Livestock Wala'au

Ep. 5 Best Management Practices for Beekeeping in Hawai’i

August 02, 2021 Melelani Oshiro & Shannon Sand Season 1 Episode 5
Livestock Wala'au
Ep. 5 Best Management Practices for Beekeeping in Hawai’i
Show Notes Transcript

This episode we talk with the pollinator ecologist for the University of Hawaii Dr. Christina Mogren about Best Management Practices for Beekeeping in Hawai’i.  Dr. Mogren researches the effects of nutrition and dietary diversity on the health of honey bees in an emerging field known as Conservation Physiology.  Joins  us to learn more about how she came to be a specialist with UH and about Beekeeping in Hawai'i. 

If you have any questions feel free to contact us at walaau@hawaii.edu

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Shannon Sand:

Today's episode is brought to you by the University of Hawaii College of Tropical ag and human resources and the livestock extension group.

Melelani Oshiro:

Aloha welcome to livestock. Wala'au a podcast aimed to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to our livestock stakeholders in Hawaii. We are your hosts Mele Oshiro, and Shannon Sand. Today we're going to discuss best management practices in beekeeping in Hawaii.

Shannon Sand:

To do that, we're going to introduce you to the pollinator ecologist for the University of Hawaii, Dr. Christina Mogren.

Melelani Oshiro:

So I'm excited to introduce you to our colleague, Dr. Morgan, who is researches the effects of Nutrition and Dietary diversity on the health of honeybees in an emerging field known as conservation physiology. So let's let Christy tell us more about how she came to be the specialist for this in the

Dr. Chrissy Mogren:

University of Hawaii. Oh, so um, good morning, ladies. Thank you so much for inviting me onto your podcast. I'm so excited to be talking about bees with everyone today. Thank you. So my my path to bees is not a particularly exciting one. So I was listening to some of your previous podcasts. Dr. Adani had this amazing like I love kittens want to play with kittens all day. I kind of felt like that about bees. Here I feel that way about puppies, but here I am working. Fuzzy. Um, but no, I got my PhD actually in aquatic entomology with an emphasis on pollution. So I was really interested in natural resources management when I first started my post undergraduate education. But it was my first job afterwards, um, I got a postdoctoral position with the USDA in South Dakota. And that was looking at the effects of pesticides on honeybees. And so that was kind of with my first job that I transitioned into working in those kinds of systems. So still working with a toxin. In this case, pesticides are toxic substance. I'm just looking at it in a very different context. So yeah, after that, I moved to the Louisiana State University Ag Center in Baton Rouge, where I continued working with folks from the USDA, at the lab that they have also in Baton Rouge and collaboration through the university for getting the position out here in Hawaii. And now I'm the pollinator ecologist at u h Manoa. I'm an assistant specialist. So I have a large extension components, my position and then also research and have been here for almost four years.

Shannon Sand:

We're happy to have you very happy. Yeah, you

Melelani Oshiro:

know, I got I was fortunate enough to work with you when you did the workshop here on the Big Island. And I learned so much and do the USDA now recognizes bees as a limestone, correct?

Unknown:

They do. And I think a lot of beekeepers even don't necessarily think of honeybees as livestock, but really they are right think about it very highly domesticated species, right, we've got there's a number of different honeybee species like true species. So when we talk about honeybees, what we're actually referring to when we say that word, what we really mean are the European or Western honeybee, which is eight this mellifera. So there are other species of honeybees like eight the Serrana it but ape is Floria, who you know, which are from Asia. But the one we're talking about the one that's been introduced all over the world is the European honeybee, which is native to Northern Africa and Europe, and then also far eastern Asia. So that's the species that we move all over the place. So there's a number of different races or sub species as they're referred to. And it's been various breeding programs throughout the millennia that have given us the honeybee that we have today. They are the genetics are highly regulated by a number of different breeding groups to make sure that we are getting the best available honeybee. So if you go out and you purchase a queen, you're getting a queen, who is you know, the product of, you know, just generations of breeding programs to get you her progeny who are going to be easy to work with, they're not going to sting you. They're going to be really great honey producers, they're going to have the capability to groom different parasites off of themselves to reduce potential pesticide you know, burdens later on, and then potentially also be somewhat resistant to different diseases that honeybees unfortunately have to contend with. So you know, it's just like cattle you don't think about it, but it's just like cattle. It's just like a breeding program to get a cow that's really great at making milk versus woman's

Shannon Sand:

like so people don't really realize that like I several years ago because I actually so I worked at South in South Dakota for South Dakota State University for five Six years, I guess before I came to Hawaii, I actually was like, I went to like a conference. And they talked about like the bee breeding. And it is very intense in terms of like the, like, keeping track of like the genetics and like you said, the breeding and I was like amazed. I was like, wow, yeah, it's, yeah, when

Melelani Oshiro:

I first started to as a tech in the Waimea office, there was another technician there that was working with a lot of the B programs. And that's where, you know, just started to open my eyes about different things that was going on and whatnot with them. And then I remember her receiving a little queen and I was like, What do you mean, there's a bee in there?

Unknown:

She's like, Yeah,

Melelani Oshiro:

it's a queen. It's like, oh, my gosh, and you know, it was just kind of cool, because I never, you know, you never really thought about it. And then later on, you know, now I hear that they were considered USDA, USDA recognized them as livestock, which makes sense with a lot of the management practices that you do for the honey for the queens and whatnot. It's it's similar, you know, you want those genetics to be passed down into your flock or your herd and whatnot. Just same thing with your hive. What is it called group of bees? Is it a

Unknown:

colony? They don't want to know.

Melelani Oshiro:

Not a good word. I guess.

Unknown:

That's more about well, swarm refers to something else. It's not like a Murder of Crows, like a murder of bees. Like some words just don't go hand in hand. Wow.

Shannon Sand:

Sounds like a really negative connotation. Because I follow a couple of beekeepers online and they will like like, when like bees colonize out in the wild, like, let's say under somebody's like, like shade umbrella on the in the backyard. I was like, I've seen her go in. And I'm like, really surprised at how calm bees are. Or she is I guess, she just scoops him up and puts them in the new house and stuff and just make sure, like she check checks him for like mites and differently. Yeah, has

Melelani Oshiro:

a good point. There's a couple of folks that do that, I think on the different islands. Yeah. Chris. Yeah. Are you familiar with them? Like, I mean, that's something that some people should know that, you know, I mean, it's important if you have a colony that there are young people, there are people there will come and remove them for you.

Unknown:

Absolutely. So we the word swarm has come up. So a swarm of honeybees, right. That's a notch, it sounds it's a word of a negative connotation, but it's a natural part of honeybee biology. So it's, you know, it's not just about the individual be really an individual bee use, think of like a cell inside of a larger organism, and that organism is the colony. So if I get mad, and I step on one, bee, it's okay. Because unless that bee is the Queen, like the rest of the colony is going to be just fine, right. So when that colony though, gets too big for its space, it's going to swarm right. And so that's another form of reproduction. So it's not just the Queen laying eggs, but it's the colony swarming. And so it splits, the old Queens gonna leave with some of the workers, and they're gonna go fly someplace and from that location, kind of scout out and try to find a new place to set up a new colony. So it's a natural part of their biology. It's one beekeepers want to avoid, right, because potentially, you just lost half the bees. And so we want to do and as yet intercept that swarm, put them in boxes, you're managing them properly, and then those can go on to be another super productive colony in your operation. And the reason why the swarm is going to be so passive like that, right, they don't really have anything to defend. So in the middle of that swarm is going to be the queen. So you can literally just go in with your hand very gently, as long as you can get the queen, she produces a pheromone and the other workers like Oh, her pheromone, you know, and then they're going to cluster around that, like Austin, you're the queen. So if you just gently go in there and move the Queen, like all the other bees, even if you just pluck out the Queen and put her on your hand and keep it near them. They're gonna all walk on, right? That's what the big beer be.

Shannon Sand:

Like, it was definitely all in her hand. And it was it was really, really cool to watch. So and I think this was actually a colony. I don't know if it was a split, and the Queen didn't go with this one or died. But like, and luckily the like I said she was a lady. I was like, and she actually carries a carry to Queen with her just in case. And so she was waiting. She there was like a whole process to see if like, they accepted the Queen and they it was so nice. I was like amazed. And I was just like

Unknown:

yeah, well, it's you think about the Queen like, Oh, it's good to be queen. Again, it's another word that has a connotation. It's not so great to be the queen. Like literally, you get to leave the colony once in your entire life, right? Unless you swarm you leave once you mate with as many dudes as you can. Because they store the sperm, you know, they're storing that every like she only meets once in her life, they can make up to 30 males, and they store all of that sperm. And that's the sperm that they will have for the remainder of their lives living inside the colony and laying their eggs. The reason they have to store the sperm, so 99.9% Of all the bees inside are females, they're all sisters to each other. They're all daughters of the same queen. If she fertilizes an egg, that egg develops into a female, which is what you want, right? Because those are the ones that do all the work. If she chooses to not fertilize that egg, it will still develop it it'll develop into a male who's also called a drone. So the drones don't do anything. Their sole purpose is to mate and die. And if it gets to be a certain time of year and there's too many drones inside, it's like yeah, Winter's coming on, we're done with you. They'll kick him out and then they don't mate and then they're gonna die because they'll start If they can't even feed themselves, they're really sweet. And they're fuzzy. They look like little teddy bears, they cannot sting you. They're kind of worthless to me. They don't do anything. But the sisters will just kick them out because it just beg for food and don't help out. So, but yeah, so that's why it's so important, right? And so there's a number of reasons why a queen may be rejected. So maybe she's old, and the pheromones she produces to make everyone like her, you know, just kind of starts, it's not that strong anymore. So if that's the case, the workers are going to make a new queen. And when that Queen emerges, she's going to kill the old one. If she is not made it properly and isn't, you know, laying enough eggs will they'll replace her. If she runs out of sperm and is only laying drones. Obviously, that's not a good thing. So you just got a bunch of males aren't doing anything, they'll replace her. So lots of things can go wrong when you're the queen. You know, it's like you work in a very fine line to keep everybody else happy. Because they'll just

Shannon Sand:

That's amazing.

Melelani Oshiro:

So there's a little bit I guess, Shana and I talked about a bit about the history, I guess a beekeeping in Hawaii, right? Because it's, it's a long it's been here for a long time. Yeah. I don't think people really know how long but yeah,

Shannon Sand:

I mean, I don't know that much about the history of beekeeping in Hawaii. I know. I was on the judging panel for the taste testing for Big Island bees, which I happily enjoyed. I'm I love food, so I'm not gonna lie. But I was like, Do you can you give us some of the history of like beekeeping in the state of Hawaii? That's

Unknown:

absolutely, um, you know, a lot of people, you know, they think they see wild bees, and they call them wild bees, right? Well, they're not, there's no such thing as a wild bee. It's a feral colonies. It's like a goat on the Big Island that you don't want to get on the highway, like that got loose from somewhere. That's what a wild goat that's a feral goat. You know, it's the same thing with honey bees, you know, they're not wild. They're not supposed to be here. They were introduced in around the 1850s. So mid 1800s. And the reason they were introduced, obviously, is for honey production, they had a couple of failed attempts, bringing them over from California, because obviously, there's a long boat ride them alive and happy. But they finally did establish, and they were actually instrumental in helping the cattle industry take off. So chiave was an introduced plant again, right? We think all these things that were so common in the landscape, now they kind of wrong, the only fees, you know,

Shannon Sand:

introduced Yeah.

Unknown:

A lot of things have been introduced and are now naturalized. And, you know, chiave is one of those plants. And so they introduce chiave, as you know, the pods as fodder for the cattle. And then you need to be pollinated by something, because prior to honey bees being here, you didn't have any social insect pollinators period, we do have some native bees, you don't really see them, well, you're not going to see them in agricultural areas, or, you know, home gardens because you've got real close associations with native Hawaiian plants. So you see those now, because you've got so much construction and development, you know, along the coasts, where you mostly going to see them now is at higher elevations, it's been truly remnant, you know, Hawaiian, Native Hawaiian plant habitats. So for better or worse, we don't see our native yellow face visas often, though, there's still populations you can see in coastal areas and stuff. But you know, it's these introduce bees that are so important for pollination services, in the way that we think about them. So that's, yeah, that's kind of how it got started here. So that's where they were introduced at one point maloca he was the world's largest producer of honey. It's incredible, right? That was the 1920s like, well, what were they making honey from sugarcane? Right? The exudates from the sugarcane like, they'll go, I mean, they're opportunistic foragers. I mean, that's sugar water. That's all nectar is right. So they turn that into money. Unfortunately, that industry completely collapsed, the honey bee honey industry collapsed as a result of foul brood, American foul brood, which is a really bad bacterial disease was accidentally introduced into the state and completely decimated the beekeeping industry. And honestly, it's something that's never really recovered. So we kept getting these, you know, resurgent outbreaks every 20 years or so. And it was happening statewide. And so, you know, the, you see, you'd see like the number of colonies being kept would increase and then the, you know, they'd have a sudden decline probably cause a resurgence of disease. They finally started getting this you know, better probably around like the 80s 90s, it kind of started taking off again, and then mid 2000s. We had the introduction of varroa mites. So it's an external parasite. If you think about parasites and the size of the parasite to its host, it is the largest parasite compared to the size of its host of any parasitic relationship in the world that we know of. Right. So it's, it's the equivalent of like a dinner plate sucking me dry. That's how big they are, you know.

Melelani Oshiro:

We got to see one of them on the beach in the workshop when we were doing the workshop. There was one that was actually on the beach so

Unknown:

big compared to the size of the host and You know, it's they feed you for a long time, it's not that they suck the blood of the honey. It's not it's not actually what they're doing, they suck the fat body, which is the equivalent of their liver. Right. So honeybees, they don't have the same organs that we do, but they have, you know, organs that take on a number of functions. So it's the fat you know, for us that's a storage organ for them. It also is but then it also serves in kind of detoxification and other functions that our liver would also play in our bodies. So the it, you know, kind of feeds from the outside and kind of sucks out all the nutrients from their fat, and then it also turns around and transmits a number of viruses and viruses are really bad things. There's no way to control a virus is no way to treat a virus in honeybees. All you can do is control the vector which is the varroa mite. So that's kind of the history of beekeeping online in a nutshell, started out great. Had a lot of issues and still

Shannon Sand:

a pretty large honey producer. I mean, I'm just curious. She knows that.

Unknown:

Worldwide, no, you know, I mean, relatively speaking honey accounts for a pretty small sliver of the agricultural economy in Hawaii. But that being said, we can produce specialty honeybees that no one no one else in the world you can get it?

Shannon Sand:

Because I use right. I use them in baking. So if you've had cookies or bread for me, it's got one of those in it. So yes, good wine, honey. Right, honey,

Unknown:

I mean, you can get well, and that's the thing. So our honey is the flavor profiles. Totally different. So on the mainland, you get a lot of clover honey, especially in the Great Plains. You know, we're talking about Texas in the heatwave before we came on, right. So Texas, all the way up to the Dakotas, you get a lot of clover, honey, and that's the majority of honey in the country. That's where it's produced. And that's what it's comprised of. And so it has a very distinct it's very light, very sweet. So ours, you know, has some different profiles, I think sometimes can be kind of bitter. If you get coffee, honey, so honey produced from bees visiting coffee flowers, I think it tastes a bit like butterscotch, I think it's really good. But so just very, it's interesting. Like we can get some of these, you know, pure flower things. And, you know, here they like Yabe honey rich, it's the most expensive honey in the world. So you can charge like $20 a pound, you know, in comparison to Clover, honey.

Shannon Sand:

I love honey. So like I like I think it's because again, I where I grew up, like, we have a lot of specialty honey. So I'm like, Oh, yeah.

Unknown:

I've got a honey shelf in my pantry. Yeah. And then I was in Germany and then Serbia a few years ago. And so I'm like, I just will get some German honey might as well get some Serbian honey. So I've got I've got Yeah, it's an international exotic honey collection. So

Melelani Oshiro:

that's what so much stuff, I think, to learn about management. So what are some of the management practices? I guess, that is important for beekeeping? And if somebody wanted to start something in Hawaii, or you know, what would what's the tips that you could give them in starting?

Unknown:

Well, so the two big things that you I guess there's three big things that I've kind of already mentioned that absolutely everyone should keep in mind, or let's say for one, right? They're not wild animals, they are livestock. And you would not just like you wouldn't let a cow starve you should not let your bees starve. You know, you should not take a hands off approach to beekeeping they need to be managed because they are a domesticated animal. I said for let's see if I can think of them so I mentioned Verona Verona knights you know, there's something that has to be managed now. We have really strict Import Export laws. We're mostly import laws in the state. So the only live bee product that's allowed to be brought into the state is honey bee semen, you have to remove the semen from the male bees and you can import that because we have some amazing breeding programs on the Big Island. The Big Island is actually the world's largest exporter of homes for sale. Pretty incredible. So that's a product that is allowed to be brought in for the purposes of supporting that industry and keeping our genetics good. But aside from that, you cannot bring us to beekeeping equipment into the state and you cannot move any live bee products for beekeeping equipment between the islands we only have the mite on Big Island and Allahu so we want to keep it that way for as long as possible. But maloca Isla and I, Maui and kawaii are all Varroa free. So the beekeepers there Yeah, for now at least, you know, I still think they should be monitoring you know, every month every two months just to make sure. But for now, anytime that it has popped up accidentally they've been able to eradicate it. So that's been great. The third thing that I mentioned was the the foul brood diseases. So there's two different types of foul brood. They're both caused by different pathogenic agents. You've got American foul brood and European foul brood and I actually just recently responded to them but I'm gonna use the word outbreak right so outbreak doesn't mean like it's been widespread outbreak can occur on any scale. So this was an outbreak in a single operation, this operation was very well maintained. So the thing with foulbrood is that it's incredibly pathogenic, it spreads so easily and so quickly within an operation, and then it can really easily spread to neighboring operations as well. So it's important to just monitor and know when something is off. This particular beekeeper knew something was off because it didn't smell right. That was the first indication that something was off. And the reason foul brood is something that can be so damaging right now is that many beekeepers, especially new beekeepers have no experience with it, you hear about it, you read in the textbook, this is my first time ever seeing it in the field to write and I research fees, and I have have done for you know, eight years now, and I've never seen it in the field. So, you know, knowing when something is off is really important, and being able to diagnose what that is because European foulbrood Oh, that's, that's a pretty simple fix, right? If you've you probably happened because you don't have a good nectar flow. So go inside your bees, the babies look kind of hungry. They're not pearly white, they're not swimming in a bunch of goo, which is what they eat. You know, that's that's a bad sign. You don't maybe see a ton of nectar or honey, you know, stored on the side of the combs. So if you see those conditions, and something kind of smells sour, we were kind of like what's that smell like to you? Like, oh 20 socks like it was turn Alright, smell. That's what do you owe? That to us in that moment, this particular infestation, it smelled like dirty socks like me kind of like vinegary, nasty, sweaty? That was bad. But um, it was like, okay, that's what we're selling right now. And that's because of all these other co infections that occur with European foulbrood. But to get over that, what you do is you feed them with sugar water. So that's number four. If your bees are hungry, feed them. A lot of people don't want to, they'll think we live in Hawaii, it's lush. Well, just because it's lush doesn't mean there's flowers. Just because there's flowers does not mean that they provide nectar or pollen resources in the quantities or in the ratios that and also sometimes their own survival have

Shannon Sand:

droughts like Hawaii County. I mean, I don't know about when this actually comes out. But it just came out. Yeah, we are currently in a drought in Hawaii County. So I mean, we get in a drought to you have to feed just like you have to feed your livestock. If there's no grass, you have to feed.

Unknown:

Because I always I guess I always, you know, figured, oh, there's phones around, it's always gonna make sure that there's food for them because there's powers or there's, you know, there's something but I guess I never really, you know, Madeline it sounds like not all of the native ones are like, I guess any similar to cattle just because there's grass and it's green in there, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to provide them the nutrition that they need. Right. So I guess you may be right. Their protein requirements are very specific. Their specific, right, yeah, if they're, you know, if they're, you know, breeding if they've got, you know, babies or whatever. Yeah, they have their very specific needs. And for honeybees. It's the exact same thing. And I would also say for honeybees. They can starve if it's raining. So we had that flooding, you know, a few years back and it really affected like Waimanalo and kawaii the bees were also starving in those locations, then, because anything that puts off plant phonology if it's raining hard plants, like I'm not going to make flowers right now. And when it was raining, like as these pretty small if you've got to turn to downpour can't fly in that. So yeah, it's I mean, it's it kind of can go both ways. And so it's just it's monitoring year round, it's off. People ask me, When is it an issue? Like when should I look for that and like, well, you should be in your highs, you know, at least once a month. And you should know, just by looking right. And then supplement supplement as needed. You can purchase on substitutes, or if you want to collect pollen. Yeah, it's like a protein supplement that you can purchase or anything keeping suppliers. Yeah, and so you can mix that up and feed that to them. Or if you want, you can put up a pollen trap and collect your own local pollen and just keep that in the freezer. And that'll that'll stay frozen for about a year and still be highly nutritious mix that was a little bit of water, you can make like a little hamburger, you just put that on a piece of wax paper and set that on the top, the top bars, your colony, put the lid back on and the bees will eat that and kind of you know, bring that back down. So you can do either I think either a perfectly fine. Even a commercial substitute is much easier, right? You don't necessarily have to buy a pollen trap and then be like, Oh, the pollen beetles got into the pollen trap. I mean, there's so many things can go wrong when you do it yourself. So you can avoid the hassle by just purchasing a product and that is absolutely fine as well. So it'll get you through these dearth periods. And so you shouldn't feel bad about having to do that.

Shannon Sand:

That is so interesting. And I know I'm just like, oh, keep talking. Exciting. I'm learning law.

Melelani Oshiro:

There's never been thought that you know, you have to supplement them. I just kind of

Shannon Sand:

Yeah, I didn't do that either. But I'm like, Oh, that makes total sense. Because like, yeah, that's funny.

Unknown:

Well, here's another kicker for you. Right. What do honey bees pollinate in Hawaii? And we think about they're so great. They pollinate they go to the flowers. Well, right. So you think about Native pollination systems in Hawaii? Well honey bees were introduced in 1850s are plants that are native here did not evolve with a social we refer to as basil Hymenoptera. And you know, something like a honeybee or a bumblebee like they recruit to resources. So it's a very specific type of pollination syndrome that's pollinated by these type of social bees. We never had that here it was bird and beetles, and then also flies. Those were our big native pollinators. And of course, again, we have our native yellow faced bees. So you know, a lot of the flowers here, especially many of them that are bird pollinated, the nectar ratio isn't what a honeybee needs. So they made it visible as flowers, right, but in some cases, right to seal the okiya. They who are like they're pollinated by Evie, the Evie are declining for a number of reasons, unfortunately, but we also know that honeybees can that's a species and native one that they can pollinate, that they can visit. Obviously, they make wonderful honey from it. But so that's kind of a nice example of how in the absence of a native pollinator this introduced pollinator could potentially at least, continue propagating a very culturally and ecologically significant plants here. And but aside from you know, a few notable examples, we also know that they visit a number of weeds. So plants that have been introduced here accidentally or not, that they'll they'll also visit those so they can play both a positive and a negative role when it comes to plant propagation from a pollination perspective. So that's unfortunately not something we have a great grasp on in the state as far as what it is the visit, and we have a few big ones that we know they do. But what about all these other ones, and we just don't know. And so that's also an area of my research that my students are working on is trying to identify the plant species. And that can be really important because maybe there are native plants they're visiting. Well, that's a good thing to know, for home gardeners, especially right, so we can focus on propagating plant species for bees that are good for them. But that may also have, you know, important cultural, ecological significance locally. And you know, sometimes we're using lacemaking, they can be used in traditional medicine, they can be edible, you know, who knows, right? And there's all these, it's important to think about conservation from a much under a much larger umbrella, and that you can conserve heritage and culture just as much as you can. Species, whether or not they're meant to be here.

Melelani Oshiro:

That's so much. I just feel like oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. I just, it's so much that you're just like trying to absorb everything. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty eye opening, though, I think and the, you know, the history and the parasites that have impacted the hives and the colonies. And the I just the industry here in Hawaii is, is very interesting. And I think that's important for people to understand and recognize when they're first starting their own colonies, right. So that they don't, so you talk about the fall, right, I guess I have a question for you. So what where does it? Where did it come from? I mean, it showed up in there. It showed up in their colony, but where exactly is it coming from just the environment outside? I mean, how is it bringing getting into? How is it like one of those things like where it could be on your shoe? Yeah, so never know. Is there? Like, I guess my point is, like, what's the biosecurity that people should be worried about in their own, you know, their own colony, so they don't bring things in or take things out? Right? Yeah.

Unknown:

So okay, so I talked about European. Alright, let me just go take one step back, I'll talk American salary because that's the one that's really really bad European, right, we get over to, you know, with an American foulbrood. If you find one larva, they call it foulbrood, because you know, it affects the larvae or the babies, the brood, even got one larva in your colony. And that Larva is positive for American foul brood, your entire colony is positive, the only thing you can do is burn it, because it is the spores, the bacterial spores are that virulent and that persistent, we know that the spores can survive at least 80 years. And that's how it pops up. Right. So if No uncle stopped keeping bees 30 years ago, and we don't really know why, but he left on his stuff and said, and then you decide I want to be a beekeeper. I'm gonna use all this stuff. It's fine. It's just sitting there. Well, if he lost all of his bees, because of foul brood, those spores are still active inside all of that beekeeping equipment. So if you're a new beekeeper, is just start new start up with it's a very least you have to get all new frames, the hive bodies themselves, I mean, it's expensive, like I know how expensive it is to you know, make it local. It's very, it's not a cheap, it's not a cheap hobby, or, you know, cheap me just like anything else in agriculture, like it's not necessarily cheap to get started. But the high bodies you can burn the inside. As long as you scorch them really, really well. You can reuse a hive body that will kill the spores, but you should always replace your frames. And as a beekeeper for certain hygienic practices, you should maybe on a five year schedule, rotate out your frames like every five years or so figured out whatever your rotational schedule is and just throw those frames away but burn them get a burn permit, burn them. So be safe about burning them, especially if there's so Um, you know, that's one thing but for American foul brood, so in this particular instance, it was American and European it was a co infection that was occurring in the same colonies, which made it kind of difficult, like what are we looking at here doesn't smell like the textbook says, you know, the symptoms are all over the place from what the textbook says. And the reason is because we had both. So if you smell something off step one diagnosis, European isn't that big of a deal, American super big deal, you have to burn it. So then what you also need to do is inspect all the other colonies in your apiary. So what you should be doing is use a different hive tool, every time you enter a different wants to know and apiary is disease, you have to use a different hive tool, that's how it will spread on your hive tool, it's in the propolis, right? At the very least, what you need to be doing is between colonies with your hive to burn off all of the propolis. So keep it take a blowtorch out in the field with you burn it. And then you also want to wipe that down with a towel or some bleach solution before then using that same tool to go into the next colony. Once you've recognized you have disease, you should also use disposable gloves. So the beekeeping gloves, you know, you don't necessarily want to get stung, some people can go on without if you are on any of the outer islands, you can't your puppies are simply not friendly enough, they don't have enough like in flow and different genes like they're nasty to work with. So depending on the day, right, but I mean, they can feel you kind of want to step on some of them on days like that, but they will sting you up pretty badly. So you do need her gloves, but disposable gloves, they can sting through them, but they don't recognize it. It's a weird texture, they don't think of it as something to sting. So disposable gloves, keep those on hand, and you want to change those between every colony. So if you've diagnosed foul brood, that particular colony has to be burned, then you need to inspect every single other colony apiary if they're symptomatic, burn them, if they're not symptomatic, what you need to do is keep them clustered together, monitor them for symptoms. But what you also then need to do is treat them with antibiotics. So to require an antibiotic, you do have to go through a licensed veterinarian. Now there are some different antibiotic treatments, that would be my recommendation. Some operations, like if they're certified organic, that may not be an option for them, in which case, I would say just keep them isolated at that location, do not mix colonies do not move them, keep them in that one place. And if you've got other colonies or other areas nearby that maybe move them, you know, away if you can, from that particular location, and monitor. So as soon as they become symptomatic, they have to be burned, you cannot harvest the honey, because then you're potentially contaminating honey extraction equipment with sport. I mean, it's that bad, right. And the good news is that we don't see it overly frequently. At least we don't think because it's not, you know, these are not statistics keeps. But you know, it's hard. Some people like to try a Shrek swarm, where they'll take the adult bees, they'll shake them into new equipment. And then they have to be self to burn all the old stuff. You have to burn the babies, and all of that. And so they think if they can shake them that that'll be okay. If you do that you should be treating them with antibiotics and still monitor but the likelihood is that you have shaken, they ingested some Well, the spores in the funny. Yeah, in that they've ingested, they're gonna be shocked, they're gonna regurgitate that honey. And now, you know, that's the spores are now in your new equipment. And you know, your bees are still positive for it. So, you know, and that's it's something to keep in mind, though. And I know, it's easy to say like, why wouldn't you just burn it from a biosecurity standpoint, but again, you know, with the exception, I mean, it's but the thing is, like getting bees in Hawaii doesn't really hard to do on Molokai II on you know, and even some areas of Hawaii, like your only option is to catch a swarm. If you want to keep bees, you can't just go buy a package that's really hard to do here. And it's not like we can't mail them in from other places we can anywhere on the mainland, if you live in Florida and go buy these from California, not a problem, we can't do that here. So it's understandable that especially if an operation has been hit, you want to save your bees as much as you can, because it's really hard to get more to replace the ones that you've lost. But I would just hope from a hygienic standpoint, you know, once it spreads, it spreads so quickly. And then once a colony becomes weak, they're opportunistic, right, your neighbor is gonna be like, Oh, check it out. They're not doing so hot over here, they got a lot of honey in there, they're gonna rock, right, they're gonna get in there, they're gonna rob and now they're going to take those forests to a healthy colony. And that's so that's how it can spread. Now, why it pops up in a particular location. We don't necessarily know maybe there are feral colonies that are harboring this that we don't know about because they're not managed. People get excited. Sometimes they see the feral bees out there. But the reality is, if they're not managed, they're harboring disease they are so you know, that's, that's how it can be introduced. But that's a particularly nasty one. It's something that should be on everyone's radar, but it's also not going to happen that frequently. You know, it's not going to pop up all the time. And that's why eradication when it does happen is so important because it's good stewardship for your practice. And but really importantly,

Melelani Oshiro:

diagnosis for the Fulbright is it just through this Have miserable Yeah. And smell of it? Or is there actually a test that you run to diagnose?

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, so there's both. So I mean, you can smell it, I mean, you may be able to smell it things, if it's an early infection, you may not be able to, but your larvae are going to be kind of gross looking, they're gonna turn brown, they're gonna get soupy, if it's American foulbrood, if you take a stick, and once it's brown, and you kind of swirl it, and you pull it out, it's gonna come out about two inches, it's gonna make a string, if it pops back, and you can't make it to make a string. Well, then you got European foulbrood, which is bad, but also good, right? Yeah, it doesn't burn it. If it comes out two inches, that's positive. That's the only thing in the world that will do that as American foul brood. So another thing you can do, you can buy these kits, again for a beekeeping Supply Company, and it's kind of like a pregnancy test. And just having a couple on hands, like sometimes they'll put an expiration date on there, they're kinda like 16 bucks apiece, they're not cheap. And that'll give you one test. So you can keep them in the refrigerator as well and that'll expand or expand their shelf life. It's not like you're using this to diagnose human health issues. So it's not as big of a deal if it's expired, right? It's okay. You know, just to use it, but what you will never get it's like a pregnancy test, you will never get a false positive, you can get negative. So you want to you don't want to pick like oh no is this healthy looking larva infected, it doesn't matter, you want to find the nastiest within larva inside the colony, right? And larvae is infected, the whole colony is infected, the nastiest looking one, and that's the one that you want to test. So if that's if that nasty one is negative, okay, well, it's not American foulbrood itself, it could be something else. But there's a separate kits for American and European foulbrood. So also make sure you don't mix them up. But just having a few of those on hand, you know, as always great. Like I said, you know, using beekeeping gloves, the spores can spread between your colonies with your gloves. So just make sure that you're regularly laundering your bee gloves, then also your bee suit. You don't have to go full on hazmat, you know, every single time. But just make sure that you are washing your bee suit after you've visited a sick colony, or a sick apiary. If you know you have an apiary that's disease, visit your healthy one first and then go into your disease one, you know, save that for last. So just to kind of again, as much as possible minimize the movement of spores. And if you really want to be good too. It's not something beekeepers usually think about but disinfecting your boots as well between a an unhealthy in a in a healthy apiary that's the kind of thing you would do for cattle, right. And most beekeepers like these types of hygienic practices, you just don't do them. It's not because again, foul brood isn't overly common. And so when it happens, it's kind of just a pan of what do I do? I don't and so I don't want to be like overly scare people about this either. Like that should not be you don't get into beekeeping. But definitely be aware that it exists. And we have it on all of the islands in the state. And actually, the records that have been kept since 2012. The majority of it exists on the Big Island. I think that may just be because there's there's on the Big Island. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't it's not because the Big Island, you know, has more gaps. I think there's just more beekeepers and some more opportunity to observe it. Yeah.

Melelani Oshiro:

And I know you can also test for a diverse varroa mite as white as well right to do monitoring.

Unknown:

That's an easy test. Yes. So there's um, there's two different tests that work well. One of them you will 100% kill the bees the other one you'll probably kill a lot of the bees. But some people still they want to save every single one of their bees right. So what I recommend is an alcohol wash because that way you cannot screw it up like you will figure out your percentage mite infestation. So there's YouTube videos on this but you just get a special shaker you can modify a mason jar with like a mesh screen on top of make sure that you get the correct size those lids the mites can pass through it, but you'll dump a half a cup of bees, you want to make sure you're taking those from the brood chamber. So the varroa mite reproduces on the pupi like that's what it's doing is when a cell has been kept so the baby can undergo pupation that's where the mites kind of jump in. So it's good they're going to be on the nurse bees who are attending to that part of the colony. So you want to collect your nurse these half a cup they go into a jar, add enough alcohol to cover them and shake them really good. And then you're going to kind of dump all that alcohol out the mites are going to knock off and then you can count the mites so a half a cup of bees is about 300 bees so you want to find out your percent infestation you'll count how many mites you got in there so like I found 12 Cool you divide that by three your your percent infestation is 4% Now another option is to do a sugar roll and a sugar roll you'll again take your half a cup of scoop of bees but instead we're going to do is put in a bunch of powdered sugar and then what you so that this one's a bit trickier because you want to make sure you know when you get your bees are not somehow covered in honey. Everything is sticky inside of a colony. It's very easy like just the honey goes everywhere. You don't want the bees to be dry. So when you put in the powdered sugar, it doesn't just stick to them right and then you gonna set that in the shade, and you're gonna let the bees sit in the shade. So the way that this particular method works is the powdered sugar brings up the bees temperature. And it's that temperature change that causes the mites to fall off because like I can't live on this, it got too hot, so then the mites just kind of drop off on their own. But you still don't need to shake the bees really hard. And that action of shaking them is probably going to kill a lot of them, or at least not their heads around. But at the end of it, your bees are still kind of alive and you can come back into your colony. And then their sisters open Harvard and sugar in their systems or just kind of call their sugar off. But it's a lot easier to screw that method up. But if it's done correctly, the same might count as the alcohol. So that's how you would figure that out. The apiary inspectors of America suggest treating for mites at a 3% infestation level, they're actually talking about lowering that to 1%. Because that's how bad the viruses have gotten on the mainland. Now here in Hawaii, we actually see that our bees are able to tolerate higher loads, so anywhere from like five to 10%. So you can maybe go a little bit higher here like I would not let it get to 10%. But if you're at five, you can maybe let it go instead of three, maybe let it go to 5%. Before treating. And we have a number of treatment options available. We have nine products registered for use in Hawaii, six of them are organic. Yeah, three are conventional, I would I tell anybody is that you have to treat for the mites, however you choose to do it, we have organic products. And we have conventional products. Neither of them are overly bad for your bees, if you follow the label, and you use them at the appropriate time of the year. So and even though it's an organic product, there's still certain times of year where you cannot harvest the honey after you have treated with that product. So that's why I say read the label because organic does not inherently mean safe for any potential products that are going to be harvested. And it doesn't mean that it's any less deadly to the might right. So just read the label. But whatever your you know, paradigm for beekeeping is, there are products available to support you.

Melelani Oshiro:

That's good. Yeah, that's important to remember. And for folks that want to get started in beekeeping, to understand those type of risks and things that you need to manage and look for to make sure that your your colony is staying healthy and whatnot. So

Unknown:

and some people will think to like they can let it go, you know, they don't test for mites, and then be like, but my colony is really strong, it doesn't matter like well, if your colony is really strong, there's gonna be a delay, you know, you all of a sudden you have a bunch of adults emerge, well, potentially, you're now going to have a bunch of larvae in there as well as your queen ramps up. And that's, that's where they're the mites are going to be developing. And so at some point, it's just, it's gonna fall back. I mean, I've seen colonies before you have like, 25%. So 75 mites that counted in a shake, I mean, you know, I mean, it's not going to happen overnight, but your bees are all gonna die, and they're gonna have a lot of viruses in them when that happens. So, you know, just because the colony looks productive, it doesn't

Melelani Oshiro:

help you ensure having more mites in there, like you said, it's just going to make their health, you know, yeah, yeah. And set them up to be set up for other types of viruses or bacteria or the foul brood that could get right, so important to recognize a healthy colony if you're going to start beekeeping.

Unknown:

Well, gosh, we talked so much about management practices, maybe. But so maybe you share you share with us some of the projects and things that you're working on now. Because I mean, you've shared so much information about beekeeping management, but what are you folk? What are you folks working on right now? So I've got two graduate students right now. One is working on a project on how the nutrition that's available in the environment. So we're dealing with specifically in leeward areas. So we've got aprs, on Oahu and on Maui. So in a chiave, dominant system, you know, how does pollen availability and nutrition affect overall colony health on overall positive in a row a negative? Location? Yeah, so just kind of trying to see, you know, overall, what's the forage that's available right now in the environment? How nutritious is that? And then what kind of benefits do that nutrition does that nutrition then pass along to the bees? Yeah, so he's going to be finishing up with all of that in December. That work. And then I have a new student who just started this winter. And she is actually I'm really excited about both of their projects. But I'm excited about her project because it's a lot of things that he talked about what do bees feed on? So she's gonna be building off of the work that Daniel has done. So he's been collecting pollen from, you know, a location on Oahu and a location on Maui for over a year. I was collaborating with people the quiet community college apiary two years ago, and they sent me pollen every single month for an entire year. So we've got all of this pollen that's been collected monthly. She's not going to expand upon that and start collecting pollen from the Big Island, another location on Maui different location on Oahu as well. So we're going to have, you know, examples from all over the state and she's going to attend To find that poem like, what is this, we're going to get in there, we're going to do genetic work, we're going to identify to the best of our abilities. In some areas, we might be able to, you know, look at the pollen under a microscope and identify it that way, it's likely that we're going to be able to say, we know there's X number of distinct species, but maybe we can't necessarily put a name to that. Just because, you know, not a whole lot of genetic work has been published on plants in Hawaii, or it's only been done with like, very specific native Hawaiian plants, not necessarily some of the other ones, you know, maybe endangered plants, but not the ones that are more common. So, you know, we're gonna do the best that we can but to put names to these species, which I'm super excited about. And that's going to have, you know, really far ranging implications. So we talked about for home growers, like, oh, what plant native plants can I put out there for my bees? It's going to have, you know, big impact for the land managers, like where are their weeds that we should be getting into to manage? And we didn't think about a certain location as being particularly bad for a particular species. But you know, that it is, and the honeybees are probably a reason why it's able to propagate as well as it does, you know, but so there's you know, multitiered, you know, things we'll be able to do with this no more she's also going to do is we're going to get down to the nitty gritty of what makes it nutritious. So one of the things we talked about with pollen, I mean, that's their sole source of protein. But protein is a big word. I mean, it means a lot of things. So proteins are made up of amino acids. And for honeybees, they've just like us, we've got 10 essential amino acids. And they all have to be present in certain ratios in order for a honeybee baby to develop from egg to adult. So how does this break down? How do weeds that have an introduced How do I introduce species? What are the amino acid ratios of those? What are the amino acid ratios of our native plants, which I mentioned you as birds, and beetles? And flies are the major pollinators of those? How does that line up with what we know a honeybee actually needs? Do we see differences in the time of year? Is there some response to you know, weather events that are affecting the nutrition of pollen, and that's going to be really valuable information for beekeepers to understand, you know, maybe they're always going in because like, Oh, Christmas Berry, you know, that's, that's a controversial plant to bring out, right? Because a lot of people they want it, eradicate it. And, you know, they're in the process of working on bio control for this plant. But it's also one that the beekeepers, you know, rely upon, they get a honey crop off of that, but how nutritious is Christmas Berry? You know, is it something like they're foraging on it because there's nothing else available at that time of year? But really, it's not that great for them but we don't we don't have that information. And so being able to, you know, answer some of those questions I'm really excited about so I we talk a lot about management but I'm really interested in that's a big part of management too. Right? And what I always have people ask me to like what about so you know, some of our invasive weeds have presently alkaloids and things that are toxic to other livestock. So those those any of those kinds of things affect bees like it when they collecting the pollen and things like that? Does that can it be taught? Yeah, can it be toxic to them as well? Um, sometimes and it's, that's an area that I'm going to be looking at specifically. So we're focusing on nutrition not necessarily some of these other toxic compounds. But a plant isn't always going to be putting those toxic compounds into its floral tissues. Usually it's gonna be putting it in its leafy tissues. And so that's why it may affect other livestock you know, but because it's also probably putting it there as to you know, fend off insect herbivores you know, it's probably what it's trying to get to not eat it so it's not necessarily going to have that in the flowers although it could certainly exist in the in the nectar and then in the pollen. But that's something like you'd have to go on a plant by plant basis to figure that out. But I know poison ivy the toxins that make that you know, so irritating to us can show up and honey and so people can get into honeybees visit poison ivy flowers, no problem. They don't have an issue with it, but the honey can actually be really very allergic to placement. Yeah,

Shannon Sand:

yeah, I was like, we need to have you on here and talk about like, honeybee nutrition and again at some point in the future, right yeah.

Melelani Oshiro:

That is a bit more about big part of management right and I mean, I guess might be silly question, but when you look at it, I guess you didn't look at a honeybee what would you what I mean as far as its health like what are you looking at him? Like if you were to look at I mean, I might not I can tell you a healthy cow from and not healthy cow but how would you tell healthy be from an unhealthy be like What do

Unknown:

you see? Right? I mean, sometimes Okay, so what can we look for with that? Alright, so the first thing, you know, if you go into a hive, you know, you want to want to see are you adults healthy? So obvious signs of disease. The biggest one is deformed wing virus that's transmitted by the mites, you're still going to see that though on the outer islands where you don't have it because this virus is just present in honeybee populations. Unfortunately, on the overall positive islands, you get kind of fixated and fixed to one very dominant and very virulent strain of it. So you have a lot more deformed wing virus diversity elsewhere. Unfortunately, overall positive islands we don't have the diversity and the one we have is really bad. It's it's like the Delta variant of COVID like dang it. I got vaccinated you know, this is happening so, so it's kind of the same way with deformed wing virus. So and the reason I point that ad is like so that's one of the first things you can see, you'll go inside. And you might see an adult that has one crumpled wing or two crumpled wings, that's deformed wing virus, it's an obvious sign of disease, it means that just but just because we don't see it doesn't mean the bees don't have it. Again, that just means that they had enough that they became symptomatic. You can go in and you can see. So the German bees, we call them so it's like the German race of honeybees, they're more of a darker color. So the Italians that we see most of the time, they're kind of they have an orange abdomen, the Germans are going to be mostly darker. So they can sometimes be confused. But if you see a black shiny B, so this is one that's got no hair on his body and it's shiny. That's, that's a disease. It's a different suite. Yeah, that's another suite of some of the viruses that that would mean like, whoa, you you're very sick. You know, I don't see that very often here. But it's something that you could see obvious sign of infection, it's gonna be the brood, right? I mentioned for the foul brood, they can get something, they get very smelly. They can liquefy their brown. So that's foul rude. There's different types of fungal infections. So ask ofera chalk brood is very common, especially in wet areas, especially in what times of year some PMS, people get worried about that. It's a fungal infection, and it causes your bees to basically turn into these like the larvae turn into like little mummies, and then the adults will just like, the nurseries will just kind of throw them away. So you may see some on the outside of your colony with all the other trash that the bees, you know, pick out and throw away. And that's okay. It's never This is never going to kill a colony. If you think that killed the colony, it didn't, they were already sick with something else. And then that was also there. So chopper disease is another one that you can see evidence of, although it's like relatively minor again, like the varroa mites you can sometimes see the adults on but you shouldn't do visual has a means of quantifying or even presence absence, because, you know, that's not the best. Let's see what else is there? Signs of diarrhea? And how does to the best of us. So dysentery and honeybees is a thing. And that's because I Yeah, no, it's no cmosis is going to cause that. So for the most part, bees do not poop inside the hive, because that's dirty. They sleep. So they're going to fly outside to do that. But so if you see a bunch of, you know, kind of fecal spots on the outside of your colony, then that's, you know, evidence that you may have no Sima infection. Now, that's an infection that we actually see pretty, we have really high levels, we're in like the 90th percentile, if you look at Hawaii's levels of no Sima compared to the rest of the nation, I don't know why that is. But there's nothing you can do about it, except keep your bees healthy. So it's like, well, that sucks. But if you see inside of your colony, you've got a really bad no Zima infection, and you really need to evaluate, you know, what kind of resources they have available nectar and pollen and probably get them on a really strict feeding schedule to make sure that they can kind of overcome that. So that's how you would tell if your bees are healthy or not. But then also, you know, as your colony growing, you know, if your colony doesn't grow, it's because your adults are dying, you know, or something is wrong with your queen as well. So, certain times a year, they're the colony is going to shrink and get smaller, that's okay. So during the winter months, even though we don't have a real winter, their biological clocks, tell them like it's time to slow down a little bit, you know, and they're gonna slow down. And then you know, during the spring is when they really ramp up. So you know, different times of year you'll see that and it's important. It's, it's very, it's an art as much as it is a science to keep bees, you know, and we've got so many different microclimates here in Hawaii. So it's hard to tell someone what exactly they should be seeing at any given time of the year, because it's going to depend on their location. And so it's trial and error. It's speaking with other beekeepers in your area. And it's learning not just from what worked for them, but for what didn't work from them, like learning from people's failures as well as their successes, specific area that you should have. If you want to start a colony like I mean, do they need a specific space like if you you know, I mean, if you have too many neighbors with different callings that may enter to post together, does that impact them? Like I mean, do you need an acre do you need, you know? Say I'm not knowing right.

Shannon Sand:

Like I've heard of suburban beekeepers on the mainland, but like, Yeah,

Melelani Oshiro:

I mean, do they have a range that they normally Yeah, you want to be in within you to behave to be able to have your own hives stay in your own colony? I guess just say, right.

Unknown:

Yeah, so that's gonna depend on what's flowering in your area, and how frequently and how much of it right so, I mean, stocking densities. Again, it kind of is a trial and error thing. Especially because we have no beekeeper registries. We don't know how many colonies we have in the state. We don't know where they are in the state either. So to get that information, you know, joining local beekeeping organizations, Big Island has the biggest and the most active one in the state.

Shannon Sand:

Because that's the one it's like a contest for and I was like, so much fun. You

Unknown:

know, they're awesome. It's such a great group of people you know and kawaii I know that they have a group. I don't believe Maui has anything so, you know, being able to you know, connect locally with your neighbors that are also beekeepers is really important and I strongly encourage that type of, you know, grassroots organization because if you have a group of people you can bring in experts you know, they can zoom in they can comply with

Shannon Sand:

the organization's do some of that I think you'd probably be more familiar with that than I would

Unknown:

try me. With Viva Yeah, be button and also the KCC apiary on kawaii as well. So yeah, absolutely. And I really encourage xx we also have no statewide beekeeping Association, unfortunately. So no, why No, right. We do not. So you know, being able to get you know, people together and organizing at various levels. That's a great way to get information from your neighbors and from other beekeepers like that.

Shannon Sand:

Someone was interested in going into it. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of, I think, I know, I think Biba does, like an entire, like, if you want to get into it, kinda, I thought they had some information or something. I think they had some, at one point, again, I feel like I have to give the caveat with a lot of things pre COVID. I always like to say like, informational for people, people interested. Oh, they did. Okay. Interested in getting into beekeeping,

Melelani Oshiro:

whether whether how active some of those things are? No, you'd have to actually see, right? Yes, COVID just changed a lot of those little organizations and how they had to be able to, I must say, it's funny that you say stocking density, because I just want to hear that with like cattle and whatnot. And now you're about it with bees. I mean, that's right, because you don't want to have too many. And yeah, anyways, that can lead to other issues, right. So

Unknown:

so and they can fly far, they can go three kilometers away from a colony to search for food, and like, and then we'll recruit, right, so if you go out there you find so I feel like this is so good. You're there's a ton of it, I'm gonna taste some and I'm gonna bring it back. So now you've got four sisters, when you just, you know, flew back, and you're going to guess you're going to tell them where it was like that dance gives information on how far away it is, and what direction to fly to find it, they're gonna know what this smells like, what it tastes like, she's bringing back some of the pollen on her body that can be smelled and tasted, she's gonna regurgitate some of that nectar, they're like, this is awesome. Now five things are going to fly back to that same location, and five bees are going to come back, and they're going to do the same dance. Now 25 These next time, so it's like NASA recruitment, if they're able to do which is what makes them so even if they're not the most efficient, pollinator, there's a lot of them and so they get the job done, you know, well enough, right? And so, but they can do three kilometers, they can go even further, they can go 15 kilometers, if they have

Melelani Oshiro:

the key, they can go with stuff nearby that they want to have in order to keep them in your own little space in other words,

Unknown:

right and I refer to that as the bed and breakfast approach. Right? It's not enough to just bring have a space around like you have to have something to eat. And so if you've got acreage, you know, being able to plant pollinator mixes, a lot of flowering plant species that are good for cattle are also great for bees, you know, because I'm coming from Europe. So I'm not necessarily out here but

Melelani Oshiro:

I mean, Calvin is a perfect example. Right? Because their whole connection to the livestock and that's why they were the connection to the bees everything so yeah,

Shannon Sand:

able to. Yeah.

Unknown:

And that's an option. Shoot, those are more Dang, it might be in my mind right it's one more thing I was gonna say that had to do with like the stocking densities but now it's sorry, it's slipping out.

Melelani Oshiro:

That's that's a funny. Yeah, it's funny because there's so many terms, I think that are very related. Go ahead, you remember.

Unknown:

I did remember now. Um, so you mentioned like suburban beekeeping. That's a big deal on the mainland. Okay, you have to look up your county ordinance. And I have this on my website. It's county by county that beekeeping in areas that are zoned for anything other than agriculture is a lot only Honolulu county only on a walk. Who can you keep bees in an urban or suburban area? You got the rest of our island? Yeah. You got to know where you're at the other islands, it's has to be zoned agriculture, or else you cannot keep bees it's not allowed use of the land. And then there's going to be restrictions on how far away from roadways and neighboring properties you have to be so they don't become a nuisance. So that at the county level, they're actually regulated as livestock but also as nuisance or nuisance animals like chickens and roosters. That's kind of find that in the county thing, so I'm sure at some point we'll do like oh, we will definitely have to do that because that was one of the things I think you'd recommend recommended to people to that wanted to start poultry was always check your county ordinances because yeah, and you're in your if you're in a HOA, that's another place that you have to check because some of them even though it's allowed in your county, your HOA might not allow it so and you and I will say the Big Island Biba has done a great job. And so they're in the process of well, they were pre COVID. They're in the process of redoing their ordinances so that you can have backyard beekeepers on the Hey guys, so they're moving towards that bear, which is wonderful

Shannon Sand:

kinds of divisions around not like outside of Hilo and like Nona and stuff. So I was like, yeah.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's important, I think. Wow. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us today. And sharing too much information won't be I mean, I remember the workshop was so good, but I felt like I was still limited. Like, I felt like there was still a lot more to learn from that. So. Yeah, thank you so much for joining us today on our livestock Wala'au podcast.

Shannon Sand:

Do you have anything like coming up that you want to plug or tell people about or?

Unknown:

Ah, no. I do not. Because, yeah. Now, yeah, I mean, stay tuned. So I'm, it's my hope that, you know, overall workshops will be able to happen statewide. You know, we're similar to what we did last February pre COVID. You know, we can get into the hives and you know, beat me. So the the last workshop that I was actually Janae Oh, Donny organized that and I kind of went along as her sidekick. But that was like meant to be focused on foulbrood and training veterinarians on what to notice, so that they can write prescriptions. In this case, the focus would be on monitoring for Verona, on the treatment options available, this would happen on all positive and negative islands, I think that's what's most important, we assume it's not on these negative islands, you know, that getting people to monitor. So we've applied for funding for that. So we'll see if that comes through. But beekeepers are a very underserved agricultural group in the state. And so I'm hoping that that'll help to address that. Yeah, a lot of theirs tend to be a lot smaller scale. And so, um, because, you know, unfortunately, groups just aren't as well organized, again, major exception being Biba. I think, you know, their, their lobbying potential isn't as great as it could be to pass, you know, laws and regulations that would really help support that as

Shannon Sand:

kind of a shame because these are really important to like, just the ecology and the environment of agriculture in general. So, yeah,

Melelani Oshiro:

yeah, definitely, definitely. And we don't give them their credit that they deserve for all the work that they contribute to the industry, you know, to the livestock industry. So yeah. Well, thank you again, so much for joining us. Yeah, we hope to have you back I'm sure. Yeah, more about nutrition and maybe follow up with your projects that you guys did once you guys have gotten more information. That'd be really cool to hear an update about those. But right, thank you Dr. Milgrim.

Unknown:

For joining our livestock Wala'au My Cassidy we should all give her a little be friends enough credit for all the work they contribute to the industry. And make sure to join the Facebook page, the livestock extension group. If you haven't already, be sure to visit the UHF CTAHR Extension website and our YouTube channel listed in the show notes. And for additional information about this topic, you can see Dr. Morgan's page Malama FHWA website listed in the show notes in the podcast and the description box of our YouTube page. Thanks again everyone for listening to livestock Walaau.

Shannon Sand:

Before we go show some love for your favorite podcasts. That's us by the way by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts and anywhere else This podcast is available then stay tuned for next month's podcast.

Melelani Oshiro:

We hope everybody