Plain Talk: Plastics in Beekeeping (306)

0:01 Honey Bee Obscura podcast listeners, it 's Jim. Back to chat here for a few minutes. I've had this on my mind off and on, and I feel like I need maybe a disclaimer up front I'm in a very relaxed, laid-back, sedate place in life. I don't look for controversy. I don't look for challenge all that much. I just want life to be pleasant and rewarding and I want to enjoy my bees. I'm skittish today a little bit because I want to talk about plastic beekeeping.

0:43 I'd like to speak first about my personal experiences in the pre-plastic days, when plastic components and beekeeping was rare. And over a, I don't know, a 10 to 15 year period, plastic became a common aspect of beekeeping in our beekeeping lives. So for the first half of our conversation today, I'd like to talk about that transition, about the changes that came along and try to discuss some of the realities of non-plastic beekeeping.

1:26 But it's been weighing on me more and more Concerning me more and more, as I only know the very rudimentary details about microplastics. and our food and then our environment and our water essentially everywhere. And of course I immediately wondered about honey. And once you open the box, you really can't put the lid back on it in life. And I open the box The last half of this segment, I was going to just have a conversational discussion of what little bit we know about microplastics and honey For the first time in three hundred and what?

2:12 Six or seven episodes. Oh listeners, this may not be all that much of a plain talk discussion because I really don't know what I'm talking about or whose toes. I'm stepping on. I'm Jim Tew and I come to you here at Honey Bee Obscura once a week where I normally want to talk about something to do with plain talk beekeeping. 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.

2:53 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 plans. Plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees. On one hand, it sounds like I'm about 160, 170 years old. I always mention the weather. The weather's fine right now. And somehow I always work in my age because I just wrote an article for Bee Culture. That the age of the beekeeper reflects the potentialities of that beekeeper. The younger and more healthy the beekeeper, the more anxious and able is the beekeeper to do heavy task works and take stains and heat.

3:46 And as you age, that becomes less and less. So I always mention the weather, and I usually mention my age, because both of those things affect what I'm doing with bees or what I'm not doing with bees. I go back long enough. Back to around 1971 or two. I mean I know there's up there's people out there who kept bees a lot longer than I. I'm not looking for a longevity award But there was nothing in beekeeping then but s wood, some sheet metal, a lot of glass, and uh then maybe cloth.

4:29 I used cloth canvas gloves. I used screened w metal screened wired veils that would rust when you perspired on them. I used modified painter outfit clothing that had been refitted as a beekeeping garment. There were no dedicated beekeeping garments. Indeed, many people just wore heavy clothes and improvised some kind of screen over their head and went out and kept bees. Smoker quality has improved, but it hasn't changed much after the improvements that we use now. But everywhere was wood , glass, and metal.

5:14 We immediately got into trouble, concerns, as we found out that you shouldn't be using lead-based solder and metal honey processing equipment. So some of that old equipment that was just built during the Industrial Revolution time, heavy duty steel, cast iron No nonsense stuff with clutches and gearing and exposed belts and the motor sitting on the floor beside the extractor driving that exposed belt Oh wow, listeners, we've come a long way. I've got some photographs of that to show the old ways, the old days, and I have no interest in going back to it.

6:01 I don't know when or how. I'm not trying to do the end all in-depth discussion and review here. I don't know when or how someone figured out that we were picking up too much lead. in our honey when we use lead-based solder to assemble beekeeping equipment. That came out. And now we've got nice spots steel welded stainless steel equipment. The mechanism has been lightened, but nonetheless durable We have good processing equipment today. Get ready for a spoiler alert. Indeed, some of that extracting equipment is plastic.

6:44 More about that later on. We use a lot of plastic now in the place of glass. And I go back so long So far ago that I was ecstatic when plastic, more and more, began to replace glass as the honey bee container of choice. All the plastic manufacturers did was copy the basic design of typical honey bottles, honey jars, and make them out of plastic Why would I have been so embrace of this technology?

7:26 Can you imagine what it's like? When a one-pound glass jar of honey hits a cement floor, you think, well, this is a problem. Because while you're trying to pick it up, there's glass shards contained in a thick, heavy honey syrup all over the place And it was common to try to clean that up and then go lay it outside and let the bees rob it, restore it, reclaim it, and put it back in the hive. As though somehow those poor insects would have the insight not to eat small glass particles, which would have been horrific to their digestive system It was a real mess.

8:17 And I would say just for the effects of drama, let there be a five-pound jar of honey that drops. How would you think that bottled honey in a cardboard box with cardboard separators, how often Do you think that honey jars cracked or broke when putting them on hand trucks, when getting away from you and dropping a case to the ground? Then you've got to immediately stop Take out those jars that are not broken and those jars that are not covered in honey. Separate the mess. Just go throw everything away.

8:59 Never minding what the bees are going to be doing in the dumpster you put that contaminated honey in. And then you've got these loose bottles that you've got to do something with if you didn't have another extra case there All of this is just normal common sense insight. Plastic containers are much more forgiving than glass containers. Now, for all of you people who are as old as I am, you remember the controversy that we faced. There were the glass beekeepers and there were the plastic beekeepers. And there were arguments at meetings, there were protestations and defensive parameters that this was getting away from classic beekeeping.

9:47 And we had the same argument as beehives began to become plastic in some instances. There were early plastic beehives as far back as the early nineteen seventies To some degree they were successful. Some components were successful, bottom boards and tops, for instance. But overall the hive bodies didn't work out. At the time, when plastic hives and hive bodies were becoming on the market, there was not really any plastic frames. or plastic foundation. And then some of the companies were able to make plastic reinforced foundation that didn't require intensive wiring.

10:32 And here goes the controversy. We've got to have more, you know, this plastic in our in our frames and in our foundation to help us get away from wiring. Well, to this day, right now. Some of you listening have no part of that stuff, and you go ahead and you wire frames just like we did in 1955, and it makes good traditional non-plasticized frames Every step of the way, we fought the changes, and every step of the way there was controversy, and there was those beekeepers who stayed with the old way. And there was those beekeepers who embraced the new way.

11:15 I need to talk about the cans for a minute. The the 60-pound storage cans. They were about 30 inches high. They were probably about a foot square, and they had a three-inch mouth on the top, and that was all. And the B Supply Company's manufactured honey gates that let you lay that container on its side and then let honey run from the open gate into the jar. So you really didn't have to have a felt of a bottling tank if you had the honey filtered when you put it in the can. It was a difficult can to clean. You only had a three inch opening.

11:58 If you were really sophisticated, you probably had hot water and that would help clean it out. You couldn't scoop honey out. once it granulated, you had to reheat the cans. Those of you in really warm climates, like parts of Southern California and Arizona, there were wooden racks that sat outside, covered by a cage. And crystallized honey in 60-pound tins would be turned upside down on those racks, and then as the sun heated it, it would run out and be collected in a fresh bucket somewhere or for fresh container that may or may not have been plastic.

12:40 Those 60-pound tins had small handles on top that would just really wreak havoc on your hands once you carried 60-pound tins all day And as though I'm just trying to list everything wrong with them, they also were hard to stack. Boom. I don't remember when or where that someone said, you know, this five-gallon plastic bucket with the lid on top. would really be an improvement. Better handle, bigger, big massive opening. The entire top would open. So you could strain, you could do more, you had a lot more flexibility with a five-gallon can.

13:24 So I don't know any beekeeper today who doesn't have plastic five-gallon buckets all around them because they are so useful for collecting cappings for mixing cleaning solutions, water and soap. They're easier to clean out What? Everything about them just seems to be perfect compared to those old cans. And I've talked about this before, and I can easily get off the subject. Just talking to you, just you, and nobody else, honey can be kind of hard to eat I mean, every time I eat honey at breakfast on some pancakes, invariably I get it on my fingers or on the table.

14:11 Try as I might, and I've tried every pouring device, every device I know of. To have a neat, clean, pouring device. I haven't found the perfect thing. The bottom line was that honey was easier to manipulate and to handle and generalized plastic equipment. Over time, we have really gone that way in every regard Even now, we primarily use plastic queen cell cups. In my earliest days, you made your cups out of molten beeswax. with a d a probe or a dial of dowel D O W E L L L D O W E L a dowel rod.

15:00 And you would make your queen cell cups from that, and in general the bees accepted it better. But you had to spend a lot of time making a cup at the time. I won't go into the procedure. And it was so much easier to open a box of plastic cell cups and just skip that whole cell dipping phase. It eroded listeners. I'm trying to tell you that in my perspective, things changed incrementally in every way, right down now frequently to having plastic zippers on our beekeeping suits. And who wants those metal screens back instead of the vinyl s uh plastic that's in the veil facing now?

15:47 And those plasticized suits that are breathable, everything about them is more comfortable Increasingly, we have nicely manufactured plastic beekeeping equipment, and I to anyone making it, selling it, using it. I offer no basis of complaint. It's just where we are now. That is a conversational overview. of the fifteen to twenty years I would guess that plastic basically became a fundamental component in every aspect of our beekeeping lives.

16:28 It's a very useful product. It's increased our efficiency and productivity probably immeasurably It's here to stay. So why are we having this discussion? Because now there is this issue that may not be a big issue. It may be an issue. I can't tell that science has a definitive answer right now. And that's microplastics in our environment. Should I go down this path or not? I don't know. Let's take a break while I give myself a chance to decide.

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17:58 Better Bee, your partners in Better Be Keeping. I don't know when I first heard about microplastics being an issue. As have you. I've seen all those plastic floating garbage dumps on the ocean. And I've seen the various ways that that ships and creators and inventors try to make screens and catches that can bring in or bring this plastic in and get this tons of stuff out of the ocean. It's everywhere. And I'd never thought about it. The plastic and our landfills. We think, well, it 'll take years, but it'll finally erode and go away Well in reality, a little bit of like sewage, it doesn't really go away.

18:47 It just goes somewhere else in a different form. But at the molecular level and at the at the really small micron level, it's still there. Listeners and producers and anyone else, this is just a conversation. I read the same stuff that you people read. And I don't know where all this is going Simply put, is microplastics and honey? And the simple answer at some level, yes, it is. How could it not be? There's been studies, interestingly, from different countries, uh Brazil, Egypt.

19:31 Got some I actually have some notes here because this was concerning to me. Turkey that has done work on this and has found that microplastics are in honey. Well what the how does that happen? Well since microplastics are so small they can be in air and dust. That settles on the flowers and when bees forage they pick up nectar in the field that already has microplastics in it. The bees themselves, of course, ingest that while they're foraging, and then they transfer some of these particles back into the nectar and the hive that's later converted into honey And then some of the other ways this early research has come up with is that, yes, plastic does turn up and and honey that's been processed by beekeepers.

20:28 The plastic containers, plastic equipment, airborne fibers. All of this kind of offers the opportunity for plastic particles to enter our honey crop I want to say at this point, it's not just honey. I mean, it's in my water. It's I don't I don't know what it means. But it's time, science is is not clear on the severity of it and if this should be something that we really go to the mat on, which ironically that mat would be made out of plastic and really make changes or if our systems are able to handle it or if there's ways to get plastic out of our food products, out of our animal feed products, and anywhere else That we don't want it.

21:20 I rarely give numbers, but in Turkey, in 2024, 75 % of the 32 honey samples that were tested Contain plastics, about 314 particles per kilogram. In Italy, all 29 samples. Work tested, contain microplastics, averaging about 62 particles per kilogram. In Egypt, it was just about the same. I don't know why these countries have had an interest in it, but it's helpful. There's almost no information for most countries in Africa about this kind of thing.

22:01 I don't know how to conf to keep going with this. I don't know. I'm concerned about honey. I'm concerned about bees. I'm concerned about beekeepers. But I don't know if I should be concerned or the level of concern I have if there is an issue here. That's why I put down a qualifier when I began this, that Maybe this was a dark rabbit hole that I shouldn't go down, but if it's an issue, do I just avoid it or do you and I talk about it? But the main thing I don't want to do is to start some kind of hysteria among our listening group about the quality of our honey, because it's not just our honey, it's the quality of our life if it is an issue.

22:45 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says current scientific evidence does not demonstrate that the levels of microplastics detected in foods pose a human risk. The scientists are still investigating how particle size, polymer type, exposure levels, and long-term consumption might affect the health of humans and livestock. Honey appears to be one of the possible dietary exposure sources rather than anti-establishment major sources. So can you choose An article? Can you choose a pathway that doesn't have microplastics?

23:30 There isn't enough evidence to say that one honey is consistently safer than another organic, raw, local, glass jar honey, none of these are guaranteed to be microplastic fruit. Isn't that an oddity? So if all of a sudden we we decided that this plastic container thing is serious enough and we go back, the honey is still going to have some microplastics in it. Because of the environmental concerns that are out there and the environmental sources for microplastics. You can choose reputable honey producers with good handling and processing practices. You can store honey in clean and tightly sealed glass jars if that's convenient, and that will help some.

24:16 And uh just assume that it's going to be in nearly any honey you eat, no matter what its classification is, raw, organic, filtered, unfiltered. It's in our honey, listeners, and I don't know what it means. It's in our food, listeners, and I don't know what it means. It's in some of our water. It's in our air. I don't know what it means But out of all of the spectrum of uncertainty, as usual, honey has not been omitted. And the reason for it is that honey is an excellent environmental indicator. Since bees forage over such a wide area, it gives researchers not really concerned about honey or bees.

24:58 but concerned about the spread and the amount of these microplastics, frequently use bees and honey. As a bioindicator for what's going on. I am not trying to be the end-all answer. I am not trying to cause concern or issue. I'm just trying to discuss. With myself and with you, a topic that keeps turning up in the literature, in my searches, and in the news, not just honey But in general, but every time it turns up that these particles have been found in, I don't know, pet food or wherever, my first thought is always, well, I hope that doesn't affect honey in the same way This at this point, with science that we have, the knowledge that we have, With the fact that there has not been any indication that I know of of mass plastic toxicity being reported in hospitals.

26:05 I hope that this is something that can be resolved. Maybe filters can be improved. I d I don't know what can be done. Maybe plastic polymer configuration can be changed so that it I don't know. I don't the cut the chemistry is too complex for me. The issue is too complex for me. I just know that it's there. Listeners, I really hope that I'm not going to be disappointed, threatened, frightened. That I took on a subject that weighs on me, but I don't know how much it weighs on me, and I don't know what to do with the concern, if indeed I should even have concerns.

26:50 I just brought the topic up. Did I weasel word everything enough? Give me a chance, and next week I'll talk about something more routine, something more plain talk, and I'll stay away from the new stuff. I'm not trying to be an innovator. That brings you the latest, greatest breaking news. I want someone who's still working in the scientific industry who's capable to do that, to be the one who brings us that news. I'm just talking to you. conversational format. Until next week, I'm Jim telling you bye.