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PODCAST

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

The weekly podcast exploring the joys, challenges, and curiosities of keeping honey bees. Hosted by Dr. Jim Tew and produced by Jeff Ott, Honey Bee Obscura delivers short, focused conversations that dive into the details of beekeeping—from practical how-tos to quirky observations. Perfect for learning something new on the way to the apiary, at home, or wherever your bees take you.

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All Episodes

16:58

Dealing With Neighbor's Yellowjacket Problems (037)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/09/02

Beekeepers are very often asked to help friends or neighbors that have “bee” problems…. honey bees, carpenter bees, yellow jackets, hornets, bumblebees and the like. But most of us aren’t exterminators. We don’t have the tools, the experience, or the time to help. But “can’t you just get rid of them for me?” lets you know they think you know how to do this… and are ‘glad to help.’ Sometimes they are your bees. A colony swarms and if you are lucky lands in a tree or bush and are easy to retrieve

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20:38

Dealing With 'Wet Combs' After Extracting (036)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/08/26

When you finish extracting your honey crop, you have frames that have sticky, gooey honey in the cells, and on the frame surfaces. There may be some crystalized honey in some of the cells, too. Maybe even some pollen stored there. So how do you clean up this mess so when you go to store the supers with these frames in them for the winter, they will be safe? Kim and Jim take a look at dealing with these wet combs so they get clean and are easy to store for the winter, no matter where you winter. The

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13:16

Ugly (Mean) Bees (035)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/08/19

What do you do about ugly or mean bees? It can be difficult to determine which colony in a beeyard with several colonies is the one, or maybe one of several, that has scouting guard bees meet you at the gate when you go to a beeyard. If you can determine which colony is the one with the problems, why is it behaving so aggressively? Several reasons come to mind – something is bothering it at night, maybe a skunk for several nights, then you come along and they’ve about had it with being disturbed

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13:16

How Are My Bees? (034)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/08/12

Every spring we beekeepers buy packages and set up nucs. Come summer, we start to look at what is going right and what may be going… well… not so right. Or at least, something is going but we’re not quite certain just what! In this episode, Kim and Jim discuss the hives they started this past spring and compare notes. They’re only 30 miles apart and you might think weather and time have treated them equally and… you would be surprised. How was the new queen accepted? How has the honey flow from

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13:13

Planting for Bees (033)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/08/05

Beekeepers talk a lot about not having enough food or enough good food for their bees due to all manner of development, agriculture spread, and agriculture in general. To help fix that problem beekeepers should be looking at doing some planting for bees, which is what Kim and Jim talk about this week. But it’s not as simple as it might sound. If you are planning on something for your yard, the basic gardening techniques can be an issue – dealing with sod removal, local animals that will enjoy what

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15:21

Troubling Questions (032)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/07/29

Kim and Jim ask some interesting questions this week, maybe some you’ve asked yourself, or perhaps you asked a close friend. For instance, should a colony being used for honey production spend time and energy raising drones? Or should a beekeeper be getting rid of drones? There are some who believe so. And where do you go to get good information when you have a honey bee question? The web? And if so, which websites do you seek out? What about books and magazines? And for what subjects? Is there a

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15:05

European Foul Brood (031)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/07/22

Have you ever had European Foulbrood (EFB) in one or more of your hives? How do you know if it was EFB? What does it look like? What does it smell like? Does it smell like American Foulbrood (AFB), or look like AFB? If you’re not sure, how do you find out? Who can you call? And what can you do about it if it is EFB? Burn, treat, scorch, feed, let it alone because it will get better? And if you need to treat, do you know a veterinarian who can give you a prescription so you can buy an antibiotic to

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15:55

Hot Summers and Bees (030)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/07/15

It’s been hot in Ohio so far this summer (and a lot of other places too) but it’s also been wet. Hot and wet can make keeping bees a lot harder than normal. Kim and Jim talk about hot summers and their bees. Kick the air conditioner down a couple of degrees, pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage and listen in. Jim is visiting up in Michigan this week, and it’s been hot there, too. They share the same loss of enthusiasm and eagerness for working bees when it’s hot and it seems the bees are

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18:33

A Close Look At The 2020-2021 BIP Annual Loss Survey ...

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/07/08

How many colonies had to be replaced last year? How many in winter, summer, total? How many beekeepers were surveyed? How many commercial operations, how many sideline operations, and how many hobby beekeepers? It used to be called the annual colony loss survey, but even that has changed because one thing they have found is that colony counts aren’t decreasing, because they are replaced, and are now considered turnovers, not losses. The Bee Informed Colony Management survey went looking for the

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12:41

Dealing With Neighbors (028)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/07/01

A question from a book written 107 years ago comes up for discussion. “How do you keep your bees from bothering your neighbors?” Back then, it was mostly cattle and horses beekeepers were worried about Today? It’s the people in the house right next door, their swimming pool, their bird feeders and waterers and the water for their pooch. First, is it legal to keep bees where you are? Then how do you get along with your neighbors? Where are your bees? Do you have a fence? (It’s still true – Good

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11:34

Euthanizing Honey Bees (027)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/06/24

It’s rare, very rare, but sometimes beekeepers have to kill all the bees in a colony. It can be a tragic, emotional and usually it’s an expensive experience. Or it can be a life saving act to save the lives of friends, neighbors and family. At the very least, it will render a box of dangerous or sick bees no longer dangerous or reduce the chance of spreading disease across the county. At any rate, it is painful to have to do this. There are usually only 2 reasons this has to be done. The presence of

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13:25

Beekeeping Good Neighbor Golden Rules (026)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/06/17

Let’s face it. Unless you live in an isolated part of the world, if you keep bees, you will need to eventually deal with encounters between your bees and your neighbors. Encounters don’t have to be negative. There are strategies you can use to minimize ‘bad publicity’ and ‘hard feelings.’ Some beekeeping clubs have written down these strategies and developed rules, Golden Rules, for beekeepers to help guide them to keep friendly relations with their neighbors. In this episode, our fearless hosts,

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10:16

Package Queens (025)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/06/10

Packages arrive with a queen and together are installed in a hive of some kind. In a few days to a week the queen is released from her travel cage by either the bees or the beekeeper. Then the evaluation of that queen, and the bees, too, begins. How good is this queen? And when should I be able to decide if she needs replacing. A week? 2 weeks? A month? And how do you decide? There are some basic parameters you can use to evaluate her performance. You can look at the egg laying pattern she is

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13:44

Questions from 1910 (024)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/06/03

Today, Kim & Jim review questions and answers asked in an ancient A. I. Root Co. publication, published in 1910. What’s changed, and what hasn’t? Kim and Jim tackle questions asked 121 years ago. You’ll be surprised at what they find. Do gentle bees make as much honey as mean bees? A question you still hear because sometimes it seems mean bees are more productive, right? Maybe, maybe not. What’s the best smoker fuel? Oily rags? You’re kidding, right? Pine needles, sawdust and the like too, but a

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12:38

Tanging - What's All That Banging? (023)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/05/27

What is tanging? Basically, beekeepers use some sort of device, an old cooking pot for instance, to make a loud noise by beating it with a spoon or stick, while chasing an escaping swarm. It is thought this may convince the bees that a storm with thunder is approaching and they need to find a place to land, now, and then the beekeeper can capture them and return them to their home. When a beekeeper sees a swarm leave one of their hives, they will chase the swarm to recapture and return it to the

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15:09

Plastic & Wooden Packages (022)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/05/20

Honey bees are purchased from commercial operations in business to sell bees to beekeepers. They can be sold as complete eight or ten frame hives with a queen, frames with comb, bees and brood and some stored food. Or, they may be sold as a 5-frame small colony, traditionally called a nucleus colony, or more commonly a Nuc, with a queen, comb, food and bees. Bees can also be bought in bulk – by the pound, traditionally in a container of some sort, without frames or comb. A queen accompanies the

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15:24

Old Comb (021)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/05/13

Old comb. What is old comb? Old comb is that which is darkened through generations of tiny bee's feet (ok, for the technically minded, tarsus and tarsal claws...) running across its surface. Is it good for years or should beekeepers pull and replace it? At what point should it be pulled? In this episode of Honey Bee Obscura, Kim and Jim discuss all things Old Comb. After listening to the episode, make sure you check out this Honey Bee Obscura video moment on the OneTewBee YouTube channel:

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18:18

Spring Inspections (020)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/05/06

Spring inspections, especially early spring, need a balance of not too often, but often enough to avoid problems. The first thing you see is…what’s left from last fall. In the south, these inspections took place some time ago, and in the north, they are just wrapping up, but what you find early on will help determine what needs to be done now. Mite testing is certainly on the agenda, but for today, we’re going to pass on that and look at food, the queen, where the bees are in the hive and what all

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16:03

Honey Bees Sting! (019)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/04/29

Why do you keep a box full of bugs that you just know will sting? It should be an easy answer, but there’s more here that you might think, especially if you’re just getting started. Even if you’ve been doing this for years and you’re doing everything right, someday, you will get stung, no matter what. But what about the beekeeper dressed in only shorts and a T-Shirt, who will take a colony apart, remove the queen, put it back together, and walk away with a smile – and no stings. You have to admire

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13:56

Eating Comb Honey (018)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast ·

2021/04/22

So, how do you eat comb honey? It isn’t a mystery, but until you have tried eating comb honey, it can be a tad daunting. At first, it’s a beautiful product. Snow white cappings, beautiful honey, the perfect sweetener. But then, you take a sample and that chunk of comb honey begins to leak, and the honey runs out and covers the bottom of the dish you have it on, along with tiny chunks of the wax from the cells and the cappings and the foundation. Suddenly it’s messy. Very messy. And the beauty of the

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258 results

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