March 19, 2026

Plain Talk: Old Hives, New Bees (275)

Plain Talk: Old Hives, New Bees (275)
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What does it really mean to put new bees into old equipment—and what does that decision say about how we keep bees? In this episode of Honey Bee Obscura, Dr. Jim Tew takes a broader, more reflective look at a common springtime practice.

Using the simple scenario of installing new bees into old hives, Jim explores the practical, experiential, and sometimes philosophical aspects of beekeeping. While equipment reuse is part of the discussion, the deeper focus is on how beekeepers make decisions—often balancing thrift, convenience, experience, and risk.

Jim reflects on the realities of older equipment, including wear, unknown history, and potential lingering issues, but he avoids prescribing rigid rules. Instead, he emphasizes that beekeeping decisions are rarely absolute. What works for one beekeeper—or one season—may not work the same way under different conditions.

This Plain Talk episode highlights how experience shapes judgment over time. New beekeepers may look for clear right-or-wrong answers, while more experienced beekeepers learn to weigh trade-offs and accept uncertainty as part of the craft.

At its core, this discussion is less about woodenware and more about mindset—how beekeepers approach their colonies, make decisions, and gradually develop confidence through observation and experience.

______________________

Thanks to Betterbee for sponsoring today's episode. Betterbee’s mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com

______________________

Honey Bee Obscura is brought to you by Growing Planet Media, LLC, the home of Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Music: Heart & Soul by Gyom, All We Know by Midway Music; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; original guitar music by Jeffrey Ott

Cartoons by: John Martin (Beezwax Comics)

Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC

WEBVTT

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Listen, I'm getting a hat.

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Got it on.

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It's a gem here.

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Want us to walk back to the bee yard.

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As is become some bizarre thing I do.

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Since the weather affects everything.

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We had a horrific wind yesterday.

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I'm walking through tree limbs, branches.

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Horrific.

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I mean across Ohio there's people without power and

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American Electric Power sending out notices to be patient that they got 2,700 people working around the clock

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They know you want your power back.

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So let's go back and see if I've got beehives blowing all over the world

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And then I may discuss some harebrain ideas with you.

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Listeners, I'm Jim Tew.

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I come to you here once a week at Honeybee Obscura, where I always try to talk about something you do with.

00:01:08.740 --> 00:01:11.220
Just plain talk beekeeping.

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Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast.

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Join Jim Tew, your guide

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Through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees.

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Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees.

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Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper,

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are just getting started.

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Get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honeybees.

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By now you all know the barn or the shed, whatever it is.

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Gotta get this tractor serviced.

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It's been over a year.

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Okay, hold your breath.

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The two package colonies are up.

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It's just about too cold to fly.

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Well listeners, everything is okay except one top is blowing off

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I had a brick on it.

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That didn't matter.

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There's bees looking at me.

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I suspect they want their top back

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Go.

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It's wet and heavy.

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Put the brick back on it.

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That is really minimal damage.

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There's a tall colony here that leans like the Tower of Pisa.

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But it was leaning into the wind.

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I hope that helped

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So good good I had come back here expecting or accepting the possibility that I would have bees sprawled everywhere and

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Weather is not good today.

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They can just barely fly, but I bet you there's nothing in bloom.

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It's about 42 degrees.

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So good job.

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I lucked out.

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Got some trees right next to my house

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My daughter called me and told me to go sit in the basement, but kinda turned into a philosopher and I thought, well, if it's time, it's time.

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I'm not gonna sit in the basement for how long?

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Hours.

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So the trees took it.

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Well tell your story.

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I've already told you before, no doubt, because this story had a profound effect on me

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Many, many, many years ago, I had an international B program at Ohio State.

00:04:02.220 --> 00:04:05.260
And at the time, it was it was really enjoyable.

00:04:05.260 --> 00:04:07.500
I'd got to travel all over.

00:04:07.500 --> 00:04:12.780
I went to Myanmar and to Indonesia and China.

00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:20.800
Thailand, I really saw a lot of bees, a lot of different places, and a lot of different beekeepers.

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And then as as time passed,

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Those people, some of those students would come and matriculate in my program.

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So you know they had their own style of beekeeping.

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So in many instances

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I would get them and provide the equipment and we would build beehives.

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That were like what they used.

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I'm going back in the shop.

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It's cool out here and sound like I just got one long trying to walk and talk to you.

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So we set up this yard.

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A brand new yard.

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Way outside of town on the back of one of the university's cornfield plots.

00:05:05.900 --> 00:05:10.539
And at the time it was not just top bar hives.

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This is so long ago they were known as Kenya top bar hives.

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And that'd be a full segment to go into that, so I'm not going to do it.

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And we put those Kenya hives up and we put them just like the just like the Kenyans did.

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We had them suspended with with uh on each corner with a cable

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that attached to two post, one on either end of the top bar hive, so that the hive was hanging on cables.

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Would gently sway in the wind.

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We had a botswana long hive.

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We had this thing I called a pod hive.

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It's a huge hive.

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The frames must have been 24 inches deep from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

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We just had all these things out there.

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We had some very, very early expanded polystyrene.

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And

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Just because it would kind of seem to fit in, we put eight-frame equipment out there that had four four eight-frame deeps, bottom board and the top.

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That was it.

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Everything had bees in it.

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And we would take international students out.

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We would take visitors out and let them look at this menagerie of hives and different styles and designs.

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And you know how life is, it never stands still.

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We we were getting funding from USAID and from other agencies like that to maintain this program, and bit by bit, people to people and

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The Heifer Project and all these things that were providing funding for us began to get weaker and weaker funded.

00:06:52.380 --> 00:06:57.660
And I gotta tell you the truth, right about then, Africanized bees really became all the rage.

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And Varroa Mites was killing everything in sight.

00:07:01.200 --> 00:07:04.560
So the funding dried up, the international program dried up.

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At some point I asked my technician to go out to that yard and break it down.

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And he said he did.

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And I believed him, but those all those bizarre hives, you know, there's just no reason to really maintain them just for

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the occasional tourist now.

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They required extra work and unique work.

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And we didn't destroy them.

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We stored them in the in the barn.

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That subsequently blew away, and with that tornado that blew the barn away, all those unique uniquely designed hives were destroyed too.

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But here's the story.

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Because it was an eight-frame standard hive, he left that one there.

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And I remember telling you this early on.

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I'm sorry to repeat it, but I'm trying to get somewhere by retelling this

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And when I would drive down the highway, I'd look across that cornfield, back into the edge of that forest.

00:08:02.640 --> 00:08:06.960
And when the win when the winter leaves had gone, had dropped

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From about a thousand yards away, maybe maybe fifteen hundred yards, I could just barely see into the trees, and I thought, that looks like a beehive.

00:08:16.080 --> 00:08:19.600
And listeners, this was five, six years later.

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So the summers would come, summers would go, another year or two passed, and it was winter again, you drive by and you think that really looks like a beehive back there.

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But that yard has been closed down for years and that program shut down.

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And so one day I locked in the front hubs on that old four-wheel drive truck I had, went down the farm path.

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Made the short turn and went back to that cot to that location.

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And it was the land that time forgot.

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There were the post, there were the hive stands.

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Hives were all gone except

00:08:51.579 --> 00:08:56.699
For that fourth deep eight frame colony.

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The top was 80, don't exaggerate, the top was 60% rotted away.

00:09:03.500 --> 00:09:08.940
and the bees had filled in that rotted space with propolis.

00:09:08.940 --> 00:09:16.459
The bottom board and the landing board had essentially was ninety nine percent rotted away, and the pive was just sitting

00:09:16.640 --> 00:09:20.000
on two railroad tumbers that we were using.

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And it was full of bees and had been there by itself.

00:09:25.640 --> 00:09:30.360
for around all total probably 10 to 12 years.

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Nothing ever done to it, nothing whatsoever.

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It had never been treated for mites.

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I'm sure it had mites, but it never been treated, never been re-queened, nothing.

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It just sat there rotting away.

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And I I want to tell you that the equipment

00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:52.180
The boxes were oddly okay.

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Now I don't know if you know how long bees can maintain the outside of wood, but they definitely kept the inside.

00:09:59.620 --> 00:10:00.660
under control.

00:10:00.660 --> 00:10:02.580
It was a motley hive.

00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:09.700
If I can find the pictures and Jeff can be patient with me, I'll try to put up a picture of this thing.

00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:11.680
Here's what I'm trying to get to.

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I ask you, in my articles that I write, what should I do with this colony?

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Should I put it in new equipment and refurbish this thing?

00:10:25.180 --> 00:10:30.300
It had taken care of itself, let's just say 10 years to keep from exaggerating too much.

00:10:30.520 --> 00:10:36.840
It had taken care of itself for ten years and had seemingly been doing a good job of it.

00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:43.560
And I was really surprised that most of the r of the well by far, most of the readers

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Wrote back and said, Leave it alone.

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That that hive was the master of its fate and it was the captain of its soul.

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It deserved its independence and it free and its freedom

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I mean, nine people out of ten, ninety percent, said leave it alone.

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So I did.

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I didn't do anything to it.

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I left it just like I'd found it, and then for the next year or two I'd drive up and down.

00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:16.920
And I'd look over there at that hive and see it sitting there and know that it was still hanging on.

00:11:16.920 --> 00:11:18.520
So how does the story end?

00:11:18.520 --> 00:11:22.920
Let's just take a break, and when we come back, I'll tell you all about it

00:11:23.660 --> 00:11:32.459
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00:11:32.339 --> 00:11:42.740
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00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:44.980
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00:11:45.160 --> 00:11:49.400
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00:11:49.400 --> 00:11:59.800
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00:12:00.020 --> 00:12:01.940
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00:12:01.940 --> 00:12:08.580
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00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:12.580
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00:12:12.760 --> 00:12:25.320
Uh maybe two to three years later, I decided I'd go check on that unit again, and I'd noticed that it was not as visible as it used to be, but maybe the forest has changed over the decades

00:12:25.820 --> 00:12:36.460
So maybe three years later, it's been about 13 years now, I drove down there and the colony was was still alive.

00:12:36.680 --> 00:12:46.280
A sh straight wind had come through and ripped up a big maple tree, and when the tree went up, the root system flipped up that hive and laid it on its back.

00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:49.040
But it was still alive.

00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:56.720
I mean the bees were just, you know, bizarrely in a difficult situation with their comb orientation all the wrong way.

00:12:56.720 --> 00:12:58.240
So without thinking

00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:10.440
I set the hive back up and just a short distance away on the same timbers, and as I'm inclined to do, I wrote about it and I was admonished.

00:13:10.760 --> 00:13:13.320
I had bothered that hive's fate.

00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:17.000
I had stepped into its destiny.

00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:23.320
But at the time, it's like, you know, putting an animal out of its misery or trying to help a bird with a broken wing

00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:25.700
I did it almost spontaneously.

00:13:25.700 --> 00:13:28.660
The high was not in great shape.

00:13:28.660 --> 00:13:34.339
And when I went back later, uh, this time it was just a few months.

00:13:34.420 --> 00:13:36.019
It was dead.

00:13:36.019 --> 00:13:46.819
So in keeping with the program and the protocol that I've been following, those four deeps are still out there, and the last time I went, they had collapsed

00:13:47.020 --> 00:13:50.220
into a heap and were rotting away.

00:13:50.220 --> 00:13:54.300
So that's where the story ends.

00:13:54.300 --> 00:13:54.860
Hmm

00:13:55.880 --> 00:13:57.640
Kinda now for now.

00:13:57.640 --> 00:13:59.560
Why did I put you through all this?

00:13:59.560 --> 00:14:07.080
Well, I don't want to keep bringing it up, but it was such a profound effect on my life, on what I just went through with my wife.

00:14:07.180 --> 00:14:13.020
and the f the sabbatical that I had to take during her illness years.

00:14:13.020 --> 00:14:19.580
And I've told you time and again that I just went back to those seven or eight hives in my backyard and said, you guys are on your own

00:14:19.900 --> 00:14:25.420
I'll come back and talk to you periodically, but I'm doing it just from my mental sanity.

00:14:25.420 --> 00:14:30.220
But I'm not gonna be opening colony, smoking, control control, requeaning.

00:14:30.220 --> 00:14:31.180
I I thought they'd die.

00:14:31.180 --> 00:14:33.100
I thought they'd die the first year

00:14:33.520 --> 00:14:35.920
Now, listeners, don't try this at home.

00:14:35.920 --> 00:14:38.400
This is not proper beekeeping.

00:14:38.400 --> 00:14:45.040
It's not even logical beekeeping, but I was in an illogical place.

00:14:45.040 --> 00:14:48.160
But for four years.

00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:51.920
For long years, those colonies managed themselves.

00:14:51.920 --> 00:14:55.120
I'm just going to ask you this time.

00:14:55.620 --> 00:15:08.820
Should I go back and work on those colonies, or have those colonies essentially because of my lack of attention, have they been freed from my maintenance?

00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:17.519
You see where I'm trying to get to with this question, I've ordered five packages and I was considering trying to find the different yard.

00:15:17.980 --> 00:15:26.620
and put those packages up because I don't know if those bees have set up some kind of protocol, some kind of natural resistance or s whatever

00:15:26.820 --> 00:15:34.740
I'm kind of comfortable saying with not a shred of science, and I've said this in other podcasts, that I bet you

00:15:35.500 --> 00:15:41.339
That the bees are more traumatized by us opening the colony than we realize.

00:15:41.339 --> 00:15:47.660
But others could say, Jim, that is highly anthropomorphic and you're just getting all carried away.

00:15:47.920 --> 00:15:53.519
So who's to know right now how you measure the mood and the response of what's going on?

00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:57.440
But I was actually considering just an observation.

00:15:57.620 --> 00:16:03.700
If see if I put the packages in the same yard, then I bring in outside genetic material.

00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:05.540
And I I don't know what they've done.

00:16:05.620 --> 00:16:12.260
Listeners, maybe they've done absolutely nothing, or maybe they have suited themselves.

00:16:12.360 --> 00:16:20.839
In ways unknown to me that's helped them stay alive during times when I really thought they would be hammered dead.

00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:22.880
I need to insert a caveat here now.

00:16:22.880 --> 00:16:25.520
I'm not suggesting anybody try this.

00:16:25.520 --> 00:16:34.160
And I'm not suggesting abandoning your beehives as being a traditional standard way of living with bees.

00:16:33.400 --> 00:16:42.760
But I am intrigued and I do have a unique situation where I've got six colonies that have not been opened by anybody else in about four years.

00:16:42.760 --> 00:16:46.600
Well, you know, I'm close to five years now

00:16:47.279 --> 00:16:52.160
So I need to add a year to that because time has been passing while I was telling this story.

00:16:52.160 --> 00:17:01.760
So I'm considering trying to find a separate yard and s and absolutely I really want to set up an observation hive.

00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:07.920
And I want that to meet most of my needs and my concerns for my beef fixes and whatever.

00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.240
And I guess I wouldn't mind if you write and tell me.

00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:13.680
Should I should I get off my pity party horse and

00:17:14.679 --> 00:17:23.720
Start working bees again or is this a situation where I was just absolutely lucky and the bees were lucky for not dying?

00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:26.600
I don't think I found some miracle cure

00:17:27.380 --> 00:17:29.300
for anything.

00:17:29.300 --> 00:17:36.260
But it's just a strange situation because of the the the position that my w life went into

00:17:37.300 --> 00:17:45.860
So I'll put you through that whole first story about that abandoned beehive and how it too didn't die, even with Varroa present.

00:17:45.860 --> 00:17:48.820
Now why don't you write me and tell me, hey Jim.

00:17:48.600 --> 00:17:59.640
That may have been the f the eighth swarm in that equipment, and that would be a valid statement that maybe the colony routinely died, and maybe swarms just refilled it.

00:17:59.720 --> 00:18:01.720
So maybe it was not the same bees.

00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:05.080
I've told farmers time and time again who said, yep, yep.

00:18:05.080 --> 00:18:08.440
There's been bees in that tree back there for 40 years.

00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:11.160
Well, it's not the same colony.

00:18:10.940 --> 00:18:20.059
They would be gone for a while and then the the system would work and the wax moths would do their thing and the squirrels would move out and the bees would move back in.

00:18:20.059 --> 00:18:22.380
So maybe that's all that happened.

00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:35.520
And I do I do need to tell you, for perfect clarity, that two of those colonies did die and they they were replaced with swarms.

00:18:35.540 --> 00:18:44.020
So when I told you this story before, I remember saying that maybe by having swarms that and those colonies swarming

00:18:44.519 --> 00:18:46.840
Maybe that knock the mites down.

00:18:46.840 --> 00:18:47.880
Maybe, maybe, maybe.

00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:49.159
What if, what if, what if?

00:18:49.159 --> 00:18:51.799
I'm just guessing like crazy here because

00:18:52.519 --> 00:18:54.440
This is a strange situation.

00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:56.760
I'm thinking about it.

00:18:56.760 --> 00:19:04.039
If you r if you mob me with or have you lost your mind kind of responses, I'll probably slap myself on both cheeks and

00:19:04.419 --> 00:19:05.940
Put the colonies back there.

00:19:05.940 --> 00:19:07.700
I don't know what I'm gonna do.

00:19:07.700 --> 00:19:08.820
I'm just playing.

00:19:08.820 --> 00:19:12.260
I'm at a point in my beekeeping life where I'm curious

00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:23.040
As I've always been about bee behavior and bee biology, but I am seriously opposed to any heavy work and stern responsibility.

00:19:23.780 --> 00:19:29.780
I like to be laid back and just be an old man having a nice time.

00:19:29.780 --> 00:19:33.460
If you're so inclined, let me know what you think.

00:19:33.360 --> 00:19:35.200
I don't yet know what I'm going to do.

00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.519
I can still cancel the packages.

00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:39.760
That one colony needs to be straightened up.

00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:41.519
It is going to fall over.

00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:43.600
So it it needs to be leveled out.

00:19:43.600 --> 00:19:46.639
It's on a a plastic hive stand.

00:19:46.639 --> 00:19:48.159
I gotta stop talking.

00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:49.880
I I enjoy talking to you.

00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:50.519
I really do.

00:19:50.519 --> 00:19:54.679
I enjoy talking to you, and I really deeply appreciate you listening.

00:19:54.679 --> 00:19:57.799
Thanks so much, and I'll talk to you again next week.

00:19:57.799 --> 00:19:59.000
Bye-bye.