Plain Talk: A Cold Bee Yard (269)

Episode 269 – Plain Talk: A Cold Bee Yard

Dr. Jim Tew: Podcast listeners, we're going to do this. Let's just get our mind right. We're going to do it. This is the ultimate weather discussion. I've told you time and time again. I don't know why I always start with the weather, I guess it's in my blood, anytime my brothers call me, "What's the temperature there?" My mother and dad, when I still had them. I guess it's just the remnants of that. I'm trying to get back to the bee yard. I haven't been back here in weeks. I'm covered up.

When you do these plain talk things, you want to be upbeat and you want to say the right thing that keeps people cheerful and bright. This is not cheerful and bright. Should this be plain talk beekeeping or should this be realistic beekeeping? I can barely walk. In fact, if I fall, some of you people come get me. I don't know if I can get the barn door open. There's about 14 inches of snow. It's about 6 degrees. Listeners, here in Ohio, northeast Ohio, it got down to 16 degrees below zero just before daylight this morning. I got to catch my breath. It has really been cold. Listeners, I'm Jim Tew. I come to you here once a week at Honey Bee Obscura where I try to talk about something off the cuff that has some relationship. The plain talk beekeeping. Today, we're going to go look at what has to be a dead bee yard.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today Podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.

Jim: All right. I'm on the move again. It's about a 70-yard walk. Deer tracks and rabbit tracks and the snow. I'm back to the barn. It's not a big barn. I call it a barn. It looks like a barn, but it's not very big. Here's a tractor that hasn't been started since October. Here's some bee supplies that have fallen off a shelf. Walking by the log splitter. I haven't used in four years. One needs some kind of a brush. I'm taking a bee brush. I'm stepping out in the snow.

I'm thinking, listeners, this is just-- What can I say right now? What can I say? You got to have bad days so you'll know what a good day feels like. This can only be a bad day or a bad season. I'm sure that there's two more colonies that are dead here. Ironically, there's a few bees in the snow. This entrance is snowed-closed. I'll open it up. They just have to be dead. They just have to be dead. There's just no getting around it. This has been brutally, single digits, below single digits for two weeks.

I just have to say this has to be, this can only be a bee yard cemetery and that these hives represent tombstones. That's kind of macabre, isn't it? I got some dead bees in front of every one of the colonies except for the expanded polystyrene box, the finished bee hive. There's none of that. These bees, I'm not going to do anything to them. There's nothing to do. There's nothing that I can do. The entrances are reduced and iced closed. I don't know how to be positive if you're a beekeeper.

I have stood before audiences, nice lights dimmed, PowerPoint program running, Jim Tew in front of a group of people saying authoritative things. I boldly said that the USDA years ago said that honeybee colonies can withstand 80 degrees below zero for days and days so long as they have access to honey. We would all sit there in the room taking notes and making mental images of bees, that cold and how tough and how ingenious they were. Then when you get down here to just, what can I say now, just 16 degrees below zero, and you see what it really feels like, and you see bees that were not ready for this.

I've been sitting inside where it's warm. Thankfully, my power has not gone off in all the weeks of this and the snow coming down. I'm thinking that the temperatures I'm discussing right now would not be a huge deal to the Upper Midwest and to most of Canada, to Alaska. How do I defend the fact that it's a huge deal here in Northeast Ohio? I think it's because it's out of my normal range for temperatures here. Yes, we get three inches of snow, and yes, we get 12 degrees, and then yes, it's back up to 38 and 41. It all turns to mud, and we complain, and then the mud freezes, and then we get through winter, and then spring is here.

This straight week of this sub vortex weather is too far outside of my temperature range. If you look at that idea that's just mine, it's nothing about it is scientific or technical, and you've just moved south, you get to Tennessee where my brother is in Franklin, Tennessee. Well, at 18 degrees, 12 degrees, they're worried about pipes bursting because their house sits on pylons off the ground. You get on down to the Florida line where my other brother lives. 22 degrees is almost enough to close the schools because it's outside of their range.

You go on down into the panhandle of Florida, and I think about you, Becca, I bet you're listening. Becca's out bringing in small hives, putting them in observation hives, trying to baby these things through what would be almost shirt sleeve weather in Minnesota is emergency weather in the panhandle of Florida. Why am I giving you this lecture? Because standing here in the bee yard in early February, it'll be February next week, how am I going to recover from this? Because I am going to recover.

If every one of these colonies is dead and the other colonies in the other yards are all dead, I'm going to have bees. While we take a short stop for a break, think about this. I'm on a fixed income. It used to be I'd just whimsically go buy bees on my university budget program or buy them myself because I had income coming in, but now everything is fixed and locked in. Deciding how many packages to order is not as simple. Let's hear from our sponsors while I think about this.

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Jim: I'm not getting out stethoscopes. I'm not touching these hives if they are alive. I don't want to do anything to them that puts any more pressure on them than the pressure they're under already. I'm just going to stand here. I'm not touching. I'm not looking. I'm not doing anything. Even to this one colleague, of course, is having to lean to one side like it wants to fall back over. That would be great, but I'm not touching it. It has to stay up.

You see, it puts me under the stress that some of you are going to be under. How many packages are you going to buy? You need to be ordering them while you can get them. Then it's back to the age-old question, do you want to pay 20% more and get splits, clean right splits? Here I am, 8 degrees above zero, standing in a bee yard in 14 inches of snow, around hives. Two that I think may be dead already. The others, I don't know. I don't see how they could survive this.

I didn't take any honey off. Whatever honey they made, they kept it. I didn't bother them. I didn't take any honey off at all. What I would probably do is what, Jim? Now you boldly put that out there, how are you going to answer it? What would I probably do? I would probably call my package supplier and find out what the dates and what the prices are and what the availability is and check that in comparison to splits. I want 5 to 10 hives, I'll just tell you.

I know to a lot of you that's embarrassingly small. Please know that I've had many, many, many more hives than that. Where I am in life right now, philosophically and otherwise, I just don't justify that many. I'd probably like to have 5 to 10 hives this season. I'd like to be a beekeeper again. I'm not going back into all my sorted history. Most of you know it. If you don't know it, ask somebody else. I've had some bad years, but I'm through that now more or less.

I want to get back to being a beekeeper and doing things more correctly. What would I have done differently? I would have had these colonies, I would have had some of the supers off. This one's got too many supers on it, but they're full of honey. I didn't take any honey off. I would have explored insulation more. I think that insulation is more important. I would have probably put on some of those insulated covers that I've got, but I don't want to touch them now. I would have had better control over the mite situation.

If anybody could have good control over the mite situation, I would have tried more of that. Maybe I would have done all that and the damn things would have still died. You never know, do you? You just never know when you're doing something right and when you're doing something wrong. I guess I'd probably get five packages and maybe two splits. That's going to be a fair amount of money for me. I bought some new frames. I was going to try to phase out some of the old frames and old combs.

There's just no way to make what I'm feeling be bright and cheerful. I suspect that some of you are in a similar situation. Why do we keep doing this? Because when the days are good, when the bees are good, when the weather is nice, when I am at one with my universe, it's an addictive feeling that I love. I don't fish anymore. I don't hunt anymore. I don't water ski anymore. I don't hike anymore. I don't do a lot of things I used to do for enjoyment.

What I do now, in my old age, is tinker with bees and talk with you about bees. I don't know if I'm a plain talk beekeeper, if I'm a philosophical beekeeper, or if I'm a terrible beekeeper, or if I'm just an old man who's trying to find his way in life, what's left of it. Got all this mess here. There's some frames on the ground. It all needs to be cleaned up. I should record carefully what I do and put it out there on the web for what things that no other beekeeper should ever do, ever.

Help me as much as I can. I do enjoy it. I stand here looking at these beehives, and I see seasons past. I see truckloads of bees lashed down. I see queen nukes. I see all the good times of my life, and then I know that there's been dead bees, and I know you have to clean up winter kills. You got to clean those fish when you bring them home. That was never wildly enjoyable. You got to go harvest all those beans you grew in the garden. There's always some work related to even our enjoyable pursuits.

I just thought I'd come back here and tell you that this is going to be-- if it's not a bad year, I will just be amazed that every colony in this yard is not going to die. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. There's 10 colonies here, and then there's about 10 more in other yards that are too hard to get to. I don't have my timer running. I don't know how long I've pontificated here. I think rather than letting you have to hear me sound like I've got one long getting back to the shop, I'm just going to close down here.

Those of you who sent me pictures at the North American Honey Bee Expo where we were shaking hands and hugging necks, I enjoyed that. I felt good at that exhibit. I was bright and cheerful, and the weather was warm, and I was walking. I didn't know I had all this to get through. I've enjoyed looking at those pictures and reminiscing. The barn's closed up. I'm going to make the trip back. This may be a short one. It may be a long one. I've lost track of time. I'll talk to you next week. Boy, I really appreciate you letting me ramble on and on. Either way, we're not quitting. No matter what happens back there, we're not quitting. Until next week, I'm Jim telling you bye.

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