Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Welcome back everybody. I'm Dixie, your host of Animal Posse, and today we're gonna be discussing something different. On this show we've talked about cats, dogs, rats, rabbits, horses, squirrels, possums, raccoons, and you name it. But we're gonna be buzzing into a different world entirely. Our guest today doesn't just keep animals. He manages a community of thousands that work in perfect miraculous harmony. We are talking about the art of Bee Rescue with Mr. Ed. Mr. Ed is also a YouTube educator. He has a huge channel and he discusses all the bee rescues that he does, and he is also the beekeeper at St. Joseph Abbey in Louisiana. Welcome to the show, Mr. Ed.

Thank you for inviting me.

We have not spoken to a beekeeper, so I thought it would be interesting to talk to you to just see what's all involved with beekeeping, because you're saving thousands of lives with every hive that you have,

That's true. That is true.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get started in beekeeping and how did you become to be the beekeeper of St. Joseph Abbey?

You know that's a very long story. 'cause it all starts back in 1978 when I moved from new Orleans to the North Shore in Mandeville. Prior to my moving over here, I had a friend who kept bees and I never even knew anything about that, about you could have bees. And I went over to his house and I saw him. I said, man, when I moved to the country, I'm gonna get me some bees. So that's what I did when I moved. My dad actually he was a woodworker. He built all the equipment that I needed, and when I moved I bought bees. And so I've been a beekeeper since 1978. It's just life is always Different in that, you may have plans or things just turn out and work out the way they work out. And I think that's just what it was for me because there was no plans that I was gonna be at the Abbey. It had just worked out and when I went there, it wasn't to do these, it was to help build caskets and then one of the monks up there wanted to start beekeeping back in 2011. And so since I was a beekeeper, they asked me to help him and I started helping him. We started a few colonies up there, and he then decided he didn't want to be a monk. So then I just took over what we had done, and we just grew the business. That's basically the condensed version of the story.

How many hives do you have?

Right now we have about 200, something like that. I'm selling off a bunch of bees right now because I need 150 to meet my goal of keeping honey in the gift shop all year round. So anything over 150 I don't want,. So I sell, I'll sell, get the number back down to about 150. And then in just a matter of, four or five weeks. We'll, by splitting our hives, we are gonna be back up to about two and a quarter something somewhere around there. So that's where we'll be in a, by the middle of March, we should be about 225 once again.

How much honey does that equate to?

It generally you can figure about four gallons of honey per hive. That's an average, but not all your hives are going to produce. A surplus of honey, which is, that's all I'm talking about. That they may be able to produce enough honey to make them through the year, through the winter. But as far as any honey that I harvest, it's always a surplus. I run what they call two deep brood boxes and then anything over the two deep brood boxes. Will be the surplus honey. And that's the honey that I take. So it's generally, it's the third box of honey, but sometimes you can put four or five boxes on there. So generally it's four gallons per average, per hive is what you get.

There are certain people that think it's cruel to take honey from the bees.

You see there again it's,. You're not taking honey from the bees, you're taking the surplus of honey from the bees. So that's why I said that the fact that I run a double deep brood boxes, that is enough storage space for the bees to store the honey that they need to make it through the surplus. Honey is only gonna sit in there. It's not gonna do anything. So you take it off of them and it's still not gonna harm the bees in any kind of way. So you have to work the balance and work within the parameters that the bees for their survival. And then at the same time with the beekeeper for their to collect their rent.

We have a hive, and so from us having the hive, the bees are taken care of very well. Our hive is up in the country, in Washington parish and Uhhuh. It is where we actually are building our cat sanctuary and uhhuh. The bees are very well taken care of. The bees get checked on all the time to make sure that everybody is doing good. We make sure we have water out for the bees, especially when we had a drought up there, I think it was like last year or this past summer, we had a really bad drought up there. Oh yeah, we did. So we made sure that we had pools of water filled for the bees so the bees always had access to their water even though they could go fly, probably a couple miles away and go find water. We just wanted to make sure it was there for them. And we have an interesting story with the bees too, because you actually helped us with our bees because our bees swarmed and went into our old farmhouse that's on the property.

It was a great removal. And your husband Philip? He and I opened up the interior space of the house and he had built some scaffolding so that we could get up there. 'cause it was up high. And we removed the wooden siding on the interior and we removed a beautiful hive. It we took out a lot of honey. Those bees had been in there. Relatively short period of time, probably four or five months. But they had built a really beautiful hive with white comb full of honey. And the bees really did well for themselves.

Yeah, it was delicious honey, too.

That is really what I do is I do be rescue for people just like yourself where they have structures or, it really doesn't matter wherever the bees decide to build their nest, whether it's somebody's house, their trailer, their mobile home, their camper they contact me and I will then go remove the bees and the hive and then relocate them to the abbey. And that's how we actually grew. The apiary is through. The removal service that I do. And that's how we grew the whole apiary from the very beginning.

And you have a very successful YouTube channel and you always record the videos of you doing these removals. And it's very interesting to watch, even if you're not into bees, it's still interesting to see how you remove the bees.

Think it's interesting.

When you when you actually came to our house. You did a video on that. So what I'll do is I'm gonna include the link to that video. Oh

yeah. That was a great video. I'm telling you, you should definitely include that link because it is just the natural beauty of a beehive, particularly a wild hive. The natural beauty of it is. It almost goes beyond words to be able to describe it. So for me personally, it's always when I open up a wall and see the hive, the first thing I ever do is just sit back and just look at the beauty of it. And 'cause for me, I see the hand of God in God's creation in the bee, and it's just, that's the first thing I see. And it is just great to take that in and then to be able to rescue it, move it and then set it up in a new location, have the bees thrive once again in a different location.

So when you say you look at the beauty of it, and I understand that 'cause I saw the hive that was in our house and it was it was breathtaking. It really was. Just to see that it was, can build something like that. So describe similarities and differences that you see in different hives that you've encountered.

It always. Depends the structure of the comb, how the comb is built, will depend on the space that they have to build it in. And for your house, the wall space, because where they were, and the house is so old the wall space was completely open, which enabled the bees to build. Big slabs, what I call slabs of comb. They were, I think probably three, three and a half feet wide and three, three and a half feet long. And I think, if I can remember right, there was either two or three layers of that. And because the walls were so thick, you had the true two by four or two by six wall space. So the bees will fill that space and so they, they can either build the comb, like I said, in slabs like it was in, in your location or in narrower spaces. They build them in little layers or sections, narrow pieces really how the comb is built is determined by the available space that the bees have to work in. Each one can be different. But it's either the slabs or the sheets is how I say it. And then there they, sometimes they can be wide, the sheets can be wide, sometimes they can be narrow. That depends on if they're in the floor space or a wall space. That's the shape of the comb is gonna determine that. But for yours, because it was all open. I think these prefer that particular space because it gives them. Complete free reign to do whatever they want. And they choose to do that slab comb because I think it just gives them more space to expand and grow is, they're not constricted by anything. They could just keep on doing it and attaching it and building it out. It's absolutely stunning. It really is.

Can you walk us through a rescue.

Sure. So generally I get a call and. I like to go out there and just to oddball the, what I've got to look at first. And when I say oddball, I like to go there and locate where the hive is. Whether it's gonna be in the ceiling, a floor, a wall a tree, or wherever. I wanna see it first. Generally if it's in a house I use a thermal camera to. Locate the main colony itself because these will give off a heat signature. And so I locate the colony and once I locate the colony then I can determine whether, how I'm going to remove the colony, whether it's gonna be from the inside, the outside, underneath on top. It just all depends. It's always different, but. Generally it follows, the same routine. And then once I get out there I start dismantling, opening up the space and I'm very minimal in opening up the space. I only want to open up the space that I need because I don't want to destroy. Too much of the area because I don't repair what I do. That's up to the homeowners as you and Phil knew that it's very minimal intrusiveness so that the repair can be minimal as well. And. I take away what I need to access the comb, and once I can get the space completely open, then I use a vacuum cleaner. It's a specially designed vacuum cleaner that I that won't harm bees. I vacuum the bees off of the comb and I start removing comb. I put it in. Ice chest because I find ice chest will maintain the temperature of the hive where the brood will remain alive. And I remove the comb separating the comb that has larva on it from comb that has honey on it. And I separate those in different ice chests. And then once I remove the entire hive, vacuum all the bees off, then I go back and then I frame up in, in the wooden frames the comb that I've cut out. I attach it to the frames using rubber bands. And then once I. Attach the comb to the frames, I put 'em in bee boxes, and then I release the bees onto the comb, generally with their queen. That I've captured as well. And that's the whole process.

For anybody who has never seen a bee vacuum, you need to go watch some of his videos so you can see the bee vacuum. That is like one of the most fascinating things to me.

I had the yellow one that, that it's a battery powered one, which is just a fantastic machine. It can hold 20,000 BS without any problem. You would think that you're vacuuming bees and that you're gonna be killing bees as you're doing this. But that's not the case at all. And there's very low mortality like 0.0% loss of bee life due to the vacuuming.

Yeah it's really fascinating 'cause I know like the first time that I watched it. I thought that you would be losing, quite a few bees, but it's like such a gentle procedure for them now.

Yeah.

Once you do get 'em all and you put 'em in these boxes how do you, acclimate 'em to their new homes?

The bees take care of that themselves because that's the beauty of a bee a, a bee. Is designed to work and though it does create a great deal of stress to have the bees yanked out of one spot put into another spot that is stress. So to. Make that stress level less. I try to do removals when there's nectar flows where a nectar flow is when there's plants blooming at a certain time of the year. Because this. The fact that there's a flow going on when you do a removal will give the bees work to do that they don't dwell on the fact that they just went through a very traumatic experience that they get back into what they were designed to do. So just like a work dog, it just. Designed to work. That's how it's satisfied. bees are the same way. They need to work so. You remove them during the times of year. So generally it's I like doing removals in February, March, April, may, June, and that's once June gets there. I stopped, I really stopped doing them because. It's too hot. There isn't any nectar flow going on until, again, in, in the fall, in September, October. So in, in July, August, September, I don't do removals because they're, the bees aren't gonna survive it. They won't make it. I do it in relation to what's going on in nature so that the bees can get back to work to doing what they do to lower their stress level to. Get the bees to get back into their normal cycle.

When you're doing the removals I know we're out in the country, so we're like in the middle of nowhere. I know a lot of the times by us when people have problems with their bees, it's the bees will go swarm in the trees. In our case it ended up being our house. 'cause our house was built in 1888. And so it's a little bit different structure from houses that would be say in the city of New Orleans or in the metro area. 'cause you're up in Covington. So when you're doing the removals, are you doing more removals that are in the actual city?

Oh, I do removals in the country, in the city everywhere. 'cause bees are everywhere. Here in southeast Louisiana. Bees are everywhere. We have a very conducive environment for bees. Our temperature as well as the resources of food or. Readily available for bees as well as habitat. Bees will make due of anything any kind of structure to to build a hive in. All they need is the right space. And they'll do it. So Louisiana, because of our. Subtropical or mild tropical weather that we get, bees fly almost all year round. Unlike up in north United States bees fly all the time and consequently they're generally always on the move. Always on the move. Now they will only swarm at certain times of the year. Generally, that's a general statement. But in springtime as bees are coming out of the winter the cycle of bees, the normal cycle of bees is in the wintertime. The number of bees in Hive diminish, and they, the reason they diminish is because the source of food resources are dwindling. The natural ones where they go and get 'em the bees store them. So they have, that's what they survive off when the resources are dwindling. And so as the resources dwindle in nature. So to the hive mimics that slowing down and they reduce in numbers. So that's how they're able to survive because the, there's fewer bees in the hive when there's no resources coming in. Then as we come into spring. More plants and trees are blooming well, then the bees are then working, bringing in food. And so once that starts happening the queen will start laying again in these colonies that were maybe 5,000 bees. In a matter of five to six weeks, turn into colonies with 20 or 30,000 bees. So they grow very quickly. But they grow quickly in relation to what is going on, in nature, what's blooming at the time. So good flows. The bees build up, they store their resources they store their surpluses and then the sources dry up. The food sources dry up. The bees start to dwindle in size, and the cycle then will begin again in, in the spring. That's generally how it works.

And when you talk about honey too, is the honey gonna be flavored differently depending upon what they're pollinating

it? The taste of honey as well as the color of it all, or dependent on the source of nectar that the bees were getting the nectar from. Whether it's clover, whether it's from privet, blackberry, blueberry maple tallow, every, everything that is a source of nectar, has a different taste associated with it. And so as a guy that. Travels a lot of areas. I get to taste a lot of different types of honey and it's because it's different nectar sources. That's one of the great things about what I do is the amount of variation in tastes of the honey that, that I encounter.

Which one has been the best?

I did a removal last year. That had the best taste in honey I have ever come across. And I couldn't even tell you what the source of that was. I don't know. I had no idea. I couldn't even guess at it because, one, I don't remember where I got the, where I had done the removal. 'cause I do probably about. In the course from say, January to, to July, I probably do about 80 or so removals. So, I can't remember the location of everything when I'm tasting the honey. I can remember the removals, but I can't remember what the honey tasted like in, in the removal.

I know we have a friend and he's got bees near us and we have the Japanese plum trees or the loquats uhhuh, and it gives the honey Oh. Such a good taste.

I agree. I agree. It's, there's some wonderful taste in nectar out there. I remember one of 'em that I did. It was a removal and it was in the early spring when the honeysuckle was blooming and there was literally this man's backyard was full of honeysuckle. You smell it down the street and the honey just had this magnificent honeysuckle taste. It was absolutely great taste in honey.

See in the country we have a lot of the wild blackberry bushes.

Yeah. I get a lot of that. Yeah. That's a great taste in honey, that the blackberry, and that's the early spring tasting, because that's when the blackberries and blueberries bloom early in the spring, generally around, March and April is when that blooms.

When you're talking about a swarm, you're talking about the bees actually looking for a new location and not like swarming people. 'cause I know that there's like some kind of misconception that when you say swarm, people are freaked out that the bees are gonna be swarming around them. Is that what the actual term is for swarm is when they're actually going out and they're looking for a new location?

That is what a swarm is. A swarm is when a colony of bees splits basically in half Prior to the swarm, the colony is building up. So there's a lot of bees in the hive. Sometimes, 40,000 bees in the hive and it's just natural procreation for bees to swarm. They build up and then they, half of 'em leave. So that's how they spread out by that method and., What happens is in the hive in preparation for a swarm, the queen will lay, cells that will become new queens. And these are swarm queens. And what happens is prior to the new queens emerging. The old queen and generally about half the hive or a little bit more will then leave the hive and that is a swarm. And when the old queen in the hive leaves with a bunch of bees and they go off to make a new hive, and they leave the new queen with the new bees in that hive to start again in that same location.

And another thing, I think there's a misconception around bees stinging people. 'cause I know when I was a child, I was terrified of bees. I thought the bees were just gonna come up to me and sting me. If I was in the swimming pool or something, they would always come get some water. And I was absolutely terrified that I was gonna get stung by a bee. In fact, I don't know if I've ever been stunned by a bee, but it was just something that. When you're a kid it's terrifying to think about it. And as I got older I realized that, and especially now since we have some bees, unless you're disturbing the hive, they really don't go after you. How do you address these misconceptions around the bees stinging?

It generally speaking. If you are not disturbing the hive will not disturb you. Now that doesn't hold true for the Africanized type of bee. Those, those are just a nasty disposition. bee, and you can just be minding your own business and they will attack if you're around their hive. And you could be a quarter of a mile away. They can attack. So not including the Africanized type bees, which is we have those in here, in the United States throughout the the west. And it, they're from Texas all the way to California, all the way up to Colorado, or there's Africanized bees and some, to some degree in Florida. And as far to my knowledge here in Louisiana I don't even know if there's any documented cases of Africanized bees. So for us the rule would be that, the bees aren't gonna mess with you unless you mess with them.

I imagine that you've been stunned quite a few times.

Yeah. It's a good day if I don't get stung. It's every day I'm gonna get stung. Just a matter of when,

I have heard that beekeepers actually live longer, have you heard that?

No, I haven't heard that. But there's all kinds of. Of things on science saying the benefits of bee stings, there's now even studies that, there's some validity to venom with. Cancer treatments with arthritis, with bursitis, with a lot of varied things. But I don't really put a lot of credence in all that stuff. I'm a beekeeper 'cause I love bees and if that's a benefit of it, I'm just a lucky guy then.

Why is it that you like the bees? What is it about them that comforts you?

It's, like I said before, it's a spiritual thing. I see the hand of God in it and it's what that's the reason I continue to do this even after 45 years plus years of doing it, that it's always. Religious to me and one of the, things that I've learned as being the beekeeper for the monks and following their spirituality the Benedictine spirituality that, that I've grown to appreciate more and more. Not just the benefits that the bees provide for us, but what the bees can teach us as humans in living our lives. How they live a selfless life unlike humans where we live pretty much selfishly bees. Give everything for the colony. They live for the colony. They give their life for their colony. They hold no regard for individuality. The only regard they have is for the survivability of that colony. So it's a different mindset of surviving that. It's not one for self preservation like humans do, but rather it's for colonate preservation. And this aspect of a selfless life lived is a beautiful way Like perfectly mimics what Christ did when he came into the world. He gave his life for us and so it's mimics that beautifully and. We can grow in appreciation for bees, what they do for us. And if at the same time we can grow in the aspect of our relation, personal relation to, living our life in this world in regard to how bees live their life, that we can make this life here for us, a much, much better place. So for me it's a very deeply personal religious experience.

It definitely could teach humanity a lot too, just about community. Yes.

Yes.

Before we end the call, what would you say to people who dislike bees and would rather see them exterminated as opposed to rescued like you do?

The only reason. That they have that fear is because it's an unknown. It's an unknown quantity to equality to 'em. I have literally hundreds of people that watch my channel that are not beekeepers, that had no interest in bees until they started watching. My channel and it's. If you want to overcome a natural fear and they're not wrong to be naturally afraid because be stings hurt. And there's this natural thing. But if we have an understanding of what. Bees do for us, and not that their only purpose is to make honey or to sting us, then we can, our attitude toward them can change.

Yeah, definitely. I can agree with that too because just like you were saying, when you look at 'em and you take care of 'em, they pollinate for us, but then we also get honey and, honey can be very therapeutic too.

So actually, honey is the only naturally created product that bacteria will not grow in. So only one naturally produced. And so it is used in medicinal purposes, dressing wounds because it prevents bacteria from growing on in wounds. The wax has properties that, again will discourage the formation of bacteria. So they pack wounds with wax, bees. They're just incredible creatures.

They definitely are. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I enjoyed our

conversation. Oh, it is my pleasure, Dixie. It is really fun. Thank you very much for inviting me.

You're welcome. And I'll be the first to say too, the reason that we have bees is because of your show.

That's a good thing. That's a real good thing.

Yeah, it is. And I'm gonna include a link to your YouTube channel. In the description. And I'm also gonna include actually the link to the removal that you did in our house.

Oh yeah. That would be awesome. That would be great. Thank you so much, Dixie.

That's it for today's episode. I wanna thank everybody for listening and supporting us. If you wanna take that an extra step, consider becoming a member. We just added this to our website, animalposse.com, scroll down, look for the support tab. Our membership program is going to help us directly support animals in need, whether that be through vaccinations, food or spay neuter efforts.