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MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello and welcome back to Free Speech with CR. I'm Molly Blakemore, and today we're having more of a fun conversation about beekeeping. And I'm here with my co-host Keith Flamer.

KEITH FLAMER: Molly, it's great to be here with our beekeepers extraordinaire.

VALERIE ELDER: Thanks.

KEITH FLAMER: So let's talk about the science of beekeeping, OK? So what should people know about beekeeping itself? Because I think others like me would just go to the store, pick it up, and not even think about how it got to the shelf. So talk to us about how does whatever beekeeping does get to this part.

ANGELA STEWART: The honey specifically?

KEITH FLAMER: Yes.

ANGELA STEWART: The science there? Because there's so much science. It's such a scientific thing in itself. It's all science. But if you wanted to focus on a specific aspect of the scientific.

KEITH FLAMER: Well, how scientific is it? Because I think you're excited to talk about the science of beekeeping.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. I'm excited--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Talk about the hive, the--

KEITH FLAMER: The whole thing from beginning to on our plates, if you will.

ANGELA STEWART: Where should we start?

VALERIE ELDER: Maybe start talking about their home. Where do we keep our bees?

ANGELA STEWART: OK. It's hard for me because it's like, oh, it's all connected. There's so many places. There are so many things we can do. So there is a colony. The colony is where all the bees are together.

And it's kind of interesting because a single bee is an organism, but the colony in itself is also an organism. It's a super-organism. So you have every individual bee, but what they are supporting in the colony is its own living thing. So when the bees swarm, that's actually their reproductive purpose, is to extend the life of that particular colony.

So when we're keeping bees, we'll have them in hives and you'll see the vertical boxes. And what we're trying to do is balance what the bees are needing to maintain their healthy life, their healthy homeostasis so that they can thrive as individual little bees and then also as the full organism.

And then as beekeepers, we might have certain goals that we want to do. Like, we might want to have a year where we produce a lot of honey. So we might be doing certain management practices where we're trying to create a colony that will producer surplus of honey, where they have enough, the bees have enough to make it through the year, and then we have enough to also harvest.

Another goal might be to have just a lot of colonies if we want a lot of colonies or we want to sell bees. Sometimes they say like, is your goal money or honey? Do you want to create bees and sell those as a product?

KEITH FLAMER: Money or honey.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, because if you're trying to produce multiple colonies to sell or just to have, that might decrease your honey yield because you're focusing on building the colony size rather than the capacity of what a colony can do.

But it's just different hive management practices, which is very, very dependent on paying attention to their biology. What are they doing? What are they telling us? When we're going into a hive, we're looking at what are the bees doing?

How are they doing it? Are they showing signs of good health? Might there be something where there's an imbalance with the colony itself? Is the queen having a problem? Is the queen healthy? There's a lot of attention to parasites, disease. Most of our management, I think, is managing for pests and disease and parasites.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So when you say what are they doing, what are they doing? What could they be doing? What are the different things they could be doing?

ANGELA STEWART: Mostly I think when it's building up to-- a lot of different aspects of that, but really looking at the brood, the little baby bees. Are they looking healthy? What are they doing? I think essentially, what are the bees doing to do what they need to do at that point in time in the season?

And so is their behavior and their level of brood and how much food they're bringing in or not bringing in, is that a sign of a healthy hive, doing what it should be at that point of the year? Because that all can look different depending on when we're in there. And all of that is biology driven. what the bees need to sustain their queen, their colony, bring in food sources, it's all based in their biology. What, do you have this?

VALERIE ELDER: I think it's interesting that the bees have different roles. So the queen does have sort of this management structure of the bees behave in certain ways depending on if the queen is there or not there.

If there's bees without a queen, they can be really kind of cranky and aggravated because they're stressed-- like, where's our queen? So there's a leadership structure in there to superimpose values on that. And then the worker bees, their job is to maintain the hive and collect the pollen and the nectar. And they live for different time periods. In the summer, they're working so hard collecting pollen and nectar. They only live for six weeks, right?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Is that all? Really?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. And then winter bees--

ANGELA STEWART: Up to six months. Actually, longer than that. One time, I marked some bees in April and I found those same bees eight months later. So the winter bees are the bees that are trying to sustain the hive over the winter so that the bees can do what they need to do in the spring, and they can live a very, very long time.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: What do they do to maintain the hive during the winter?

ANGELA STEWART: They're collecting resources.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: They're leaving and getting pollen and pollen grains?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. They're still foraging, but it's a little bit of a rougher lifestyle. But really, they have-- the way-- I don't know if it's necessarily known how or why they're fatter, but they're actually fatter bees. They have fat-- they have higher--

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE]

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Like, what's called fat bodies that they use to sustain their life. The fat body is this essential organ in the bee that's kind of similar to our liver. And it really regulates so many aspects of how the bees are just living and carrying out their functions and doing their functions as nurse bees.

And normally, that's up to, I think, about a six-week, maybe four-week lifespan that a bee might be living in the colony without foraging or maybe involving foraging. But these winter bees, these fat bees, they're living for six months to eight months because they need to possibly make it through in a time there's no ability to forage. It might be snowing. It might be really crappy weather. They have to be able to survive. I don't know. I feel--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: How long do you [INAUDIBLE] how long does the queen live?

ANGELA STEWART: It can be a long time. They can live, I think, about--

VALERIE ELDER: Five years.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. About eight or five years. Yeah. But typically, beekeepers, if they're wanting to have a high honey yield, they might be replacing her every one to two years so that she's kind of governing the hive that will continue to produce-- a lot of the personalities, I guess, or a lot of the inner workings of the hive and their function is determined by the queen.

KEITH FLAMER: Right. I find this fascinating. Are you saying bees have personalities?

ANGELA STEWART: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] really?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Some are really feisty. I have some that love the sting. Ooh, they let you know that they don't like you. I have some that are very, very calm, very docile. You can pick them up and they won't even bother you.

KEITH FLAMER: Really?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Some are kind of ebb and flow between that.

KEITH FLAMER: And that's all directed by the queen?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. The queen's temperament, the queen's ability, the queen's health. Sometimes if we have a high--

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE]

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: How does a queen become a queen?

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, my God. That's a great question.

VALERIE ELDER: We might not want Angela to talk about this. [INAUDIBLE] section 456.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. I'll let you [INAUDIBLE].

VALERIE ELDER: [INAUDIBLE] process, the bees. She gets special food and special attention. She has a--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE]

VALERIE ELDER: From the bees, the worker bees.

KEITH FLAMER: OK.

VALERIE ELDER: It's called a queen cell, so it's a much larger cell than on a regular frame that goes in a hive. And so she's fed royal jelly, which has these special properties that help that queen grow into a different--

KEITH FLAMER: That's amazing.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: What is the first thing that gets her the bigger cell and the--

ANGELA STEWART: The bees determine that. Yeah. They [INAUDIBLE] to determine if they need a queen usually on a couple different circumstances. One is the queen might die and they're like,oh, we don't have a queen. We need to make a queen stat. Yes. And they will take an existing egg worker, like, a regular egg, and they will feed it a special diet so that it'll have the nutrients to be able to produce a queen.

And we can see that. We can very clearly see the way that the frame looks. And the queen cells are like, oh, queen died, shoot. And then the bees might not like their queen and they might decide, we don't like you anymore.

For whatever reason, we don't want you to be our queen. And they will supersede the queen. And again, they'll pick whatever eggs they decide. And at day three, they start feeding this special diet to make a queen. Or they might swarm and they might--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: This is in the egg? It's before the bee is actually a bee?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. And so it's sometimes kind is tricky. Like, does the queen determine that the new queen is needed or does the worker bees? And that's where it can be unknown.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: When they want a new queen, what do they do with the old queen?

ANGELA STEWART: Well, sometimes they [INAUDIBLE] with the two-queen colonies. Yeah. Sometimes they're two-queen colonies. I don't know. Does the queen-- if a bee is sick, often they will just leave the colony. They exit themselves. So we don't know if the queen leaves. We don't know if the bees kill her or she just dies on her own. It's the big mystery that happens in the hive.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. Sometimes they swarm. And so then in that case, she's leaving with half the colony.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh. So they just split.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: How often do you look at your bee boxes? How often do you have to look at them?

ANGELA STEWART: It depends on the time of year. Like this time of year, very infrequently. It's a little bit colder. I don't really need to. It's been actually a while since I've done my last inspection.

KEITH FLAMER: So did you bring a box with you today to take a look at?

ANGELA STEWART: I did. Yeah. There's a lot of-- obviously, a lot of things we can talk about once I bring this out. But it'll touch on a lot of the things that we've been discussing today. Yeah. In maybe the springtime, once a week, we'll get in our hives. We'll talk about it. But this-- actually, let's just start with this. This is what's called a nuc box if we need to have a--

KEITH FLAMER: It's called a what, I'm sorry?

ANGELA STEWART: A nuc box.

KEITH FLAMER: Nuc.

ANGELA STEWART: A nucleus colony. Normally, beekeepers will have a box with 10 frames in it, but this one just has five.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: OK.

ANGELA STEWART: But if we need to have a smaller colony for whatever reason, or if-- maybe we're just starting a brand new colony and we just need it to be a smaller size, we'll have something like this. But this is an example of a frame. Like, a frame of comb.

The bees will build out their comb, and this will be where-- depending on where it is in the hive and the needs, this might be all brewed. So baby bees, their eggs, their larvae. When it's new-- like, this is a newer frame-- it's very white. It's brand new wax. There are little architectures. They have these little hexagons that they're making that. But this particular frame was used for just brood.

KEITH FLAMER: OK. So the people that aren't visually looking--

ANGELA STEWART: Yes.

KEITH FLAMER: --so what we're looking at is the oblong or rectangle frame with traditional, I guess, bee-- what's it called? Bee combs?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE] combs?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. It's wax that bees will produce to create--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, the bees produced that?

ANGELA STEWART: And they'll create this comb that will stretch over the entire length of the frame. And as beekeepers, we'll have five to 10 of these frames in a box. And then the bees can decide what they need to use that for. Do they need to store their babies in it? Do they need to store food in it?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So you will put new bees into a box that already has some honeycombs in it or some--

ANGELA STEWART: Ideally, yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, is that right? All right.

VALERIE ELDER: [INAUDIBLE] then they will expand on it.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: You can also just use an empty frame?

KEITH FLAMER: And they rebuild it?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Like this one, for example, I had some leftover honeycomb from a different scenario that I didn't want to waste. And so I used rubber bands to strap it inside of the frame. And then the bees will build the rest of their comb around that.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Very cool.

KEITH FLAMER: Wow.

ANGELA STEWART: And they don't build comb year round. They usually only do it when there's incoming nectar sources, when it's just time to build the colony. Usually around swarming time and honey extraction time, that's when they start building a lot of comb because they want to be a big colony.

VALERIE ELDER: So Angela's using a hive tool right now, which is a long metallic tool that's got a little hook on it that allows you to hook underneath the ears of the frame. And it's really helpful, especially if you can imagine this box being full of bees. [INAUDIBLE] That tool is really useful for that.

KEITH FLAMER: And so how do you harvest honey from this? We have all these bees that are--

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: I guess I'm thinking that when you take the box out, then you have all these bees saying, what are you doing to my home?

ANGELA STEWART: Pretty much. Yeah. They're very angry. Usually that time of year, they're feisty anyway. But this is an example. This is a frame, the same rectangle wooden frame with some white wax over it. And underneath this white wax is actually honey.

And this is when we're beekeepers-- this is really desirable. This is what we would probably want to extract from. It's very clean. Bees haven't been walking all over it. It's not going to give us any off flavors from just--

KEITH FLAMER: Feet?

ANGELA STEWART: [INAUDIBLE] You can smell it. It's a little musty because it hasn't been in my storage, but if you smell it, you can smell the waxy smell, the honey smell.

KEITH FLAMER: Really?

ANGELA STEWART: So as beekeepers--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh. It's much heavier than I thought.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. One frame can hold like a--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh. [INAUDIBLE] It smells just fabulous.

ANGELA STEWART: Now, this one's probably just shy of a quart right here. This is actually a small frame. But as beekeepers, when we're wanting to extract honey, we might do an inspection where we look at where are the best trains.

We're going to determine how much do the bees need to have for their own food supply for the rest of the year, and then what's left over that we can take. And typically, we want to grab the frames that are the whitest and the prettiest, but sometimes we have frames that might be closer to the bees source of food. So this is all honey. This is the same honey, but this has been closer to where the bees are feeding.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It's much darker.

ANGELA STEWART: Exactly. It's darker. The comb is darker. The wax is darker. The honey looks-- the honey might be the same color, but it looks darker because it's up against a dark background. But the bees are walking over this all the time. They're using this for their own food sources. And so some beekeepers will extract from this for their honey supplies. Some won't.

If I do, then I'll separate the two kinds so that I have the more stuff that's cleaner and the stuff that's maybe not as pristine. And this typically will crystallize faster because it has other elements to it other than honey. We might have a little bit more pollen in this type of frame, which--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And you said you would get a whole quart of honey from one frame, from this frame?

ANGELA STEWART: Could be. Yeah. Up to a quart.

KEITH FLAMER: Again, I find this fascinating. I just want you to know, I was telling some colleagues that were going to do a podcast about bee keeping today and they asked, well, [INAUDIBLE] ask them, why are bees-- I mean, we hear stories about how important bees are to our environment.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Mm-hmm. Save the bees. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: So what does that-- so does that actually-- I would have to say, is that a thing?

ANGELA STEWART: Yes.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. There's a lot to unpack with that.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

VALERIE ELDER: [INAUDIBLE] Yeah. But it's a really good question. So we've been talking about Apis mellifera, which is the European honeybee. So bees that we keep in hives are not native to the United States or California.

KEITH FLAMER: Is that right?

VALERIE ELDER: Mm-hmm. But because of their biology and behaviors, they're easy to maintain in this way and are really important for our food systems in the United States. But there are so many different pollinators out there. So native bees in California, the numbers I've read, there's about 3,500 native to California. And then United--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: 3,500 different types of bees?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. Different species of bees. But they don't collect and live in a hive like European honeybees do. That's what makes them so special. But those native bees are really important for pollinating native plants and other parts of our ecosystem.

KEITH FLAMER: So do these bees compete with native bees for food and-- so I'm trying to think of, like, fish. So we put a fish in a lake that they compete against native fish. So are the native fish then depleted because of the invasive species?

VALERIE ELDER: Well, these bees are harder to keep alive, I think. So they're not all really thriving in the wild like our invasive species might. Also, a lot of our native bees are really highly specialized for specific plants that these bees can't even really even utilize.

KEITH FLAMER: Is that right?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. There's research happening on that, including at our own CR Shively Farm. We have a hedgerow and riparian restoration project with Point Blue Conservation Science and their roots program. And so we have some studies happening looking at the honeybees and the native pollinators and--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE]

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. The Africanized bees. That's a--

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE]

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. So the Apis mellifera, that's one type of honeybee. And there's other subspecies of honeybees and other species of honeybees throughout Europe and in Asia and Africa. And the Africanized honeybee, scutellata, I think, is the name for it.

There was one place where I knew how to pronounce it. I think it's Apis scutellata. It's a bee that's very, very defensive of its colony, and it peripherally-- it is just so-- it is designed to thrive. And so it will breed with the Apis mellifera that we're taking and it will just take over from there.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So it is an invasive species.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Highly invasive. And it's spreading. It's spreading really, really quickly. But that's an example of it's another type of pollinator. It looks the same as the honeybees that we know. It exists here. People keep them.

KEITH FLAMER: Really? They do?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Some places, you won't avoid it. There's such a high concentration of this type of honeybee. But it's just the way it is down there. Yeah. With the native pollinators, there are different qualities of ways that they pollinate.

Or they might have different physiological ways about themselves. Like, maybe a longer tongue, or they can buzz and not pollen loose where honeybees might not be able to access that. So there are some points when they can--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Is that why they buzz? They vibrate to--

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Bumblebees actually, they do [INAUDIBLE]

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE]

ANGELA STEWART: Yes. The honeybees are built for buzz pollination, but they don't buzz the same way. But the bumblebees will use their actual-- they'll buzz their abdomen and that will knock some pollen loose.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It makes perfect sense.

VALERIE ELDER: Bees also dance.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Oh, yes.

KEITH FLAMER: Really? I thought that that was only in the Bee Movie, but bees actually dance?

ANGELA STEWART: So they'll use that to communicate.

KEITH FLAMER: Really?

ANGELA STEWART: But yeah, the honeybees that we know and that we think of, these are actually a livestock product. And they're protected by the Department of Agriculture as livestock. And even honey has a very specific definition that is protected by the FDA.

So it's a thing that we bring to America to help with pollination of specific crops, like we were talking about with the honey-- what is it? The almonds and the ways that things are managed to support the agriculture industry.

But a lot of times, they get mistaken that people think that bees are native and they're not. They're not native to our area. We just see them a lot. They become very common and very normal. And they are pollinators, but they're not a pollinator that's native to our particular area.

VALERIE ELDER: But if you don't want to be a beekeeper and you want to support pollinators and our native pollinators, you can plant native plants. That's a good way to support them. And then there's also-- Mason bees are a native bee that folks can keep in their yard. You can build a little house with sticks and things and support those Mason bees in your yard.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah. We only have a few minutes left. So what if someone wants to get into beekeeping? How would they do that? What do you recommend? And where can you do it? Can you do it in the city of Eureka? How much land do you have to have? What are the rules around that?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. Depending on where you live, there might be ordinances. Like, Eureka has an ordinance. So people really do need to do-- well, you want to do some research. It's not something you want to go into without having a knowledge base of, again, the bee biology and--

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] biology.

ANGELA STEWART: --the laws around bees. California actually has very specific laws related to beekeeping. And then every city will have their own ordinances with how much space you need, how much room you need to have between your neighbors.

So starting to do some research is always a good first step. Cal Poly Humboldt has a class I think every February is when it starts through extended education. That can be a nice way to get your foundations, learn what you need, get the knowledge base to get ready. And they do connect with getting the actual bees as part of the class. So somebody could go out of that class ready to go.

VALERIE ELDER: You can also join the local beekeeping association, the Humboldt County Beekeepers. They are helpful. And Angela is actually--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Even before you have bees?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah, totally.

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] OK.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. And there's actually a certificate program through the University of California AG and Natural Resources extension called the master beekeeper. Angela has started that pathway. [INAUDIBLE]

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: That's an online class?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. It's a certification program.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: A master beekeeper.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. One of our own.

KEITH FLAMER: Famous.

ANGELA STEWART: Oh, guys. But that's another way. They have different levels that people can interact with depending on how much knowledge they have. Like, if they're just starting from the ground, they can start at the first level. Or if they have some beekeeping experience, going to the second level. And it's a nice way to learn more. It covers a lot of the disease, a lot of the parasites.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE]

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, yeah. A lot of policy is what we go into. But yeah, it's a nice way to really learn more of that depth of what the bees need to be healthy so that we can be better beekeepers.

KEITH FLAMER: Wonderful.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Great. So what was your favorite honey?

KEITH FLAMER: They were all fantastic. They were all fantastic. So are there any things that you would like us to know about beekeeping that we didn't ask you? Because I find this a fascinating topic. I'm not even sure what to ask right at this point, but what did we miss?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It seems like we could talk forever.

ANGELA STEWART: I know. That's why I took a deep breath. Oh, it's so hard to just pick one. And how much time do we have is the other factor. It's really hard for me to know when to stop. Yeah. I guess, honey, we could talk about how honey is actually made. That could be a real quick thing.

KEITH FLAMER: But here's the one thing we haven't talked about.

ANGELA STEWART: Uh-huh.

KEITH FLAMER: What are your worst stories?

ANGELA STEWART: Oh, gosh. The worst stories? I don't know if I can tell mine on live TV. What about you?

VALERIE ELDER: Angela has a terrible photo of an unfortunate bee sting on my face that she's saving for when I retire. [INAUDIBLE]

KEITH FLAMER: Right. [INAUDIBLE] one of the worst stories. Like, what stands out as something you never want to repeat as a beekeeper?

ANGELA STEWART: I learned to never wear tight black pants during a bee check because black is very triggering to bees. And bees can sting through your fabric. And I was wearing black pants, and it was right before a storm when bees were particularly agitated. And I just lifted up the hive just a little bit to do a really simple, simple maneuver and all the bees came flooding out.

KEITH FLAMER: Angela, oh my gosh.

ANGELA STEWART: A carpet of bees on the pants.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Stinging?

ANGELA STEWART: Stinging. I have never felt so alive in my life at that moment.

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] I saw that in the movie what happened to you.

ANGELA STEWART: As a result of that, I stripped down all my clothes in the middle of the yard. My adrenaline was through the roof. I was trying to hit them off all parts of my body. I ran around half naked in my backyard, trying to figure out my next steps. That was my worst story. But it was a pretty cool story.

KEITH FLAMER: That's the greatest--

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: I'm glad that we did capture that for--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yes. And that is a great place to end.

VALERIE ELDER: Yes.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE]. This has been Free Speech with CR. We hope you enjoyed our guests, Angela Stewart and Valerie Elder. Local beekeepers. And I want to thank Dr. Keith Flamer for being my co-host today.

KEITH FLAMER: It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much.

ANGELA STEWART: Thank you.

KEITH FLAMER: Thank you. Great story.

[RYAN BISIO, "DEEP FAKE"] Some cold relief. Take all I have and go. Just promise that you never deep fake me.

One small step for man.