on four slats and those
slats are covered with bees. Is that normal? Well, at the health
of your bee houve is in Without actually looking at it, I got bad
news for you. The bees are probably on their way out, so the
bees are going to stay together. So yes, ma'am, that is normal
for the amount of bees that's in that Beehi. The problem is is there's
probably not enough bees in there to make it out of winter. Oh really,
yes, ma'am. I mean you may so, but without looking at
it, I don't know. I we'll say this so while while we're here,
it's a good point to ask it. We do make house calls and
if you have bees that are that are having problems or whatever, I'll travel
out and we'll and we'll look at like a like a vet house call,
and so we'll make the call out and then I can tell you how to
how to work your bees and and actually teach you how to work them.
But oh, that would be awesome, Yes, ma'am. Just call us
there at the story and we'll set something up and see if we can't help
you out with that. Okay, okay, you have that number right?
Yeah? Okay, Oh, that would be awesome. I certain got and
I will have both of my helpers share with me, so we can you
know, yes, ma'am. And like I said, we're all here for
the craft and we're gonna we're gonna help take care of the bees. Okay.
The end result of this is we don't have the bees, we don't
have the human race. Keeping the bees alive is all of our responsibility,
right, And they helped us some. I mean, our production for the
garden this year was so much better than what it's been in the past,
and I attributed that to our bees. You know, yes, m that's
true. Unfortunately they had to deal with an amateur. Uh. Well,
we'll get You've called the right place and we're gonna get you fixed up.
Thank you, Clara. And I just want to give that phone number out
again. That is one eight hundred three five six four two two nine Extension
three. One eight hundred three five six four two two nine Extension three.
And it's Texas B Supply, Texas B Supply out in Dayton. So you
I did not know you did. House calls you you're going to wear your
tires off. Kyle is our detective. He sounds like the bees. That's
good, funny, that's excellent. Well, I tell you we've got good
night. We're down to Oh my gosh, we're down to no time right
now. We're going to take a break. We're at the top of an
hour's time for the news. You are listening to garden Line and I'm visiting
with Kyle and Paul. We've got to get Paul back on here from THEB
Supply out in Dayton, Texas. We're talking about everything bees. If you
have all call Josh, it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Let him get you on the board and you will be first.
When we come back. We're going to go into a little bit more about
bees, some of the information on the classes that they have on some of
the tours. We haven't talked about the tours, and that is something you
have got to check out. And the observation hive indoors. I don't know
if any of you are old enough to remember growing up and driving down the
road and Nickerson Farns and stuckies in those kind of places, sometimes you'd see
a bee hive in the wall where you could watch them work. And I
grew up as a kid doing that. Uh, they got something much better
than that at the B Supply and we're going to tell you about it when
we'll come back. Katie r h. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h
Garden Line with Skip Richter. It's crazy trip. Just watch him as thanks
to sept Crazy Jumped not a sadd Welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to talk about gardening.
Right now, we're talking about one aspect of gardening, and that is
taking care of bees. Now, I realize you don't have to be a
gardener to have bees, but those of us who grow vegetables and fruit know
the value that bees bring and how that can increase our produce. So I
think every garden should have a little set of bees in the back. By
the way, there are laws in Texas regarding bee keeping and things, and
most people don't realize you can keep bees in the city of Houston. Absolutely
tell us a little bit about like, if someone's interested in maybe keeping some
bees, getting set up and doing that, what would you recommend that they
do just to check into things, Well, you can come out and you
know, just take a class or take one of our tours there at the
store and find out if it's something that you're really interested in. And then
once you get there, then you know. There's two really nice bee clubs
here in the city of Houston, and they're great programs, and go to
one of their meetings and find out, you know, just what people are
doing. Come out and actually come in a beehive. If you want to
come out to the store and open a beehive and the weather's from itating,
I'll surely dress you up and walk you out there and let you walk into
a set of bees. And I've literally never had anybody when I dressed them
and got them in the bees come back and say, you know, I
don't think that's what I want to do. It's an extremely calmon feature about
bees, and so the apprehension of raising bees goes away almost immediately, right.
That's something people just have the experience to be able to understand that.
So if anyone's interested, you were still taking orders now for bees. We
talked about different strains of bees, and you guys can help match them to
the strain that they need. But you're taking orders now out there and tell
us a little bit about your classes too that you have going on. So
our main class that we have is that beginning class that we talked about earlier,
and that's the one we primarily have, but we've just added several new
classes that we're really excited about and looking forward to. That one that we've
had for a while is a splits class, So it's kind of a second
year beekeeping class when you make a split out of a hive, so basically
make two hives out of one. Okay, we'll teach you how to do
that. We also in the summer, we'll have a honey extraction class where
we teach you how to extract honey and how to pull the high pull the
boxes off, get the bees out of it, uncap the honey, put
it in an extractor, so we'll we'll teach you all that. We're also
having some more artisan type classes where we'll have a meat making class. We're
going to have a candle making class, wax wax class, wax rendering class
is what we're having. And so so yeah, we're having lots of classes
fun where we can teach you how to do some of those things and and
help help beekeepers like their hobby even more. Now now, you were doing
the the beginner's classes about once a month, and is that going to continue
at about a once a month schedule. It'll be, Yeah, it's on.
It's at least once a month from January through November and then February through
June. We have two classes a month. Yeah, and those are all
on our website. People can sign up on the website and see all the
different classes. And that website, folks, is thebesupply dot com. Thebesupply
dot com. You also have the honey tours. Tell us a little bit
about the honey tour, and this would be somebody I don't care, I
don't want to ever keep bees. I just want to learn about it and
have fun. Tell me about a honey tour. How do we go about
that? Well, you can also register for that online. We typically have
those on the first Saturday of the month during be season. There may be
a couple of saturdays where we can't do it, but typically it's the first
Saturday of the month. And it's just a very very basic introduction to bees.
So we'll talk a little bit about what bees do. We'll let's taste
different types of honey, and then we'll take you over to our observation hive
and let you see the bees actually in action and try to explain a little
bit about what's going on there. And the best part about the honey tours
is are absolutely free and so yeah, so yeah, bring brings. It's
a good family thing or I mean if you have a garden club or a
church group, or you know some kind of school group, boy scout troup,
school group whatever. Yeah, so yeah, that's great. It's great
science for kids too, because they're going to learn a lot about that world.
We've been talking about that. Every time I talk to you guys,
I learned something else about bees. So yeah, we had what four or
five hundred uh school kids come through tours last year. Those were all private
and so but we but we still anytime we get an opportunity to talk to
the community about bees and just anything we can do to help the community with
bees, where we're always willing to and give us a shot and to someone
has a group, well we'll do tours midweek. They don't have to be
on a Saturday. We can do tours midweek as well. They just have
to give you a call out there, get set up for it. Well,
that's fun. When I went out to the store, just seeing all
the equipment number one was fascinating. But you guys have a lot of I
don't know, bee bling if you will. I mean from T shirts to
honey, to different kinds of cosmetics made from I bought a cream, kind
of a facetop cream thing made out of bee products. And you guys just
have a lot of fun stuff out there. It's not just a warehouse full
of bee stuff. And there's a lot more of that coming too. I
know the company right now is actually working on a cosmetic line that's made out
of our honey, a coffee line, a tea line, so it's always
coming. The company is on the very cutting edge of the bee technology,
and so we're always working towards new stuff. Well, we got about a
minute and a half, but I want to go ahead and dive into tell
us about this observation hive is people have got When you hear me say there's
an observation hive, you have no idea what we're talking about here. Tell
us about what this thing is. So this is our second one. The
first one that we made was what's called an open air concept, and it
just simply didn't work. The second one that we're making that I made is
a it's basically an entire bee high standing where you can look at it like
in plexiglass, inside of plexiglass, where you can see it, open the
doors and look in it. We haven't been recognized yet, but it looks
to be that it's going. When it's full that it'll be the second largest
in the United States. Well, and this is in the store, So
bees have to come in a tube to get there, right, Yes,
they come in in a tube, which again is really interesting because it only
takes three eighths of an inch for a bee to move into your wall,
and so I've gave them plenty of room. They've got a one inch tube
that comes in. But you can actually see the bees come in the high
You can see them bringing pollen in on their legs, and see them carrying
dead bees out and everything else that they're doing. And so this tube comes
from outside the store into this plexiglass hive where people can go around it,
kids can see ye and watch bees work, and that right there is worth
the price of it. And it's really cool because you can see the queen
and there were several times this past summer where we were able to show people
what it looks like when the queen is laying eggs and you can actually see
that process going on and see that as they're storing the honey and the pollen,
you can see them filling the frames up. So it's really a neat
hive to look at. I remember when I first learned to find the queen
in a hive. You know, you see this larger bee and all the
other bees are facing it. You know, they're all gathered. No matter
where she moves, they're all fate turned facing or that's amazing. Hey,
I got to go to a break. It's time, but we will come
right back. And we're talking here with the folks from VB Supply out in
Dayton, Texas. So if you've got any bee questions, give us a
call at seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I think
we probably just played be related music to the Cows Come Home. There's so
many good songs out there. Hey, I'm your host, Skip Rich or
you're listening to garden Line and we're talking to the folks from the bee Supply.
We got Paul and we got Kyle here in the studio if you'd like
to give us a call and ask a question about bees seven one three,
two one two five eight seven four. We were just talking about the observation
high that is so cool for people to be able to come out and to
check it out. The fact that you can go out and do free b
tours honey tours actually to give you some things that I don't know. I
just think it's an education that is just fascinating. I mentioned earlier some aspects
of bees. We've been talking about different aspects of bees that are just wow.
I did not know that. I did not know that happened. I
just find it interesting. I'm surprised we haven't had somebody call the show already
and reinforce this fact that a bee colony is basically a bunch of women doing
all the work and men land around doing nothing until they finally get kicked out.
And so that, I mean, there's a lot of places we can
go with that, guys, but that's basically what it is to Oh boy,
I want to talk a little bit about gifts from the bee supply.
I know you guys have the website where people can go they could order honey,
or they could order anything that you guys sell by gift. But maybe
there's people listening who they are, their spouse or someone they know, maybe
a dad or mom or a kid would like to get interested in beekeeping,
and you guys can kind of get them set up with that. And of
course there's the products that you could set them up with. They could call
you and say, hey, here's the situation. I want to be able
to give this. What would you suggest how do we put that package together?
But also they could just give a gift certificate where someone could then go
out and I think Paul you mentioned even a class certificate, So you want
to talk a little bit about kind of what that might look like from a
gifting standpoint. Sure, yeah, I mean we've had people gift classes the
beginning class for someone who they know that they're interested in bees, and that's
that was there, that was their Christmas gift. And and so you can
just do just like you're signing it yourself up. Just sign up on the
website and and well we'll have the record of it and they can they can
come to the class. That'd be kind of fun. Yeah, I think
it'd be a good gift. You know when you're trying to come up with
gifts. It's kind of like, what do you get the person that has
everything? I think I already got every kind of electronic that I want and
some that I wish I didn't have, and you know that kind of thing.
But this is a it's an experience. It could even be something that
you and some of your kids go and do together and learn together. It's
just kind of back to the kind of gifts that seem to matter more than
just you know, here's something I found because I need to get a gift.
I like the products and things that you guys have, and I think
that people will too. So let's talk a little bit more about bees though,
the world of bees, and one of the challenges is be pests and
diseases. There's actually pests of bees and diseases of bees. And when I
kept bees, we were always fighting trachomtes and vomites and some other things.
Will you talk a little bit about what are some of the common challenges and
what can people do. I know they can call you and say, hey,
I got a problem here, help me, but what are the things
they might need to be looking for, and what are the things we do
I know, acting soon rather than later is probably pretty important. Yes,
well, the leading calls of bee death right now is an invasive species from
China called the Veroo mite. It's basically a tick that grows on honey bees,
but it's the most deadly tick that the world's ever seen. There are
tests farm and that's pretty much what you have. The lady that called earlier
and asked about the hive that only half the hib is alive. That's what's
probably wrong with that hib is it's got brower mince on it. And now,
you know, back in my granddad's day, that was a hard challenge.
Now it's pretty much as easy to take care of as taking care of
fleas and ticks on your dog. And it's kind of the same way.
You know, in the bee world. It was a big separation there for
a lot of years between what we referred to as chemical and non chemical,
and now what we found out is exactly what you just said. Skip.
You know, if you catch them early enough, everybody can go non chemical,
but if you wait until they're infested, kind of like your dog.
You know, you can start off your dog with brewers yeast or whatever,
but if you let the dog get infested with tea, with fleas and ticks.
Yeah, and you got to take it to the bed and get that
too and care of That's a good analogy too, because you know, bees
are out and about, they're interacting with other bees, are going to flowers,
and it's easy to pick up the mites as there interacting with other bees.
Yeah. And the problem is again back to those old boy bees.
The boy bees are what are the more social be of the of the world.
And not only do they not work, but they bring diseases back home.
So you know, this is just a what's the opposite of misogynist?
This is not don't guys, give you guys a break here, man,
we're hammering on them too hard to Okay, So back in my day of
beekeeping, people talked about like a winter green oil in there they we use
the episcent strips, which is one of the chemical end What are we doing
now, what's the technology? So now that well, we were never stopping
on that. Right now, The primary chemical is a chemical called abatraz on
that in the industry it's abba bar, But there's abavar, there's alpagar,
there's a silic acid, and all these different chemicals and and different ways to
do it. But like I said, we work with the bee itself making
the bees more hygienic to it. And that's one of the reasons why commercial
bees are working so much better than the wild caught bees is because they do
have that genetic to be more hygienic and actually to groom themselves and keep the
bees off of them, and I mean keep the mines off of them,
and so that is helping with the bees. I'm one of the people who
will say the North American bee has actually went extinct. There's people out there
that are still saying that they are self some North American honey bees out there.
I haven't seen one in many, many years. So what do we
have now? They're all European bees. Most all the bees now are being
brought in from either most of them are Italian, some of them are Russian,
but they're all European. They're just have a hired genetic line and to
defend themselves against the health problems that we have. Yeah, okay, well
that's good. We're going to go now to a call from Ruben and Missouri
City. Hello Ruben, and welcome to Garden Line. Good morning to both
of y'all. Is BT powerful to the bees binkill gardens? No, it
only the regular BT only kills caterpillars. It's got to be the larva of
a moth or butterfly for BT to kill it. Okay, great, because
I do use a lot of BT and I do have a lot of bees
around the garden area. So no, it's awesome. That's a good reason
to use it. Yeah, thank you, Yes, sir, You're gonna
be careful with those pesticides, for sure. Some of those persistent ones really
can hammer bees. You know. One of the things I live up in
the College stationary during the week now, and we have a researcher up there
that years ago did a little study on pollen in the summer, and the
majority already a pollen coming in, and the colostation area was coming from crape
myrtle trees. That was the number one plant source during the heat of the
summer, because crapes are bloomin at that time, and we have a problem
with scale on crape myrtles, and so there are systemic insecticides. You drench
on the soil and it goes up in the crpe myrtle and kill scale.
Well, they've found those up in the nectar, I don't know pollen or
in nectar, but a nectar of the bees that the bees are accessed to,
and they concerned about it being one of the contributions to be a declined
colony decline. And so that is something we need to be real extra careful
about because when you spray a flower or you put it on the roots of
a flower and it's taken up, that's potential for doing a whole lot of
harm. In addition to what you were just talking about, the disease or
the vroomites. Yeah, and you also have the thing that people don't think
about is that the city and the county is spraying for mosquitoes. There is
a national database that you can rech to your beehives on and what they will
do is they'll spray after dark, and so after dark the bees are back
up. And so agricultural pesticides are not near as bad as the the other
pesticides that we're putting out there. The stuff you're talking about is coming out
of the ground that's actually been soaked into the plant, right, That's where
the problem actually comes into with the killing of the bees. Yeah, that
is that is absolutely true. Well, we just want to be careful with
that as gardeners because we do need those bees around. That is, that
is for sure. While we're while we're here talking, I wanted to I
talk about a product a lot. This had nothing to do with bees,
but the tree hugger sprinklers. If you've heard me on the air before,
you've heard me talk about them. Tree hugger is an ingenious little design.
It basically is a sprinkler with a hinge on it that you put around the
base of your tree. Hook it up to a garden hose, and it's
for watering your trees where the tree roots are. So maybe you put a
new plant in this fall of antonia, you need to fall plant your woody
ornamentals. You can turn it on just a little bit and it water's that
little root zone that just went into the ground with the cylinder of soil.
As that tree gets bigger and bigger, you turn it on higher. And
they're different sizes. There's a seven inch, eleven inch and a thirteen inch.
I've got one of each. And maybe you got a tree seven years
old. And we go into another summer, like this last one. You
crank that sprinkler up and you're not having to turn on your whole lawn system
to water to save that tree. You're just watering around the tree. So
tree hugger I consider one of the tools that we should be having in our
garden supply a shelf, or in our garden barn if you will, like
a hoe or a shovel or anything else, just have a tree hugger there,
because if you plant anything like a rose bush even you're going to want
to be able to water it to help it get established. And that's what
those are for. We're talking this morning with folks from the Bee Supply.
We've got Kyle here, and we've got a pall here, and we're talking
all kinds of thing bees. We're about to take a little break right here,
but I just want to let you know if you'd like to give us
a call seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you live anywhere near the
north central part of the Houston area, you probably already know about Quality Feed
and Garden Supply. I used to go to Quality Feed when they were at
their previous location. Now they are on Luzon Street, which is near the
intersection Equipment and Alesion. This place has been run since nineteen twenty eight.
Ken and Chris have owned it for the last thirty two years. They in
fact, they still have an antique seed rack from nineteen twenty eight. You
got to go there just to see that. Of all things, every fertilizer,
I talk about, every kind of pest disease, weed management thing.
They've got it there. They make their own kins, potting soil. They
have chicken seeds and feed and all kinds of things. Qualityfeedco dot com,
qualityfeedco dot com. That's what you're looking at for. Check them out and
say hi to Ken and Chris when you're in there. We're going to go
now to Nikky and the News. If you'd like to give us a call
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to
garden Lines. I'm your host, skip Rickcher, and listen. If you
have not been to the arbor Gate lately, you need to go. They
always have stuff going on at the arbor Gate. I know it's season for
Christmas trees and for point settas and cyclomen and all kinds of beautiful, beautiful
holiday plants. It's a season to go by their gift shop and find an
outstanding array of gifts. But it's always a season to go by and pick
up their one two three completely easy system. That's an organic food for anything
that has roots. It's a four four to three organic plus calcium. By
the way, they're organic soil complete and they're organic composts complete. That's the
one two three. Remember I always tell you spend money on the brown stuff
before you spend money on the green stuff. What does that mean. Well,
that means if you prepare there the soil, you're going to have success
with plants. If you don't, you're gonna have problems with plants. And
Arburgate is set up to give you just that. So when you grab a
plant there to go home, first take care of that soil, and when
you put that plant in, it's going to be very very happy. They
are located out to the west of Tomball on twenty nine to twenty about a
mile and a half west of Highway two forty nine. Or you can go
to their website arbrogate dot com and check out that new parking lot they got
behind the store. Now, man, is that ever convenient on Trishel Road
right behind the store. Well, we're visiting with both the folks from the
Bee Supplied this morning. We got both Josh here, excuse me, Paul
here. I don't know why I said Josh because my producer's name is Josh.
We got Paul and we got Kyle both here. We're going to talk
all kinds of things bees here for the rest of this hour. First thing
we're going to do, though, is go out to James and Spring.
I think James you had a question. My question is, and you all
have a great program, how does the homeowners' association impact the bee keepers or
dust it all? Right? What I found is is if you go to
the homeowners association, they don't really bother you much. Sometimes you have to
educate a few people. But your bees are will make all of the other
flowers and gardens and all the things in your neighborhood. It's so much more
prolific. And there's natural bees anyway in your neighborhood, So bringing another beehive
or five six bee hives into your neighborhood is not really going to affect the
amount of bees that are in there. And the other thing is is that's
kind of interesting fact about that is bees are so incredibly efficient that most hoa
neighborhoods have privacy fences. Anyway, if you put a bee high bob the
privacy fence, the bees learn pretty quickly to fly, to fly above the
privacy fence, which foots it above your neighbors' heads. And so generally your
neighbors don't know the bees are back there. The bees aren't just buzzing around.
They fly up, they fly on a straight line, then back down
to the plants that they're going to pollinate, and so they're really not having
any real effect. Yeah, I give hush money to my neighbors and there
you go, and or hush honey in that honey, they're pretty happy.
Great as a great ass. So thank you, Thank you, James.
I appreciate appreciate that call very much. You know that's really true. I
mean people picture like there's swarms of bees coming out and it's not that.
And also, honey, bees don't want to mess with you. I mean
I work with flowers all the time, and the bees are right there.
I wouldn't just grab one in my hand and try to squeeze it. But
they're not like wasps that are you know, mean and and just looking for
something to sting. It seems like bees it cost them their life to sting
you, right, And that is one of the things that's so critically important
is as long as you're not actually over there messing with that box, they
don't want to because again back to that, they have to have thirty to
forty pounds a honey a year, and so it takes a lot of bees
lives to make the honey that the hive needs to stay alive, so they're
not really out and looking to kill themselves. And the other thing is it
goes back to the bee species is where that's one of the things that we're
working with as bees is making them more and more docile. The comparison I
use is again, you know, a wolf and a dog, it's not
necessarily even though it's the same subspecies, it's not the same animal. And
so the bees, we don't want them to be aggressive. Not only do
we not want to work with aggressive bees, but also we don't want them
to kill each other. So we you know, we got to have a
bee staleive so well managed time is actually a good thing to have her.
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Well,
i'll tell you what. We're gonna go out now to Katie and we got
Tony with a question. Good morning, Tony. Welcome to garden Line.
Tony you got Are you there all right? Josh, I'm gonna put Tony
on hole. We'll see if we can get him back. I think we
lost him there for just a minute. Talking about bees, there's a lot
of fascinating aspects of bees, and we've talked about some of them this morning,
but I think you guys have a few of the bee fun facts that
people are always interested in hearing about, and I just want to kind of
open the open the floor to discussing some of those things that you have found
people especially interested in about bees. Well one of the things, I mean,
there's fun facts about bees, and we're gonna talk about those two.
But I want to talk about another thing that actually is important to us here
at the b Supply, and that is bees for veterans with PSD. The
government has known since the Civil War that the best treatment for military PSD is
working honey bees, and the government has been actively giving veterans beehives since the
Civil War. I was talking to a gentleman this weekend. I was working
a bee conference and he was and I made that statement. He said,
you know, I never knew that. And in three years I've been keeping
bees, my night tremors have went almost completely away. What they referred to
as be air, the air that comes out of the beehive is therapeutic for
people who are having lung disorders. And now then they're starting the medical industry
is looking into where those kind of things can be naturally healing for people.
Another thing I'm really excited about is is everybody knows about Manuka honey out of
Hawaii, and now then they have found a honey right outside of San Antonio
that's twice a'sdicinal, internal and external. Is Manuka honey? We get We
got to come back and talk to that. Well, we're going to take
a break here, but wow, I want to hear more about that.
That is that is amazing stuff. You're listening to garden Line if you'd like
to give us a call and talk to Kyle and Paul about bees. I
got a question, well seven one, three, two, one, two,
fifty eight and seventy four. We'll be right back. Welcome back to
Garden Line. We are glad you're listening today. Well, Ago, I
was just talking about the arbigate and the soils and things that they have out
there and how soil comes first. Well, I want to tell you something.
Airdim Soils of Texas out Importer Texas has a deal going on right now
on bulk soil that you don't want to miss out on. This is you
know, if you need to build a bed, maybe you're wanting to put
in a landscape bet or put in a garden bed, maybe buyable on them
Vego beds and fill it up with some good stuff they've got. The Veggie
and Herb soil is on fall special for one hundred and nineteen bulk or one
hundred and forty eight for the supersac. Now, the supersac is a cubic
yard in a sack they bring and set on your driveway. Yeah, it's
a big sack, a nice, neat and clean, easy way to get
in and out of it. Rose soil seventy dollars bulk are ninety nine dollars
for the supersac and both the Veggie and Herb mix and the rose soil.
Those two things will grow pretty much anything you want to grow. And when
you get the soil right, your plants naturally do better. When you just
get the best plant in the world and stick it down in unprepared soil around
here, it's going to struggle. So start with the soil. Heirloom Soilsoftexas
dot Com, Heirloomsoils of Texes dot Com. Give them a call. This
isn't gonna last forever, so make a quick call there. Let's get that
ordered to your place. So when you go back to your gardening for this
winter and spring, your plants are just going to hit the ground running.
Well, we're talking today with Kyle and also with Paul from Texas Texas Bee
Supply all kinds of things regarding bees. I want to go first to Gallison
and we're going to talk to Michael. I believe Michael. You have a
question, sure do kind of wondering if the Heidey comb itself is edible and
if it is to you can you eat it raw? Do you have to
pasteurize it? Yes, sir, it's one edible, especially if it's natural
bee comb. Now, one thing you do have to be mindful of when
you're eating bee comb, is it needs to be inside of a beehive.
You know, you see bee comb that's coming out of a house or whatever.
Bees wax and bees comb and all that is extremely absorbent and it will
absorb the chemicals that don't ever honey that comes out of a house, like
when bees invade the wall. Yeah, and what they call it cutout that
honey will absorb asbestos and a lot of other things. But just natural bees
wax. I chew it all the time out in the bee yard. Just
cut off a piece and put it in my mouth and chew it up.
It's wax, and so I don't normally swallow it, but sometimes I do,
but you can, Yes, sir, Wow, thanks a bunch,
Thank you, and have a good day. That's pretty yummy, I tell
you. When you get out there and you're chomping on some bee comb that's
got honey on it and stuff, that's about addictive right there. Yeah.
It's one of the main many benefits of being a beekeeper. You know,
when you're out there eating honey or working your bees, is just stiff your
your high tool in that warm honey and put it in your mouth. That's
an experience you like you can't normally imagine, and an experience you can have
out at the bee supply when you go out and visit and you learn about
all the things you guys are going to teach about there. We're going to
go now to Alvin and dock to Wayne. Hello Wayne, good morning,
Welcome to guarden Line. Good morning, Stiff. Hey, I got a
quick question. Got above ground pool and the neighbors got a beehive, sir,
will bee has two of them didn't make it. One of them has
and it's real aggressive. But my issue is getting a lot of bees in
the water of the pool. Is there some way that I can help them
to where they can without covering the whole thing, because that's pretty much impossible.
Is there some way I can put on the water to help them get
out? Well? One thing that you can do, you know, is
just float a piece of plywood on it. I mean, not a full
sheet. Just take a little small piece of plywood and float it out there,
and the wood will absorb the water up and they'll drink it. That's
one of those weird things about bees that we just can't help. Bees are
extremely attracted to swimming pools the higher the chlorine level of the bees are.
One of the weird things about bees is they won't hardly drink pure water.
Their first choice is high chlorine water. Then they're going to go to the
sewer water and creek water and I mean literally fresh tap water is their last
choice. And so whenever you do have a pool, the bees are going
to be in it. But like I said, that's the best way to
do is just float a little piece of wood arm. Give them something they
can land on and they won't have to actually hover the water and they can
actually light and then they can take back off. That's a great idea,
I know with beneficial some of the little tiny beneficial wasps that are helping us
fight pasts in the garden. We talk about in a little bird bath,
putting little pebbles in there so they can get right up to the edge of
the water without falling in and drowning. And that's kind of what you're talking
about there on. Yeah, that's what we do. And like we put
pebbles in chicken water so that the bees have access to water or food,
same basic thing. And then you can do the same thing you bird bath
fill, give the bees, rocks or something form the stand on. You
can also put a secondary water source out for the bees and they'll leave it
alone. Unfortunately, they your your bees are really want that water dirty,
and so then you're starting talking about mosquitos and everything else before that water is
dirty enough that the bees will actually drink it. Yeah. Sure, I'll
switched secondary out and they still. Uh I'm fishing out fifty sixty a day
and it just kills me. Uh So be supply with you talking one by
one two but two uh yeah, any of that, you know, just
whatever you have laying around and just just float some out there, big enough
car, just flip over in the water. But like you said, you
don't need to You don't need out there anything only the edge of the plywood
that they need. Yeah right, yeah, so just anything that will float,
Yes, sir, I've never seen them land upside down sunbathing on the
dry part of the flywood. They might do that, Wayne, Thanks for
the call. I appreciate that. Well, I want to talk. We
got just a couple of minutes left here. I want to talk about bees
and our health. I was telling you guys a story during break that one
of my daughters works with folks that are, you know, economically very disadvantaged,
and one of them had a dog that had gotten his neck really ripped
up and they couldn't afford the vet, and the vet said, just put
some honey on it and put a rag of gauze around there and wrap it
up. And it was amazing how that heals up with just the honey.
And would you talk a little bit about some of the beneficial aspects for our
health of honey. You mentioned the air coming out of a beehive, right,
and so, I mean, you know, we're talking about since biblical
times in the in the tombs of Egypt, they found honey and that was
the medicine back then. Honey is absolutely full of microbe and enzymes and all
the other things that your body needs. Naturally, I tell people when raising
bees, the more more probiotics you put in something less antibodies. You have
to put in something that's a good way to put it and be you know,
when you're talking about the natural superfood that is allergies, you know,
and if you got allergies, eat natural bee honey. I mean, it'll
take care of it. And now one thing about that is I won't get
on that soup, off on that soapbox. Skip. But make sure that
your honey is real honey. If you have honey and it won't crystallize,
it's not real honey. So make sure that you're buying real, legitimate,
unfiltered, raw and unfiltered honey, and then your your microbial levels will be
in there. Boy, I wish I had more time for this, but
you were telling me about Texas honey, the microbial levels being so much higher,
especially in parks of Texas like we live in and some that have been
discovered over in Santoni area, and the benefits of that, and that's even
sought after by companies. That's amazing. That's just amazing. Wow, Paul
Kyle, thank you so much for coming in today. We've been talking about
to these folks about from the Texas B Supply. You know, Texas B
Supply has all the things you need to get involved in the B industry and
that includes when I say industry, I'm talking about raising your own bees at
home if you'd like to give them a call. Eight hundred three five six
four two two nine one eight hundred three five six four two to nine.
Hey, it's a good Christmas gift for folks. It's a good thing for
you to get out and enjoy, so take advantage of it.