That time we talked about beekeeping

This is episode number 10 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you guys could join us today. We have a very special show for you guys today. We're gonna be talking about bees.

Bees.

Kevin, you love bees, right?

I, you know, I, not really.

It's the fastest I've ever seen you run is when there were some bees around.

Yeah, I think I hit like 3 or 4 miles an hour that day.

It was top speed.

Yeah, no, you know, actually, um, I'm way less afraid of bees than I am of wasps. I'm a big— I don't like wasps at all, but bees I'm more okay with. I think they're interesting. Wasps, I think, are just a nuisance.

A nuisance?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, I'm with you.

Yeah, I like killing some wasps. Yeah, even take a little pleasure in it.

Yeah, me too, me too. But bees are completely different, and I think they can be helpful, and I've learned a little bit more about them recently, and it'll be interesting to talk with our guests today and just see what more we can learn about them. And, um, you know, we are a homeowners podcast, so, uh, you know, I'm sure the question will come up at some point, how do bees have anything to do with homeownership? But definitely there are some benefits.

Oh yeah, well, there's, there's definitely different ways that bees interact with homes, and not necessarily in good ways either. Sure. Um, but so anything, anything new going on with you, man? You Anything fun?

No, just Thanksgiving coming up. We got a—

Turkey?

Yeah, we got a week where we get to spend some time with our family.

And I'll tell you, this is, this is one of the big controversies around our house. I mean, like, how do you— does your turkey have to be prepared a specific way?

For me to eat it?

Well, I mean, I assumed it's cooked.

I'll just tell you, you animal. Well, so, so what we do for Thanksgiving is probably abnormal. We'll have anywhere from 70 to 90 people at our Thanksgiving on Thursday.

So just half the family.

Yeah, that's actually just my wife's side anyway.

What did you marry into, man?

I know. I actually knew before I married in, and I still married in.

So you're just going to the compound to have some turkey, is that what you're doing?

That's right. But just personally, we have turkey prepared all different ways there, and we have ham, and a lot of times we'll have We have, we have tons of different things because there's just so many people there. But for me to enjoy turkey, it's gonna have to either be smoked or fried.

Smoked or fried.

If it's not smoked or fried, I'm— I'd rather just eat vegetables.

Hmm.

Personally.

Well, so I'll give you my 2 bits on that. So I think most people don't like roasted turkey in the oven.

Okay, yeah, I don't.

Because they don't do the work on the back end in order to get it ready to go into the oven.

Okay.

My personal opinion, you gotta brine that bird.

Well, yeah.

If you don't brine that bird, it's just gonna be dry. I mean, like, no matter what you do, if you're gonna smoke it, if you're gonna fry it, if you're— brine that bird.

But most people don't even know what brine means.

Right. So get educated out there, world.

Google.

Yeah. So anyway, let's, let's talk some bees. We have Julie from over at Winding Creek Apiary and Bee Supply. Yeah. Julie, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Yeah, good to have you. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how you got started. Why are you— why do you have this store?

With the store or beekeeping? Beekeeping I got into because—

These are 2 separate issues, right?

Yeah, separate issues.

Okay.

Um, I love gardening. I love dirt under my nails, and my tomatoes weren't blooming. They weren't ever. So I went to a bee meeting and got attached, went to my mentors house. We went to several bee yards because I'm real hyper, so I didn't know if I could even do it in the first place.

And—

What do you mean by hyper?

You like, you, you have, you can't like focus on something or?

Yeah, I just, I like to be busy.

Okay.

Just from one thing to another.

Like a bee?

Yes.

Okay, got that one out of the way.

Busy bee. Anyway, and so went to her house. She said just wear loose jeans and she had a jacket for for me and gloves, and I got stung 8 times in the crotch and said, I'm going to go get a full bodysuit and I'll see you later. Ran home and told my husband I wanted 2,000 hives.

Oh my gosh.

He said for me to calm down. I got 5.

Just calm down.

There was some negotiating in there.

Yeah. So, and I haven't had a garden since and been just messing with bees. Addicted.

Yeah. Now, what is it about, about those bees? I mean, because obviously you're not doing the gardening anymore. So like, what is so appealing about that?

The sound, the smell, the— you open up a hive and it's just as if I had a bottle of wine, tell you the truth. I mean, I get in a bad mood, go play with the bees.

Wow.

It's, it's a very calming, relaxing Um, the buzz, the noise. And now if you make them mad and they get all hyper, you get hyper too.

Sure.

And you're kind of anxious, but—

Sort of respond in kind.

Yeah. So it's, um, it's a good thing.

Yeah.

Now we should, we should mention you brought a special guest with you today. Who do we have here?

My granddaughter.

Hi.

What's your granddaughter's name?

Alexis Norman.

Sorry.

So does Alexis help with the bees?

Yes, I do.

Yeah, you do. So what is your favorite part?

Um, it depends really. Um, I like just seeing the bees really.

Just seeing them?

They're cool.

Yeah, then you like to look down into the box, or do you like just kind of seeing them come and go from the entrance?

I like looking down in the box.

Yeah, do you get the same kind of smell? Like that grandma gets? Um, you like that smell?

I don't really smell anything.

You don't?

It just smells like air.

Just smells like air.

I'll just tell you, some air smells different than other air.

I've had some skunk air once.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So she's talking about normal air.

But, but you help out a lot?

Uh, yeah.

So have you actually like gone out there and gotten honey?

Uh-huh.

Yeah? Do you get to keep any?

Well, my mom does, but I don't really like honey.

Oh, you don't like honey?

Okay.

But you like the bees?

I like the bees, but I don't like honey.

So you think you're gonna have some hives of your own someday?

Maybe.

Maybe? Alright.

Cool.

Well, good deal. So why would a homeowner be interested in having bees? I mean, this is the Homeowner Show. Why, why would a typical homeowner— I mean, because this is something that I've recognized is a growing trend particularly around where we live, that is happening. I mean, you see people having chickens in backyards that aren't really big backyards, and I also see people getting bees. So why, why is this a growing thing?

Self-reliable, you know, they can go out and get their own food. It's antibiotic, it's a, you know, it's a resource. I think that's a big thing right now, not being able to trust with the government and everything, being able to take care of your own.

Yeah.

At least on— that's my view. I mean, there's a lot of different— I just had a customer come in this morning that has a pool, 2 hives, and it is a very small backyard, and they do wonderful.

Yeah.

Well, that, that brings a question to my mind. I mean, you're talking about sustainability here. You mentioned, you mentioned food and antibiotics. So Could you walk us through a little bit of what the sustainability of bees actually are? What do they provide? I mean, what— I mean, obviously honey, but why? What's the difference? I mean, I go to the grocery store and I see, you know, bookoos of honey up on the shelf. So could you just walk us through what's different about owning your own bees and getting your own honey versus something like that?

Well, store-bought honey, you never know what you're actually getting. A lot of times, store-bought honey, maple syrup, and olive oil, they just have to have a trace in it to be considered truly, or considered honey or olive oil or maple syrup. It's, they may have done sugar water in it, corn syrup and stuff, and weakened it down. It came from China. You just never know where it's coming from. Commercial beekeepers, which I have tons of friends that are commercial beekeepers, whenever they get so big, they just take all honey because they go and do pollination. And so they don't really get a lot of honey from this area, so they'll go and get honey from the smaller guys, put it in a big huge vat, heat it up to blend it all

together, and then they sell it to the grocery stores. So you lose a little bit of that, um, the pollen, the good stuff, um, from the Holland— from the bees, the honey. And so anyway, sorry.

So when you put it in a vat like that, I mean, like, I mean, like, you're basically collecting it from like all over the country at that point. It's not— I mean, like, even though those bees might be from Texas, they've been at an almond farm in California or watermelon farm in South Texas or Florida oranges and stuff. So that At that point, the stuff that's in that honey is not localized and helpful necessarily to you and your allergies.

And it's also heated. Whenever you heat honey, it loses all the good nutritional value to it. So that's why you never really want to heat it to a certain degree.

Yeah. So just so everyone knows, I'm very illiterate whenever it comes to bees and honey and these sorts of things. But I heard a couple of things here. I just want to make sure that everyone understands what we're talking about here. here. And that is that honey has a lot of things in it that are, you know, local to where the bees are living. And so if, um, you know, we, we live here in the North Houston area, and the types of things that are in our air and that are in our environment are different than they are in North Texas or West Texas or Nebraska, right?

Yeah.

And so, um, What I, what I understand about honey is that there are— the, the bees wind up producing things in the honey that help you fight the, the allergens and other things that are in your environment local to where you are. Is that, is that what I'm understanding?

Yes, you're correct. Okay, you want to be within— I mean, there's different opinions every beekeeper has different answers. You ask 2 beekeepers, you're going to get 30 answers. So, and what works one time won't work the next time and everything else. So, but when it comes to local honey, you want to be within 30 miles. Um, I say closer, but I've heard 30 miles to have the regular. A bee will fly up to 5 miles out to find food. forage to find good pollen and nectar source. That's why bees only live to be 30 days old.

Okay. Yeah. And so, um, even if I see a jar, let's say that, that I know a jar is from Texas, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be helpful for you to have that specific honey except to flavor your food.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I've even heard there's some controversy around like, you know, it's saying local.

Yeah, I mean, there is.

Because there's nothing regulating that.

Yeah, there's nothing regulating that.

You can put that sticker on there, it could be from anywhere.

Yeah, well, that's like the Go Texas program. You think, oh, it's from Texas because it says Go Texas on it. Well, it doesn't. It just has to be packaged in Texas for you to be able to put that Go Texas. Well, now we have a program, it's Real Texas Honey. And so you can know that it is produced and packaged, everything in Texas. So you know where it's coming from, unlike the Go Texas.

Okay.

Because I was going to do the Go Texas and then realized that it didn't even have to be from here. That— and I was like, yeah, no, another scam.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it just definitely, it changes my opinion on, on just the food that I'm eating, knowing that there could be a potential health benefit to me. And, and I think that for a lot of people, me included, for a long time, my thoughts were, well, bees are just annoying, you know, because they come around and they can sting me.

Yeah, and they don't want to sting you. They die if they sting you, right? So they don't want to sting you. But besides honey, you get wax. you get propolis, you get your pollen. And propolis they use as an antibiotic. It's their glue. To the bees, bees will propolis anything and everything in the hive that they don't want moved. So it's glue. But to us, it's used as medicine. Some people even eat it. I don't. I never have. So, but it's used for medical purposes. But then the wax and everything, you can have candles to lotions to makeup to, you know, all different things from it. So you get so much from a hive. So it's living off the land.

Yeah.

So Julie, and you just recently came back from a pretty cool conference, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. What was that?

The Texas Beekeepers Association conference. It was their annual conference. They have also one Summer clinic coming up. It'll be here in Montgomery County again. So I'm excited about that. I like it when it's in our backyard.

Makes it convenient.

Yes, it does.

Know all the breakfast spots.

Yes. Don't have to pay for it. Makes it nice.

So what is the purpose of these conferences?

To learn. They have anywhere from new beekeepers to advanced. It's more on the newer beekeepers.

So there's options for different things you can go and listen to.

Different classes.

Okay.

They get some scientists in there that will talk way above your head that you don't really understand, but the commercial guys understand it a little bit better. But this year's conference, it was a little low. The attendance was a little low, but—

Where was it this year?

In Temple.

In Temple, okay.

So it was fun. I still enjoyed it. I had a booth for the first time.

Hey, did you get any business?

I did. I did because I'm a Mann Lake distributor.

What's— what is that?

Man Lake is a, um, a bee company that sells all the supplies and stuff. I'm just a distributor. I did apply for my dealership, so hopefully. Um, but, um, anyway, they were there, so I took some items that they don't have. So, okay, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, so learned a little bit.

Now, is that, is that something you would recommend if someone were interested in starting to keep bees? Is that something you recommend them going to?

Yes.

Okay.

New beekeepers, it's perfect for.

Okay. What else, what else should new beekeepers— like, so I'm, say I'm thinking about getting a hive of bees, what, what should be my first few steps?

Um, I would say the first important thing is join a club.

Join a club.

Your local club.

Okay.

Um, getting a mentor. If you don't like the club because of the politics of it, or if you don't like your mentor, you know, get another one. Look for another one.

Yeah.

Don't let one person ruin it for you. Our club forever didn't like the Flow Hive, and they were so negative over the Flow Hive, I think we lost a couple of people.

Yeah.

But now Flow Hive is coming back into our club.

Yeah. And so for people that don't know, what's, what's a Flow Hive?

Flow Hive is a regular Langstroth hive, a beehive. But it has a really cool tool that you stick in there and honey flows into a jar so you don't have to have the extraction equipment.

Ooh.

I think I have said that correctly. I don't personally— I have one, it's still in the box. Yeah, there's a lot of parts.

Hadn't unpacked it yet?

I haven't unpacked it. It's going to be a winter project, um, but I can't say anything positive or negative because I haven't physically used it. But I have several friends that do have it and love it and wouldn't use anything else.

Okay, well, full disclosure, I do keep bees and I do have a Flow Hive. It has pluses and minuses. I encourage everyone to look at it, watch the videos on it. They're usually pretty— those guys that put it together are pretty honest about it, so it's, it's worth looking into. I mean, like, and when I, when I take— when I do take other beekeepers out and show them how long it takes me to get honey, Mm-hmm. that's usually the big selling point because, you know, where I think most people who go and do like a honey extraction spend most of the day.

Yeah.

I can get it done in about an hour.

Yeah, and I spend all day long.

Right, yeah. So, and I don't have to—

And I'm sticky.

Yeah, I'm clean. I just got jars and, you know, that's, that's— but, you know, again, there's, there's downsides to that too. Um, we don't have to get into that today. So, but just, just full disclosure, I, I do know a little something about that. Um, but yeah, so speaking of which, have, have you ever been to Epcot?

Yes.

Yes. So I love Epcot, and, uh, I heard a story about— do you know the, the Living with the Land Pavilion where you get on the boat and you go through the gardens?

Yes.

The indoor gardens?

Yes.

So I heard an interview with the guy who was in charge of that project, and so before it all opened, he was, you know, taking the tour and the guy was taking him through it, and he had one of the what they call the Imagineers with him, who's actually just an engineer. And his question to him was, so how is the— how are the plants going to get pollinated? Where are we keeping the bees? And the guy that's in charge of the project, he goes, we're not putting bees in here. He's like, well, how are we supposed to pollinate the food?

It's yours.

And And the guy goes, well, you're just gonna have to figure that out. And so the, the guy, they just developed a system to hand pollinate all the food. And if you've been there, you've seen how huge that thing is. They have to hand pollinate all of those, all of those plants.

Right.

That is crazy.

It is crazy. And it's because they're like, we don't want people getting stung on this ride. They're here bringing their little children and we don't want to have EpiPens available and all this kind of stuff.

It was a huge liability.

It was a huge liability. But I mean, like, it's a good— I mean, like, for me, it's a good way to think because, like, if we don't have the bees, and this is something that we're beginning to deal with, right, is like, if we don't have the bees, we're going to have to figure out a way to pollinate this food. And I think this is part of the reason people are starting to get interested in this is because it's becoming very real for people that if we don't have bees, we're going to have some issues, right?

Yeah, bad issues. One of the reasons why I got into it. It's because my tomatoes are not blooming.

Yeah.

You know, they weren't being pollinated. And so a lot of food is air pollinated, but majority of them is bees, butterflies, hummingbirds. And I'm sure there's others that—

Wasps actually do pollinate. I mean, even though they're jerks.

Don't tell me they're useful.

I did not know that. See, I kill all wasps.

I do too. Don't tell me they have usefulness.

Well, no, I mean, like, so like, Now I won't want to kill them. No, it's like 0.006 or something like that of all pollination happens because of wasps, but they are pollinators.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, I just— I don't really like this conversation right now because I do not like wasps. So if you tell me they're useful, but barely so, then okay, I can still feel good about killing wasps. Just don't kill the bees. Don't kill the bees. That's a big deal, right? I mean, like, I mean, I know, I know they're a nuisance and they can be annoying if you are uneducated about them, um, and, and that's fine. But the reality of it is they serve a very big purpose. And if you eat— I think most people do.

I know you do.

More than I should. But if you eat, then Don't kill the bees because you're, you're, you're causing problems, uh, for, for the food that is available.

Well, not just for the food, your food.

Your— my food and your food.

Yeah. Hmm. Good thoughts, Kevin.

That's all I got.

I will say I would, I would pay good money to see a cage match between you and a wasp.

Just give me like a lighter and a can of aerosol. We'll be good.

Yes. I agree with you.

I do all.

Well, so what are some issues that people can run into if they're going to be keeping bees? I mean, like, so they come to your store, they, you know, they're going to need a box. Yeah.

Right?

Yeah. They need to decide between an 8-frame or 10-frame. And, you know, an 8-frame is a lot lighter. It's easier. So normally, if it's all girls or elderly, I'll recommend the 8-frame because it is heavy. And so there's a whole bunch of, you can get the cat daddy of them, or you can just do the plain Jane. And, you know, it doesn't take anything really to do it. So you can do it in an apartment, you can do it in backyard, you face it towards your fence and/or a bush and they go straight up and out. And so give your neighbors a jar of honey so that way they'll be your friend.

And yeah.

If you have pools, um, the, the best way they say— I don't have a pool, so I don't have to worry about it— but they say, um, just take a bucket of pool water and set it out close to your hives, um, so the bees will go to that pool water or the bucket of water instead of the pool.

Oh, so they don't fall in and drown.

And yeah, is that, is that really the purpose of that, or—

No, it's just to keep the humans and to keep them, you know, if the kids are playing in the pool or something.

Oh, keep them from buzzing the pool.

Buzzing the pool.

I gotcha. Okay.

So many people are afraid of bees. In reality, if you just ignore them, you know, mainly the time you get stung is because you did something. They go down, you leave your Coke open, they go in and take a sip of your sugar in the Coke, and then you take a sip and you get stung. Or if you're walking barefooted and you step on one that's on a flower, or if it's on you and you you put your hand down, it's going to sting you. You know, bees don't want to sting you. They die if they sting you. So, um, so yeah.

There's actually a brewery near, near here that actually has a— usually has a pretty big issue in the spring with bees, you know, just chasing people.

Yeast.

Yeah, I mean, like, they're after that beer like crazy. They need to take a bucket of beer and set it off to the side.

Yeah, there you go.

Let them have it.

Yeah, here's yours, stay away from everybody else's.

Nothing wrong with a whole bunch of drunken bees.

Be some different honey, be all right, nothing wrong with that.

There you go.

Yeah, so I mean, like, what, what are we looking— I mean, like, ballpark, if someone wanted to get into this? Because they can order bees from you too, right?

They, um, right now, a good friend of mine, Bluebonnet Beekeeping, um, they're actually who I bought the store from. Okay, I just bought the store They still do honey and they still do educational part of it.

Okay.

So I just bought the store from them. But they do, they have an excellent package right now. It's a 6-frame nuc, which that's a box, a small box of bees, and it comes with 6 frames instead of 5 or 4 like normally.

Yeah.

And for $260.

Okay.

And so you can get into beekeeping easily under $500.

So you buy the bees for $260 and then all the additional equipment and stuff that you might need.

Yeah.

You're looking at—

And if you have any carpenter skills or anything, you know, it can be a lot cheaper because you could do a lot yourself.

You can build the box?

Yeah.

Okay.

You have to be very careful with bee space. I learned the hard way. I thought, well, I'll build my own. I like to build things. And I did not do correct bee space and I killed my queens. time after time after time. So I threw all my boxes away and got new boxes with the correct bee space. And so it's worth spending the money if you do not follow directions very well.

Well, that, that's a— that's interesting. So $500 or less and you can, you can be into bees. Now, um, that being said, what type of time commitment would I be looking at if I were interested in getting into keeping bees? Um, maybe I just want to do it on a small scale. Nothing, you know, I, I want to provide some stuff just for my own home. Um, so, so that box you were just talking about, $260. Um, what type of time is it going to be for me to be involved with this?

Well, let me say, I always say, and this is— in just a second I'll tell you about the time— on how many boxes you'd want. And this is again my opinion, is 2 is one, one is none. So if you start off with one box of bees, if something happens to it, you're done. You know, you just invested in nothing. It's down the toilet. But if you get 2, something happens to it, then you can do a split of a box and, or, you know, steal from this box to help this box go on. And so 2 is one, one is none. So I always say you want to start off with 2 or more.

Okay.

And then time-wise, you don't have to spend as much time as everybody thinks. It's, oh, you have to do a lot in them. And no, in reality, you have to do 3 really deep hive inspections, 3 to 4 deep hive inspections. The rest of the time, you're just watching. You're just looking, seeing, you know, I may open up the box, check a frame and see if it, you know, has pollen or if the eggs are— if she's laying eggs. I don't, um, I don't get in and look for her. I don't look for the queen per se. I just look for the eggs. I know a lot of people do, but I feel like that's a good way to kill her is by looking, by looking for her. So that's

just my personal opinion.

Sure.

So, um, you know, during springtime dearth— or not spring, summertime dearth period— that's our summer, our triple-digit heats The real heat, hot days, you have to make sugar water for them if you don't leave plenty of honey for them. Wintertime, right now, you have to close them up, but then after that you leave them alone till it's, you know, 70 degrees back out, and then you can go out there and give them some more sugar water. But otherwise, it really isn't— it's a very low maintenance. If you don't rob all the honey from them, you don't have to feed them so much, you know.

Yeah.

So, well, so what are some of the other, other things that people have to watch out for with these hives? Because I mean, like, there's, there's a lot of controversy around with colony collapse disorder, but there's— which is sort of an ethereal way of saying that the colony died. But like, what are, what are some of the like actual threats that we know about to these hives?

Well, the 3 threats to us— well, besides being human and we kill them on accident or on purpose, one of the 2— is the hive beetles, the mites and the moths. Usually if you have moths, something has disturbed it before. The mites or the hive beetles have bugged it before, I've been told. I mean, I'm not, I'm not an expert, so—

Sure.

I mean, this is what I've learned. But like in our area, because we're so wet and all the pine trees and stuff, we have hive beetles. Mites, Everybody has mites on their bees pretty much. Yeah, the varroa mite. Yeah, um, because there's so many people that won't treat their bees, or, you know, there's so many people are against treating their bees. And so—

I was going to say, there's, there's even some controversy around the different ways that you even treat for that.

Yes. Yeah, so I do a heat treatment, so I'm not using chemicals, um, but So a lot of people— and I don't mind chemicals, I'm not a chemical freak or whatever, but it's just easier for me to do. But, um, so I use heat to treat mine. But, um, I know I have 5 beekeepers around my area, and I know 2 that don't treat at all. So I know my bees have mites.

Yeah, they're just, they're just going to be there.

Yeah, because they don't do theirs. So I know I'm gonna have So I do a hive check and take alcohol, and I do sacrifice a cup full of my bees twice a year to make sure that I have mites and how much I'm going to treat.

Sounds like we need like a good healthy bee mafia to like go around and, you know, like rough some of these guys up that aren't doing the mite treatment.

They're just, they're so anti-chemicals, but they don't realize that they're hurting the bees in the long run. But they're also, you know, because if you don't treat in some way, even if it's non-chemical or chemical, you'll lose a hive within 3 years.

Yeah, because what does that mite do to them?

The mite's like a tick.

Okay.

I mean, that's the best way for me to describe it. They're like a tick. They suck the blood. They drop into the eggs. They lay a whole bunch of eggs onto, into the bee egg, and they suck the blood. So, I mean, that's my understanding on them. But they cause wing deformative, you know, so the bees won't be able to fly off to pollinate, to do the work that they need to do. So then the hive will die.

Not good.

No.

Don't want that.

No. So, I mean, if you're not going to use chemical, do non-chemical. They're both out there. And yeah, so, and there's high or mite-resistant bees, but they still have mites.

Yeah.

So you still have to do something.

Would you say they might be resistant?

Might.

Sorry, man.

Might be.

My true colors are coming out.

We're docking your pay this week, man. $5 a pun.

Man, I'm down $10.

You are in the hole. Well, Alexis, have you— what is your favorite part about this whole process? Do you like going out and getting the honey? Do you like just sitting out there and examining the comb? What's your favorite part?

I like— excuse me. I like looking at the bees, really. I just like the commotion and how, like, I don't know how to put it.

They get into— the grandkids will get in, the girls. The boys, they are a little bit more standoffish. They like to extract the honey more than anything. They love to extract. But they will get into the hive and just kind of look. My one granddaughter, she just wants to kill one bee. Just one bee.

She wants to?

She wants to kill one bee and then she will be fine and good. But they're my smokers.

Okay.

I give them— usually I'll give them a smoker and that's their job to do. Um, she's being a little bit older, she can get in there with me a little bit easier.

So you got your own suit and everything?

Uh-huh. But I don't normally— well, unless I'm actually like going into the bees, I'm just I don't get like really close to the bees, but I just go in shorts and a t-shirt and walk around the bees. I don't really— it doesn't bug me. The bees don't scare me really.

Yeah.

The bees are right in our backyard behind our barn. So they're not— they're real close to the playground. Yeah, and the kids' play yard area, and they don't bug each other. I mean, besides I tell them to wear shoes because They're out there with the flowers. So, yeah.

So, but like, if you're going in, I mean, do you full suit, gloves, whole 9 yards?

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

Yeah.

So I still think some of your toughness needs to rub off on Kevin over here though.

Yeah.

He won't even go out in the pasture with me.

Yeah, I'd probably be the one going back to school and saying, you know, what'd you do this weekend? I did some smoking. That's probably what I would do. Did some smoking. Probably get in trouble.

Well, the back of my shirt says— what does it say, Alexis?

Don't kill my buzz.

Yeah, don't kill my—

don't kill my buzz.

The bees.

There you go, there you go.

Have you, have you heard about the guy that has trained his bees to, uh, to only pollinate hemp?

No, I haven't. Well, I've seen it. I've seen the video of them pollinating.

And it's, it's like highly concentrated THC in that honey. So it's like, it's honey that will literally give you a buzz.

Well, that's cool.

Wow, it's crazy.

Yeah.

I say that's cool. Sorry. Everyone knows now.

To each his own.

I thought it was cool. Yeah.

High school age came back out.

It's interesting for sure.

It is very interesting. I did not realize that.

Well, cool. Um, what else? Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would be interested in, um, you know, someone who's listening to this podcast knowing about bees?

Or they want to come and play with the bees, or just to see, I have extra suits. I'm not going to get into my hives when it's nasty weather or if it's cold out, um, but they can set— call the shop and set up an appointment. I have extra suits. They can get in my bees with me. I do not, you know, we won't do a deep inspection, but enough so that way they can see if they want to do it or if they just want that experience. I have some homeschool parents that bring their kids out and I get into the hives with them, and I have no problem doing that.

Awesome.

So along those lines, how would someone get a hold of you if they had more questions or were interested in your store?

Give me a call on my phone or email me, honey@windingcreekaparery.com.

We'll link that up in the show notes.

We'll have all the notes on there. So you want us to put your phone number up there as well?

Yeah, sure.

Okay, we'll put the phone number up, but they can— can they find you— where else can they find you?

Facebook.

Facebook, okay.

Instagram, okay. And, um, but Facebook, I've Do a lot of that.

Which one are you on more?

Well, my daughter does more Instagram.

Okay.

So she does a lot of the Instagram pages and stuff, but Facebook I'm more on.

You're okay, awesome. Well, we'll put the links to those up as well. Do you have a— do you have a website as well?

Yes.

Okay.

It is newly— I hate the computer, so I'm just getting into putting it up. It's up, but it's not— yeah, it's not great. Okay, looking for a cheap web person that can make me one. I'll trade for honey.

There you go.

All right, there's, there's somebody out there. Yeah, he's, he's, he's sniveling. He's got the allergies and he's like, I just need somebody to give me the honey and I'll write the code.

If only, if only I could have some honey for exchange for a website.

I could do this.

There's a sneezy nerd out there somewhere just for you.

I have no THC in mine.

Oh.

So I don't think you're gonna get any of that from me.

Well, for that we'd expect a high premium website. Is this right?

Yes. Yeah, the quality of website depends on the type of honey.

Yes.

From whence it comes pollinated.

Yes.

Well, cool. Um, well, let's, uh, let's move into the final 4.

Um, the final 4.

That's my line.

You missed it. It was—

Next time. I'll get it next time. But yeah, let's, uh, these are—

You get to do all the questions. I should get to do the bump.

That's true. That's true. Uh, okay, so, so these are 4 questions that we ask each guest that we, that we come on. And Alexis, if you have answers to any of these, you're welcome to answer some too.

I think you should ask both of them.

Okay, we'll ask both. You each get to answer these. Okay. All right, so, so the very first question is this: What's the must-have tool you won't leave the house without?

Well, personally, my pistol.

All right.

And if I'm going in the bee yard, my toolbox.

Okay. What kind of tools are in your toolbox for, for a bee extraction or whatever?

I have 3 of my most important tools, so it's not just one.

Okay.

My smoker, number one. My tool, hive tool, and then also my queen clip. So if I do come across my queen, I'll clip her, set her to the side so that way I can play without having to worry about killing her.

Well, I don't have any of those things in my toolbox. So.

You may have a scraper.

It kind of looks like a hive tool.

I was gonna say it's kind of like a hive tool.

All right. Well, what about you, Alexis?

My head.

Oh, don't leave home without it. I— that is a great—

I wish more teenagers, no joke, wouldn't leave the home without their head, man.

Just take that thing with you.

Good on you, girl.

Yes, good job. All right, second question: what's a job you walked away from? And this could be, you know, any type of, you know, homeowner job, or maybe it was a bee job, um, just something that you walked away from.

Kevin once walked away from some macaroni art. So, well, I don't know if I—

we're probably not going to get into that story right now.

I don't know if I've ever walked away from a job. Oh, I have. I am one that I don't quit. The harder it is, the more I get into it.

Okay. Um, which is why you got into bees to begin with. I'm not gonna give up.

There you go.

Yeah, I did. I quit my garden. I had a 3,000 square foot garden at one time.

Oh my goodness.

I mean, it was Well, you definitely walked away from that.

Yes, I did. You replaced it, but you walked away. That's fine.

That's all right. Well, what about you, Alexis? I mean, you haven't ever held a job as far as, you know, formal employee here, but have you ever walked away from a job and said, I'm not taking care of this, someone else can do this?

Does an after-school activity count?

Absolutely.

Yeah. I did cheerleading slash dance for 2 years and I got annoyed and I just stopped.

Oh yeah?

Even though I could have been really good.

Oh, okay.

All right. Just because you got annoyed? Just like, I'm done with this.

Yeah.

All right.

Okay.

Nothing wrong with that.

No, not at all.

I walked away from a cheerleader once.

Won't make that, that, uh, mistake again, will ya?

No, I'll continue to walk away from cheerleaders.

Okay, good. I don't think your wife would appreciate that if you didn't. All right, 3rd question. How do you wind down at the end of a long day? So, you know, we— Craig and I are firm believers that, that everyone needs their downtime. So, so what kind of downtime do you get into at the end of a long day?

A good movie and a glass of wine.

Okay. Do you have a movie genre that you really like? Like Hallmark movies?

I like all movies.

All movies.

I'm anywhere from— I'm a Trekkie to Hallmark to— I love all movies. There isn't a bad movie out there.

Okay, but there are bad wines.

There is bad wines.

And if you couple them together, it's just a bad night.

Yes, yes.

What about you, Alexis?

Um, same with her but without the wine.

No, yeah, probably wise. You're just into smoking, aren't you?

Smoke the bees.

Smoke the bees. Okay, now, now we understand.

Can't trick her, man. She takes her head with her. That's true.

That's so true. Okay, so last question. One of the best pieces of wisdom or advice that you've ever received?

Slow down and listen. Just slow down.

Who'd you hear that from?

Probably my parents.

Probably your parents.

I go 100 miles an hour. I have a full plate. I like a full plate.

Yeah.

And I like to be busy. I don't like to be Still.

So, well, there's definitely nothing wrong with having a full plate. I think a lot of us that are successful in life do have full plates, uh, which is why it's important to, to figure out how to wind down a little bit, right? So, yeah, uh, so slowing down, I think even winding down is part of that. Just kind of slow down, appreciate the people around you, the things that are around you. Exactly. Okay, very good. What about Alexis? I mean, you've had 11 whole years here, so—

That's a lot of years.

That's a lot of years.

Um, probably don't just— don't think about doing it, just do it.

Okay, just jump in feet first.

Because if you think about doing it, you chicken out or something.

Yeah, that's very true. I like that.

That's good stuff.

Definitely.

I'm a big believer in that myself too. I mean, more doing. I actually learn more by doing than I am thinking about it.

Well, yeah, I mean, I, I did, you know, calculated things are good, you know, calculating the risk involved perhaps, but at the same time, you may miss out on a lot of things if we don't just get in there and try it, right? Try it and do it.

Nike didn't pay you any money to say that, did they? If so, we want a cut. That's right.

Well, listen, uh, thank you you know, both of you for coming and being part of the show today. And I'll tell you, I learned a lot. I knew very, very little about bees going into this. So great show. Anything else we want to add here?

No, just thank you for listening. If you haven't already, go ahead and hit the subscription button there in iTunes, on Stitcher, whatever platform it is that you're listening to your podcast on. You can also hit the subscription bell there on YouTube if you've been watching the video, although we don't encourage that. Why is that, Kevin?

We ugly.

We ugly. So anyway, if you haven't yet, go and give us an honest review there on iTunes. That's a big help to the show. And if you have any questions, we're gonna link up all this information in the show notes for you guys. And we just thank you for being here, and we will catch you next week. Anything else, Kev?

That's all. Thanks for listening in, and we'll see you next time. Bye.