Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees With Gwenyn Gruffydd - Episode 5

Right, so we're live. Very prompt eight o'clock. I'm not sure how many people we've got here, but we've got the main man Griff. So Griff, do you want to give us a little introduction? I'm sure everyone knows who you are, but just for for this stream, for anyone watching outside of the UK, do you want to let us know who you are?

So my name is Griff, and I own a beekeeping company called Gwen Ingrid Fiv. We started our career off just doing honey, so producing Welsh honey and selling our own honey. The business has now grown to a stage where we buy Welsh honey in, and we sell right across the UK wholesale, direct, and into shops. And a few years ago, we set up a beekeeping supplies shop as well on the farm, so everything's under one umbrella, and we sell beekeeping supplies now as well. And just like Laurence on Blackman Honey, we've got our own YouTube channel, Gwynedd Grif, as well, and we try to be on all the social media platforms as well, just promoting what we're doing.

Very good. So anybody who's not seen Griff before and you've not been on his channel, straight over there and, uh, subscribe to his channel because it is very good. He does loads of other stuff outside of beekeeping as well. Um, one of my favorite social media videos he did the other day was of his wife telling him off, and he had the cheekiest smile, and it is a very, very funny video and something that I can completely relate to because you can't do anything without getting a bit of a telling off nowadays, can you? So we'll jump straight into it. We're going to do an hour of Q&A today. It's just going to be Griff answering loads of questions, so feel free to flood the chat with questions. I think there's a very, very apt question, the first one in there. I don't know if you can see that. It's saying, should beekeepers be allowed to use agricultural fuel in their beekeeping vehicle? What do you reckon?

Well, that's a really good idea, and that's a hard one to answer because Obviously, you know, I'm a farmer as well. I keep sheep and cows. We use red diesel on the farm. We use red diesel in the tractor, in the digger, all that type of stuff. But we're not allowed to use red diesel to go on the road for farming activities, so that the red diesel is only used for tractor and off-road use. The tractor can go on the road, but, you know, you're not, you're not exactly going down Tesco in the tractor to do your shopping.

No.

tractor itself is a big industrial vehicle. Um, probably beef farmers shouldn't be allowed to use red diesel in their normal pickups or Jeeps or cars. Um, but if someone has got a new Unimog, then I think they should be allowed to use red diesel in something like a new Unimog, because I'd, I'd class a new Unimog the same category as a tractor. You know, you don't take a new Unimog to go shopping or driving around, you day to day because, you know, the thing does like 10 miles a gallon. That is a work vehicle purely for the production of honey, just like the tractor is a work vehicle purely for the production of food. So I think that should fall into the same category. But no to the vehicle, it just makes everything very complex if you're a farmer, you're a beekeeper, and you're running your truck on red diesel, because the temptation is then You may go to the shop and you'd be running on red diesel, and that's that's the grey area there. I think that's that's probably why they haven't allowed it.

It's um it's interesting with the change because the big change coming this year with construction, isn't it? So construction's fully white diesel now. Um there's going to be a lot of changes. They're going to be recouping a lot of tax. Right next question. This is a good one. When are you getting a flow hive?

Probably never. Probably never. I, I may stock it in the shop, see, see how much people want it. Um, but, but a Flow Hive, uh, you know, the way, the way I run my bee farm, um, we, we keep everything primitive. Primitive extracting kit, primitive hives, everything primitive and simple. Um, a Flow Hive is not a commercial hive. It is, you know, for the hobby market. I think the technology In the Flow Hive is fantastic. I think it's a great step for beekeeping as a whole, because if we were to look at beekeeping the same way we look at farming, if we were to go back 100 years, beekeeping pretty much looks exactly the same. We keep bees in timber boxes, we take the frames out, and we spin the honey out. You know, nothing has really changed. Where if you compare that to farming, farming, you can't even compare it to 100 years ago, so much stuff has changed. So I think the Flow Hive is, is the first big break really in modern technology coming into beekeeping, and I think people are only gonna improve on that design because I think the Flow Hive has definitely proven to the whole global market of beekeeping that people want to keep bees, but what's keeping them back is the fear of doing the work, buying the extractor and everything, where if they can make that easier— and it's like everything, the less barrier to entry, the more people come into it. And I think the Flow Hive is definitely doing that, and I think it's going to bring a lot more people into beekeeping as well.

Yeah, I've got 2, so I bought a fake one and a real one this year, and I've not put bees in them yet, and I just know that I'm going to be cursing on videos when it's like gunked up with spring honey. And it's going to be fun though, and I do think for certain people, like if I just wanted to have bees in the garden, I think, and if they worked, I think they'd be such a good invention because you know what it's like, kind of extractors and all the kit that goes with it and keeping the rooms clean, and then your wife telling you off with the extractor in the kitchen. It's, if you could just do it outside and a couple of jars of honey, that's what most people want, isn't it?

Yeah, but I don't think, you know, maybe people on this channel can say better. I think you probably still have to bring that super in to crack that open because the marketing, they show, you know, the perfect jar of honey outside in the sun. If that was on my farm, it'd be full of bees, you know. 10 seconds, you know.

I've seen a couple of things. So there's one where they connect a tube into it and then a bucket with a hole, so it's kind of like there's— the bees couldn't get in, so it's completely sealed. Um, obviously it's not as fancy, you wouldn't do it for your marketing, but I think that the way that I'm gonna ever go doing it is putting it— putting the tube on it, connecting it into a bucket with a little hole cut out, and then the bees— bees won't be able to get in. But I don't reckon I'll even get that far. I'm probably gonna like mess up all the frames before that. Or get the queen laying up there or something, something horrible is going to go wrong, isn't it?

Yeah.

Griff, before we answer some more questions, you want to tell us a bit more about your shop and what you're stocking and plans for the shop, stuff like that?

Yeah, so we started off, uh, very grateful for Thorns. Uh, I think I class Thorns as, uh, probably the best, uh, British manufacturer of beekeeping equipment. They've been going like 100 years. Their quality, their quality and craftsmanship and the staff there, you know, second to none, that I think they're the best in the business. Uh, we've got a local agency with them, so we supply Wales with equipment from Thorns. Uh, we sell their seconds hives, the frames, foundation, the smokers, hive tools, uh, pretty much anything that, that you need from Thorns we can get, we can stock it. Uh, but the part, the agreement there with the agency then is we're not allowed to ship out the Thorns equipment so that we don't compete with Thorns' online sales, which, which is fair enough. Uh, we got, uh, the Swainty Agency as well, so we sell Swainty gear. We sell, uh, their range of hives. We sell the Swainty suits, the breezer suits, which you, you see me wearing quite a lot. Maybe we need to get Laurence one of those suits, uh, this year. See, he's tried every other suit, but he hasn't tried one of mine, so maybe send him a suit this year now for him to try that out. Um, we sell some Italian stuff then from Lega. Uh, we'll be stocking a lot more of their range this year now. Likewise with the queen rearing stuff, we didn't stock any queen rearing stuff last year. We're stocking up heavily on queen rearing stuff now. The genuine Apideas, the genuine Nicot laying boxes, the swine bees we're stocking. We're in the process of importing stuff from further afield as well at the minute, maybe some of the cheaper range stuff, run-of-the-mill stuff, which, you know, there is a demand for. So we're aiming to have a premium range where, you know, you've got your Thorns, your Swine Deer, Laga, and maybe having an economical, uh, range to the shop as well. You know, some stuff, you know, people don't want to spend money on. They just want something quick, easy. Uh, where the people, they want, you know, they want the best. So we try and cater for the two. But, you know, we've started the shop from scratch. We started the bee farms from scratch. You know, things takes time. It takes a lot of money, uh, to get a new product range. You know, we make a bit of money, then all that goes to get a new product range.

Yeah.

So it's just, uh, The grueling growth stage of the business, really. You know, things are going well, but it is a struggle at times with cash flow, just because you know I'm trying to grow with as fast as I can. But yeah, I'm very, very much appreciated to everybody who has supported that my shop and the Beekeeper Supplies. You know, we're an extremely small business. Fortunately, the business is going well. We've employed our first member of staff, so it's me and Harad and Essie now, which is a massive help. So we're just hopefully gonna keep going. Not many people have been able to set a bee farm from scratch and a beekeeping shop from scratch within a small space of time, but yeah, we're going for it and very, very thankful for everybody who's supporting us on that journey.

And if people haven't done that already, go over and have a click, gwynnegriffith.co.uk, I think it is.

That's it.

There's loads of good stuff on there. And then the big question is, how do people invest in it? When are you going public and how can we get shares in the company? Because you're going to be the number one, aren't you?

Well, I don't know about number one, but we we we we'd like to be like we'd like to be up there. We'd like to be up there.

People people will look back to this and they'll say, "Oh, back in 2022, he quoted it that he wasn't going to be number one." This guy's got serious ambition, so I know I know you will be.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry, go on.

I don't think I'm going to overtake Thorns. They they they. I'm happy for them to be number one. I'm happy. I'm happy to be in. Friends with funds, let's put it like that.

Joint first. All right, next one, uh, this question for you. Running your YouTube channel, how do you continually keep your content fresh and engaging? And then secondly, how do you find your channel support the growth of your core business of selling produce?

That's a good question, and I think you do this better than me. Um, you've had really good growth in your channel, uh, you're knocking the videos out really well, you're knocking a lot more than I can do.

A lot of videos.

I tell you, credit. I know how much work goes into doing YouTube, and credit to you, Lawrence. You know, you're doing a good job, and no doubt you put a lot of time and effort into it, and, you know, you can see that it's paying off. But going back to the question, it is hard. You know, you got to keep the content fresh. You don't want to repeat yourself too much, obviously. You know, there's only so much stuff you can do in beekeeping, so there is an element of repeating yourself, but you're going to try and repeat yourself in different ways. That's very important, but I try and keep my channel as simple as it can be and as useful as it can be. So you know, I'm thinking of the new beekeepers coming in. Looking back, you know, ten years ago, eleven years ago when I started, you know, YouTube didn't exist back then the same way it does now. You couldn't go and watch Black Mountain Honey videos because it didn't exist, and no one was doing it at the time. So you only had like an American type of video to watch really, which which had um, no really input to what you were doing back home. Um, so I'm trying to make it as useful as I can, help out people as much as I can for free on there. And, uh, you know, if I can put a little advert in there to say, you know, I've got a beekeeping shop, if, if you want to buy something, come to the shop. But, um, that, that's what it is, you know, YouTube and social media. Um, it is, uh, it is a business, a business reason. That's, that's why I'm doing it. It's there for the marketing. Um, it's there to get eyes on my business, and if I can help people out, um, in the process, then, then that's the best thing. And I think any kind of big successful company, they always give first, they never ask first. So if I can give as much or put as much good content out there as I can and help people start beekeeping, then, you know, that's, that's the, the benefit of the channel really. That's, that's the, that's why I started doing it really. Um, it's only recently I've had a shop to sell anything. Uh, so we did beekeeping for— well, YouTube for about 2 years, I think, before we had a beekeeping shop. So, um, and you know, I enjoy it. It is a little bit of a hobby. I'm sure Lawrence would say, you know, once you start doing social media and YouTube, uh, you get— you know, you look at the views and you look at the statistics and you look forward to dropping the next video and commenting back on the comments. You know, all that's enjoyable as well, you know. And you know, talking to people like Lawrence and talking to other beekeepers on the channel, you know, it's, it's so easy to get a huge network of people now right across the world from, from a small channel where go back 10 years you just couldn't do that. You couldn't talk to someone in America about beekeeping, you know. I had no way of finding someone in America to talk to. Now, you know, with YouTube and social media it's easy and I think it's fantastic.

Yeah, it's, um, it is great the way that you can build the connections. I'd say that The problem, the challenge I have, it's not a problem, is that, and you'll feel this as well, you're kind of in it. You've got like a lottery ticket. Every single video that you put out there, you want it to go viral. You want as many people to watch it as possible. So you push the boundaries a little bit. We certainly do this and try and kind of make, like, I hate to say it, like clickbaity thumbnails and titles to pull on people's emotions a little bit and think, oh, I wanna click on that. And then you're trying to do that to get more people to click on it, but then you don't wanna annoy, Your kind of core fan base, people who are coming there to learn about beekeeping. So you're constantly treading this really fine line of trying to grow the channel but also keep the community happy. And ultimately, it's the the latter of those two keeping the community happy is the most important one. But to get it to grow, you've got to kind of like push the boundaries a bit, haven't you?

Yeah, and there's a famous saying: It's never been easier to get attention. Than now, but it's never been harder to get the attention on you because there's there's so much stuff out there. You know, people think you know oh like you mean we we both got YouTube channels. Are we in competition with each other? Well, not really. The more people that watch beekeeping content, they're eventually gonna stumble upon our content. What we're really competing with is you know good looking girls on TikTok because that's what that's what the men are watching and and you know we're competing with industry. Which is not just beekeeping. You know, Google know this, YouTube knows this. You know, everybody's trying to grab that attention, but it's but it's on something else. It might be on the football, it might be on sports, it might it could be on anything. You know, and we we just trying to take them on on beekeeping.

We we just lost ten viewers when you said that, and I think they just gone over to TikTok to look at some girls. But yeah, it's it's I love it, and you can see from your channel as well you love it. Like YouTube is good fun, and yeah, we're not in competition on YouTube because. That people, people consume an awful lot of YouTube content, and I certainly do the same. And I'll watch a video on something, and then YouTube knows what I like, and it puts what I like next from someone else. And I'm like, oh, thanks very much, and I'll sit there and watch it. Um, but we're going to do more collaborations, aren't we? Got a collaboration lined up for later on in the year, something. I'm going to come down, we'll do something a bit more face-to-face. Well, I'm going to get— I'm going to get through some more questions. I haven't answered any of these yet. Um, so I'm just, I'm just flicking through. I'm going to ask them at random. Right, here's a good one. Stanislav Sorm, over to you, Griff. Question for you both: In your honest opinion, when it comes to queens, what's ideal for you? Local breed or any other ones? Buckfast, etc.

That's a really good question again. Now, if you watch my channel, you know I quite like Welsh black bees. I call them Welsh black bees, but what I actually mean is European black bees. Apis mellifera mellifera. I quite like them. not the best honey producers, not the best bees to keep really if it's going on temperament, but I do, I do like them. I keep a lot of Buckfast bees. I think being a commercial bee farm, you've got no choice but to keep Buckfast bees. If you're relying on honey for an income, then, you know, the Buckfast bees will do that for you. And ideally, you want to get your Buckfast bees, you know, from somewhere, so either, you know, comes via someone that imports them or someone in the UK that breeds them. I think British— if we can get British-bred bees, whether it's the Buckfast or something a bit more native, I think, uh, there's opportunities there for people to really go in there and produce some fantastic queens. Because I'm sure, you know, shipping queens around the world, that does affect their lifespan, you know, the, the stress of the temperatures fluctuating in the post, being thrown around. And you know, I've got a— we sell online, I know how things get damaged in the post and how non-breakable items break in the post. So I can only imagine what happens to queens, um, when they come from far afield. But, um, I think I'm probably going to go down the route later on. I'm not saying I'm going to do that this year because we still rely on buying queens in, and I'll always rely on buying queens in, but I would like to get a bit more British-bred queens, Buckfast bees, into production. I know, you know, you look at some of the bigger bee farmers, you know, Murray McGregor, they've got their own line they breed up in Scotland. A lot of good things being said about his queens. And I think, you know, if we're breeding queens in the UK, straight away, you know, they're going to be used to being in the climate. And I think, you know, I think we've all been guilty, you know, relying on, you know, imported queens. I tend to rely more, if I can help it, on Buckfast bees from Denmark. I think they're probably the best of all Buckfast bees, but the supply isn't the same as maybe something from Italy or something, you know, they struggle with the supply. But yeah, I know I haven't really answered the question there, but I know I've got the 2 types of bees, Buckfast bees for honey production you know, when the weather turns bad, I'm glad those Welsh black bees are there as well.

It's, um, it's an interesting one, the whole movement, I think, towards like stopping imports and having like British queens, because a lot of people who make British queens, they'll import the breeder queens from the EU because that's where like 99% of the good ones are kept. And Peter Little was like Bless his soul, but he was one of the few people who in this country could produce a good kind of artificially inseminated F0 Buckfast breeder queen through all of his stock. And we need more people like him, and at the moment we just don't have that. So like, is UK mated with European stock good? My answer is I just want the best, healthiest bee. I don't care where it comes from. I don't know what it's like down where you are, but our local stock around here, like, I've caught loads of swarms and kept them. Oh, they're vicious, they're horrible. But it can be so localized that you could go 20 miles down the road and they could be lovely. But where we are, they're really not very good bees at all. And it's interesting seeing the kind of comparison between the two. But we do keep some of them though. Some people just want black bees, don't they?

Well, yeah, you know, and I guess I can see why as well. It's the same as farming, you know, some people want to farm the traditional breeds. Some people want to farm the continental breeds, you know, that there's never a right or wrong answer in beekeeping, and there's never a right or wrong answer in bee farming— uh, oh, sorry, in farming, you know. There's rights and wrongs of the tools, there's pros and cons in everything. And, uh, you know, that's the beauty. And, you know, that I tell people, you know, try, try the two of them, you know. It's not up to me to, to tell you what to keep. Um, I think that's quite dangerous when, when beekeepers tell people this is the only way to do things. You just don't learn like that, you know. Try something native, try your buckfast, see which you like, which one you like the best. Obviously, you know, if you're keeping bees and you want to preserve the local bees, etc., then, you know, obviously you want to stick to the native bees. But if you want to build, like Rowan said, you know, good, healthy, strong bees, then, you know, I would recommend, you know, try a couple, you know, see what suits your system. And, um, and you can move from there because the beauty is you can change your mind at any time.

Yeah.

You could be all local bees, maybe next year you can start buying something, you know, an imported queen in, see how things are going. There is no right or wrong answer, and, you know, bees live and they die, so, you know, you can change. Um, you know, the Isle of Wight disease wiped out a huge amount of bees back in the day, so, you know, if it weren't for imports, I mean, beekeeping wouldn't be a thing in the UK really. You know, the imports brought the industry back to life, you know. I know that's unpopular to say, and maybe the Native Bees and the Buckfast Bees guys will hate me after this because, you know, I'm in the middle. Maybe they both like me or they both hate me, I don't know.

Well, I've just done a video, I filmed it yesterday, talking about like 10 things that I would do differently. Feel free to do that video and we'll release it at the same time again, you know, because people think—

I'll try not to.

But I did that video and one of the things I said was that what I did was I spent loads of money buying boxes and then I just couldn't bring myself to kind of buy loads of expensive bees and buy nucs because it was a lot of money. So you go out, you trap swarms, you'd get swarms in bait hives, and then you make splits. And by the time you get up to like 20 or 30 colonies, all you realize you've done is just propagated loads of really rubbish bees. So you've got 30 hives, the boxes are half full because they're not very good bees anyway, and they're just stinging you and they don't give you much honey. Whereas if you went in early and got like— when you've got like 2 or 3 colonies and put some good genetics in there, be it local genetics from a local breeder or something bought in, and then started to propagate from that, you actually end up with some decent stock to start selecting from later down the line. Um, so you need to be a little bit kind of confident with your selection early on. Uh, right, I'm gonna ask another question, right? So Richard Wheelwright saying I guess this is like just generally, how do you do your supers as well? But when removing supers, there seems to be too many bees to fit into the brood box. What advice can you recommend to condense them down to just one brood box?

So that's a good question. And if, say, you take your honey off early, that is the case. So what I do, if I, you know, with the native bees, this isn't really a problem. They're ready to go down into a box come September anyway. Some of the Buckfast bees, I tend to see or tend to find they won't go down. And what I'll do then, I'll put the top super, which will be the empty one, underneath. So I'll put that on top of the queen excluder, take the honey off with the clearer boards, and when I come back, hopefully in a couple of weeks, they've reduced down a little bit so I can push it, shake the bees back down. But at that stage then, you've got to make a conscious decision, you know, these bees are not going to shrink down into a single national brood box. So at that stage then, I just remove the queen excluder and I'll winter them on brood and a half. And come spring, you know, one of the first jobs I'll do in say April, May is I'll take that super off, shake the bees down, put that queen excluder back on, and then put that super back on top. So I'm not giving the queen a chance to heavily lay up in that super. So I like keeping everything on a single natural brood box. I find double broods, brood and a half, I've tried them all, it's just double the work when you're inspecting. You know, if you're inspecting the bees and you want to do it quick, you find a couple of queen cells in a box, all of a sudden know, you've got 2 boxes to go through and you're not finding a queen. And before you know it, you know, 20 minutes may have gone and you're still on 1 hive and you've got 20 to do on the site. So, you know, I just found the system that works for me, single brood. And, uh, if they go— if I gotta winter them on brood and a half, I will. But, um, if they knock down— I don't believe in knocking them down to a single brood box and then bee it in outside. I don't like doing that at all. Um, but I'm not scared to winter them on brood and a half. That's, that's how I do it.

It's, it's so funny, like, you're just always going to get beekeepers disagreeing. So we do, we do pretty much the exact opposite, which is, um, we, we, we were on double brood and it was too much of a faff, so we went to 14 by 12 and now find 14 by 12 really like restrictive on what you can do. But I do shake down to a single box, but it's 14 by 12, so you've got a little bit of extra space in there. But we do, we'll take like 4 or 5 supers off, blow them off, shake them all down into a single box, make sure that the weather's nice. and let them beard, and they'll beard for a few days, and then they seem to, within a week or so, kind of a few of them will die off. Not, not from being outside, but just the, the constant kind of churn of bees. And I like, I like them in winter like that with the Buckfast, like completely jam-packed into the box. It's just— I find they overwinter quite well like that. But yeah, every time I've done this live stream, I just— everyone's disagreeing. But it's great though, isn't it? And I just— and you hit the nail on the head before, which is Just try it for yourself. Try it for yourself. Try different ways of doing it and see what works for you. See, see where you get your results, and then just keep on doing the same thing. Okay, so Azadullah has got apart from beekeeping videos, what other type of content do you do?

So the the the first thing I say on my YouTube channel is we do beekeeping, farming, countryside living, and we do reviews as well. So that's that's the line I always say in my videos. So we do Beekeeping is probably the channel's probably 80% beekeeping, 10% farming, and then the rest then I'll do chainsaw tool reviews, or I'll talk about solar panels, I'll talk about wood burners, maybe show a video of processing some firewood. It's very much, you know, we— I live on a farm, very much so in the countryside. I really live that rural life, you know, that's why I look so scruffy, you know, dirt over my hands all the time, you know. I am a physical guy outside, and I try and put all that on, on my YouTube channel. So, um, the— a lot of farming stuff, but, um, you know, we try and mix it up. I know that that doesn't help the algorithm sometimes. Uh, I should keep, keep the content more, more central or, or just the, the same, but I really like to, to mix it up. And whatever I'm doing at home on the farm, I think, you know, someone somewhere will, will like to see this video. Uh, or see how I'm doing this. And, uh, yeah, I, I try and, uh, mix it up like that. So beekeeping, farming, and countryside living, and reviews as well.

Um, I think it's great that you look at some of the biggest, like, super big channels on YouTube, and it's, it's like farmsteading, isn't it, where they do a bit of everything? And people— well, and what they do is they, they'll watch because of you, and they'll kind of get that, and you and your wife and stuff. Um, And yeah, I like, I like all the different stuff like the quail rearing and solar panels and stuff. It's good, isn't it?

Yeah, and, um, you know, more of that is, uh, you know, after COVID and everything, I think, you know, a lot of people more, you know, even if you haven't got ground to keep bees or, you know, you can't keep cows or sheep, you know, you can grow some veg, you know, and you can start the interest of them. And what I found with beekeeping is you think you start beekeeping and you think you're going to be interested in beekeeping But actually, you're going to be really interested in the weather. Then you're going to be interested in the flowers and different forage available out there. Before you know it, you know, you're a fully grown anorak outside in the countryside, interested in a huge variety of things, and farming included. Because, you know, beekeeping is more than just keeping bees. You know, it is farming. You're out there in the wild countryside producing a crop, whether that be on a large scale or small scale. And, you know, every farmer I know that the countryside people, they are interested in that vast range of knowledge. And I think that the more of that you know, the better beekeeper you are, because you're aware of the seasons, you're aware of what's around, you know, you're aware what the season's doing, and, you know, you see what the bees and the season are doing hand in hand, and you just, you're just looking at it from a different point of view, really.

I have given up looking at the weather. I tell you what, there is nothing more annoying than it's, oh, it's going to be 3 weeks of summer, and then you just look outside and it's just raining. And you just think, what is going on? I just prefer them just to say we don't know what it's going to be, and if we get a bit of sunshine, then we're happy. But don't say it's going to be 25 degrees and then it's just miserable 12 degrees. But yeah, North Wales, eh?

Well, all of Wales.

Yeah, I know. Um, all right, here's a good question. But both of us are bee farmers, but both have other jobs. I, I definitely do. I think you still have your other job, don't you? How many hives do you think you would need to be able to go off as a full-time bee farmer?

Yeah, so I still work part-time, probably going to be going down to 2 days a week very soon. Just, you know, we're just struggling with the workload, and, you know, eventually, depending how serious you want to be keeping bees and producing honey crop, you are going to have to make a sacrifice at one point or the other. It's just Full-time takes the best part of the week out of your workload, and you know, you don't want to kill yourself with work. Probably if you're going to go, depending on your business model, but if you're going to go down the bulk honey road, you probably want to be keeping close to about 200 hives, I'd say, with no other source of income. That's where I put it. If you were selling all your honey in jars, you could probably keep a bit less. Um, a little bit return there, but you know, that's, that's the kind of numbers you're thinking. You know, we keep— at the minute we've got about 140, we're aiming to keep 200 next year. Um, you know, there's, there's 3 of us, uh, we've got, we've got to think of, uh, on our business. But you know, our beekeeping business is very much diversified, um, and you know, I've grown that with a part-time job. Um, you know, don't quit your job straight away, uh, build up slowly. Like I say in Welsh, you know, build up slowly. Um, this is a good, good way of doing it. But, um, yeah, I think, I think you're still full-time, Lawrence, aren't you?

Full-time, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know how you do it, to be honest with you.

Struggle. I really struggle, like, just constantly kind of thinking, what am I going to do here?

But yeah, you're gonna have to make, you're gonna have to make the jump one day, one way or the other later on, I tell you.

I will do at some point, but yeah, not yet. I've got a good, good few years left. Yeah, I've got to pay the mortgage off first, then we'll go, and then I'll probably move and not go. But here we go, next question. What's your biggest piece of advice to someone who's going into the season with 2 strong hives? He's got 2 more hives on standby.

Well, if they're on standby, you're telling me, uh, you're showing me you want to expand. Uh, so the first thing I do, I'd look to split those hives in May. Don't split them too early. Make sure they're big enough so you can take a split from each. Get them into 2 nucs, feed them, you know, don't be shy to feed them. Get plenty of syrup in them, get them growing big and strong. Shift them over, then 4 of your hives are full. Hopefully, you know, the weather will keep going, you have a bit of honey, and it just depends, you know, if you want to increase and you want to go from 4 to 6 or 4 to 10. Um, it all depends, you know, do you want the honey or do you want the bees? And one of the mistakes I did early, uh, was I wanted the two of them, and it's very hard to get the two of them at the same time. Um, and if I would have my time back again, I'd probably spend the first 3 years just building bee numbers up and not worry about the honey. Um, but yeah, I, I've done it the wrong way, and that's why it's taken me so long. But, uh, yeah, work out what you want to do. Do you want the bees or do you want the honey? Um, if you've got long-term prospects of, you know, having a lot more hives, then split your hives now when you've got a full-time job, you're young enough, get the numbers up, and, you know, buy queens in, do the splits yourself, you save yourself a fortune as well.

I think that's such good advice, just have a plan, because before you know it, the bees will have worked out what your plan is. Um, so yeah, have a good plan. Here we go, I'm going to definitely let you answer this one. Best place to get pure native AMM queens?

Well, that's a really good question. You know, we sell what I call Welsh black bees, but I'd call them locally adaptive bees. You— I don't think you can— you know, maybe some parts of the UK you can. You know, I see some of my bees and they're, you know, they're really black. They, you know, they shine like a Labrador, you know, that's the black shine on them. But I'm pretty sure, you know, if I were to get them under a microscope or I'd, you know, DNA test the genetics, there'd be other things in there. I think when you're talking native Apis mellifera mellifera, I mean, as native as you can. I mean, I think that small print word is very, very important, you know. The Welsh black bees we sell, we actually buy them in from another bee farm. He breeds them for us because he's out in the sticks more than us, and he's an old-timer. He's been going a long time, doesn't buy, doesn't import any queens. So when I sell those, it's with a good clean conscience. I know they're as native as I can get, where if I were to breed, you know, the black bees at home with me, you know, I keep too much Buckfast bees, they're definitely going to be half Buckfast bees, or, you know, they're going to be quarter Buckfast bees. I have got some sites, I've got 2 sites which are all, you know, black bees, but, you know, if I were to be splitting them all the time, those sites won't be producing the honey, and for me honey is number one. But yeah, be very wary if someone tells you that they're 100% pure Apis mellifera mellifera. I mean, I'd want to see some kind of DNA test or some paperwork to authenticate that. It's, I say, they're as native as you can get. I think that's good enough.

In terms of best place to get it, you got any names? I've got one that I can give. which I'm sure people will know. Well, I don't know anyone who does pure, maybe not 100% pure, but Jonathan Getty was the one that I would say he is fully focused on AMM, so imported from Northern Ireland, but he is still selling to the UK. Very well-respected breeder, but yeah, probably not 100% pure. Um, here's a good question: do you find grumpy bees make more honey? This is maybe a beekeeping myth that needs to be busted, but what do you think?

Uh, probably, probably not. Um, I would probably— grumpy bees survive the best. Um, I wouldn't say that they, they make the best honey. I mean, the bees that make the, the most honey are the bees working on going to the flowers and back to the flowers, not really care about anything else. Uh, you know, the Buckfast bees come to mind. But, um, you know, grumpy bees, they're definitely survivor bees. Uh, you know, being grumpy back in the day was, was a big survival instinct of honeybees, you know, back in the days of, you know, badgers coming into the hive and eating the honey, or bears coming in if you live in America, you know, the nasty bees were the bees that survived because they could protect the hive the most. Yeah, I don't think that's really true, grumpy bees make the most honey. I don't think there's any kind of scientific proof or backing regarding that.

I've never seen that. Don't like grumpy bees. especially the video I put out today. I've been going through some videos this week, just kind of like organizing them for other videos, and I found so many of me just getting stung in the face. Pulled my veil down like this, bang, straight in the eye. And I remember it, it was a proper stinger. Um, right, opinion on shook swarms? What are you thinking?

Yeah, well, I don't shook swarm at all, but, um, it is, it is a good method if you get AFB. You know, one of the things that the bee inspectors would recommend if you've got light dose of EFB, they would recommend a shook swarm. You know, I've heard of people shook swarming all their bees in spring to try and stop bees from swarming. They're probably going to swarm anyway. I mean, it's the survival instinct for bees to swarm, it's how they reproduce. You know, shook swarms, you're taking a huge amount of energy and resource away from the bees Just doing the shook swarm for the sake of it is knocking the bees back massively, you know, massively. Unless you've got EFB and you're doing it for disease prevention or, you know, for them not to get EFB, I'd see no other good reason to do a shook swarm.

I'd completely agree on that. And they do it now with the EFB, they do the whole apiary, don't they now?

Yeah.

So even if there's only one hive that's got a bit of scale or something, they shook swarm everything. And I'm pretty sure that if you've got your bee diseases insurance with, um, the— through the BBKA, they, they pay for the frames. So you can get the frames back on the whole swarm now, can't you? Which is pretty good. Um, I thought that was an interesting change from them. Um, right, just finding some other questions. There's so many. Sorry if I'm missing questions here, but here we go. Here's the next one. Thoughts on Demerase to increase honey production and to reduce swarming?

For me, doing stuff like that is just too complex. My swarming is simple, going through my bees, if I see queen cells, I put the queen and some bees in a nuc, and that's my system. I do one thing, I try and do one thing really well, and, you know, that's all I do. I don't veer off that at all. I know a lot of people do it, A lot of people swear by it, that it's really good. It's just not something that I do. I keep everything primitive and easy, and that's how I like to do it.

And that's one of the big benefits. And I say this, one of the big reasons why I really regret moving to 14x12, because you lose the ability just to take out a nuc either preemptively or reactively to minimize swarm issues. Can't do it with 14 by 12 because then you just end up with tons of 14 by 12 nucs. Um, but it works, doesn't it? And it's effective. And if you're happy to make the splits and you can sell the nucs, then there is no better way than to stop them swarming than to make them think that they have swarmed, which they kind of have. Um, I have to say though, I love the Demaray. It's my favorite manipulation. I do it all the time now. It's great because you do it— you can do it preemptively. So I'll go to an apiary with, say, like 20 colonies, and I'll just go around every single one. Doesn't matter if they've got swarm cells or not, and I just do it Lift the box up to the top, new box underneath, and it gives you like 4 to 6 weeks and you haven't got to worry about them. Have a go, do a video, it's good fun, that one. Right, next one is, and it links on to that, how many hives do you think is the ideal maximum number for an apiary?

I keep about 20 per site, no more than 20 per site. That's the number I like, especially out apiaries. I wouldn't want to keep less than 15. Uh, the way diesel is going now at the pumps, I mean, we're up to almost £1.70. I think we're going to be at £2 a litre within the next couple of months. Uh, you know, driving to some sites now is going to probably cost me £10, £15. Um, you know, doing that regular over the season is, is going to take it out of you, you know, it's going to hit the profits. Uh, you want that drive to be, uh, well worth it. And, um, you know, people will tell you, you know, 20 is too much. You know, I spent some, a lot of time with much bigger bee farmers than myself over the last few years, going to sites and seeing, you know, 100 nucs in, in one field, you know, and driving a little bit down the road and seeing another 100 there. Um, you know, you go to America and you see the same, you go to Europe, you see the same. You know, the, the bees got 3 miles to forage in, you know, 20 hives in an area is nothing. It really, really isn't. You know, on the farm, you know, I think I've got between the production hives and the nucs, you know, over 60, which is too much. Uh, I definitely say that is way too much because I did see that the, the honey drop on, on the farm last year, and I'm putting that down to, you know, overstockness. Um, but yeah, up, up to 20. I mean, unless there's loads of beekeepers around you or bee farmers around you, you know, we haven't got the level of wild bees anymore in, in the wild. So, you know, that competition isn't there. If it weren't for us keeping bees, I mean, who else is going to be pollinating the crops and the trees and everything? So yeah, I wouldn't be worried about going up to 20 on a single site, wouldn't bat an eyelid on it.

Yeah, we're very similar numbers. I know someone who won't go above 10, and he swears by it and says anything above 10, he says you're just, you're getting diminishing returns, but I don't see it. And especially like places, it is completely dependent on the location and the forage that's available. But like up at our heather apiary, when we go into the heather season, I bring like a few extra up there. There's like kind of like 30, 35, and we average 65 pounds per hive over 6 weeks of the heather. So like there's no, there's plenty to go for if the forage is available. But yeah, it's, people do it differently, don't they? But I would say, yeah, 20 is a good number.

Yeah, and you know, you look at the heather, you know, you go to any heather moors, There's loads of other farmers there at the same time. You're probably talking some more than, you know, there might be over 1,000 hives there, you know, and they're all pulling honey out. As long as there's something there, you know, you can take a single hive to a bad site and that single hive will produce nothing because it's a bad site, you know. If it's a good site, then, you know, knock them up.

Yeah, and, and again, you can just keep on like topping it up, see, see where you get to, see where it starts diminishing, and then just set it back a bit. Right, next question. How early can you start splitting this year, uh, with mated queens and then with queen cells, would you say?

Uh, as long as the queens are mated, I mean, and, and it all depends on the spring, you know. If we get a spring like last year, I mean, you know, we weren't splitting until May, really, middle of May, because it was so cold. But, you know, historically, if we get a good match and we're into April and April feels like May, uh, as long as the bees are— the boxes are full, you know, you take a split then. But, um, you know, As the, you know, the rule of thumb is May, um, but it's just, you know, the seasons are changing so much. I mean, you know, what, what, what people were doing 10 years ago, things have totally changed, um, but you just got to look at what's in front of you, you know. If it's warm enough, those boxes are full of bees, and you've got access to mated queens, then there's nothing stopping you doing them earlier.

Yeah, I'm, I'm doing a video this year seeing how many splits I can make out of one colony, and I'm targeting 44. That's my target. Oh yeah, so I'll be happy with anything over 20. I thought I'd go, I'd go hardcore with it. My strategy, I've got— I'm feeding them already, pollen patties, getting them strong. I'm going to build them up onto double brood, and I'm going to split the double brood into 2, and then build them up again onto double brood, and then split them out again. So then I'll have 44 frames of bees, and then I'm going to take 2 frames from each into 22 nucs, try and build them up to the point where I can split those nucs again, but all with mated queens. So I'm not going to do any queen rearing, any queen mating. I'm going to just keep on adding in mated queens, and I'm just going to feed all year, and we'll see where we get to. Be interesting, wouldn't it?

It would. That would be— yeah.

Um, it's like the, uh, I already know what, what people are going to say about it though, which is, how can, how can you charge so much for a nuc if you can make 44 splits from one colony? And I'll say to them, yeah, but with the colony that you buy, you can also make 44 splits. So it's an investment strategy. Got my answers already for that one. Uh, right, views on one-piece plastic frames, saying I love them but struggling to get them for Langstroth. So I guess that can be plastic foundation, plastic frames, one piece. What are your thoughts on Not—

Yeah, I've seen them. Um, I, I did like plastic foundation at one time. I don't mind them in the supers. Uh, you know, you, you never get the breakout or anything, but you know, that's, that's in a timber frame. Um, I, I have got a lot of them, uh, in production. Um, how strong is the whole plastic frame is, is the question. Um, they're probably going to be okay. I mean, you probably have to roll a bit of your own wax into the frames first, get the bees to draw on it, uh, better. It's not something that I would be interested in taking on in my system. I like melting the frames down in the steam melter, you know, taking all the wax out, and then I just burn the leftover wood. You know, I know that's not a single-use plastic, but you're bringing plastic into your system, you know, and say you get disease, I mean, you're burning plastic frames at the end of the day then, which is not ideal. Um, yeah, I'm not, not a big— I'm not, I'm not a big fan of it, but, but I can see what— why, uh, you know, people use it. I know in, uh, New Zealand they're big fans of, you know, plastic frames out there. Uh, America, they're big fans of it. Um, you know, I, I can't say, um, they're not going to be good. Um, it's just, uh, you know, it's just plastic and, you know, you know, recycling the frames. I just think later on that's going to be a pain and a cost.

So is it— I always look at plastic frames in the foundation and stuff and think, you know what, that's a really good idea, and it would save me so much time. I'd never have to make frames. And but then it falls down for me on 2 things, which is one, when you put them, you need, you need some way to clean them with heat. And from what I've seen, a lot of them warp, and then you have to chuck them out. So then it becomes a single-use plastic. And then the other one is if you do get a disease, they won't let you burn them. they won't let you put the petrol in them and stuff. So then you have to seal them up, petrol them, and then you have to take them off for hazardous waste disposal, is apparently what you have to do with any AFB or EFB on plastic frames. So then it's just, it's kind of a non-starter then, isn't it, if you're going to start having to do— you should have issues like that. Um, but I, if someone— there's, there's one coming out. The guys from Hyde Hives know a company, they're doing it called Frames and Feeders. And they've molded so some single, single mold plastic foundation and the frame all in one. So it's like a single mold with wax on it, and they're sending me some to have a look at. So I'm going to run them, but then I'm also going to put them through kind of like a steam washer and see if they can hold, hold up to some serious heat without warping. And if they do, I think, I think maybe, maybe we'll have a look at them. Here we go, giving away all your business secrets now. Hi, what do you charge for a jar of honey?

So 12 ounce at the minute, that's, that's the most popular. I think it's £7.50, uh, for 12 ounce. That's, that's what, that's where we're currently at at the minute. But, uh, you know, I got no plans to increase prices yet, but, you know, see how this inflation business is, is going. And, uh, the, you know, we've got to consider the price of jars and everything later on. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if honey is going to go up this year.

I know, I know you're a businessman, Griff. How many jars did you buy before the cutoff for the bee farmers?

Not, not enough. Yeah, cash flow was tight, so I, I didn't buy enough because, uh, I've got all the pallet of 12s now this— well, next week. I just, just had a kilo pile of kilos in last week. Um, but you know, you're gonna— if the jars go up, the jars go up. I mean, you're gonna get caught out sooner or later. You're gonna have to increase You're just gonna have to either absorb the cost or pass it on. It's just, you know, if you're in a position to do, you know, it's up to you, I suppose.

It's only going to go up. But the bigger one for— so just if anyone asks, I bought 25,000 because that was the most that I could get into a single garage that wasn't mine, and you can't move in the garage anymore. But I think the bigger issue for people like you and people like me that buy in honey and sell it is that you look at the bulk honey the price of bulk honey is really linked quite a lot to the price of diesel, isn't it? So these people, these bee farmers going around, if they're going to have to double the amount of diesel they're paying, they're going to up the price in the bucket. So then you're going to have the price of bucket honey going up, the price of energy going up, the price of jars, the price of lids, labels. It's going to be difficult to keep the price consistent, isn't it? I think it is just going to be going upwards.

Yeah, I think that. But, you know, you look at the grand scheme of things, you know, with The amount of money they printed off during COVID you know, this was inevitable really. The strength of the pound is going down. The sterling's not based on a gold standard or anything. If you just print more, you're just devaluing it. So I think, you know, obviously with the war in Ukraine is having a huge effect on the market, especially with the oil now. But, you know, you can't print a huge amount of money off and then Not expect prices to go up. The prices will just go up to what it was before. But you know, instead of it being a pound, it's two pound. And before, you know, you know, you go to some countries and you buy a Mars bar and it's like one million pound or one something. You know, it'll be like that here. You know, you just can't keep printing money off. You know, you're just weakening everything off.

Yeah. They didn't expect this conflict in Ukraine to happen, I guess, did they? Because they thought they'd have the temporary inflation and then everything would go back to. normal, and they didn't realize that, that we were going to not be able to get fuel anymore. I, I, we, we moved over to air source heat pump a couple of years back, and I've still got 600 litres of heating oil in the back garden. And my neighbour said, oh, have you still got that heating oil? Can we, can we come and get it? And I was like, yeah, you can have it, it's fine, like, no worries. She said, go and have a look at Boiler Juice on the price. It's £1.30 a litre for heating oil.

Yeah.

We paid 30p a litre when we bought it. So I said to her, we'll go somewhere in the middle. No, I didn't really, but yeah, it's gone crazy, the price. Right, here we go, here's a good question. Have either of you thought about doing video tours of other bee farmers and their setups?

Yeah, I have thought about that. It's just getting around to it and having the time and suppose getting the other bee farmers to agree to do it as well. Um, you know, it is, it is a scary thing, you know, putting your setup out there. Uh, Richard Noel did a really good one with, uh, with Ollie from Ireland the other day. That was, that was really good. He's got a great setup there. Um, and I think those kinds of videos are great, you know. Uh, it's like a, I mean, a knowledge exchange group with the bee farmers and, you know, going on like tours of, of people's facilities I mean, you just learn so much. It's, it's just unbelievable how much you learn. And I think, um, doing videos like that where, you know, if you go to different bee farms, uh, film different setups, interview them, and, you know, I bet you'll pick up a couple of good points from every single, uh, person, whether the, the system is totally different or the same. Uh, you know, we've got so much to learn from other people, and, uh, I think videos like that will, will do really well on YouTube. And I think uh, that'll probably, uh, be interested in a global market of beekeepers to see that, you know. I know I love seeing other people set up on, on YouTube and TV and magazines and stuff. Um, it's just, you know, having the time, you know. Bee farmers are spread out around across the UK. It'll probably be like 2 days work between the traveling. Um, that, that's what's probably stopping me doing it as well, you know. So it's, uh, but yeah, hopefully, you know, Sooner or later I, I can get a couple of them in.

I think it'd be great content. I said, I said on a previous stream, if I, if I wasn't kind of like married and had kids and stuff and I was just single, I wouldn't be in the UK at the moment. I'd just be off around the world, just like lend— like being going to like New Zealand and saying, can I just like work for you just to kind of like be a bee person, but can I film it at the same time? Because it would be good, wouldn't it? Just be like a traveling bee vlog going all to different places. Go to the almonds, go to the manuka.

Um, you'd have the best YouTube channel if you were young and you could do that. You know, I always think, you know, I'm 34 now, I started YouTube when I was 32 or 31 or whatever. I tell you, I wish I did YouTube when I was 20, you know, and I'd be or whatever, you know, and I started then. Things, things would be a lot different. So, you know, all you young guns out there, you know, don't wait till you're ready if you want If you want to start beekeeping, get some bees now. Start filming it because I tell you, at 20 years old, you're going to overtake me and Lawrence easy. You know, just compounding those videos out over a period of time, you're gonna you're gonna be studs. So you know, do it, do it now. Don't don't wait till the perfect time because it there's never a perfect time.

Is it's such a good point that I and I would encourage everyone to do that. And you'll find I know Griff's like this as well, but I'm definitely like it is that we would never like stand in people's way. We do the complete opposite in terms of like encouraging. Encouraging people and try and collaborate with them because Andy, I'm still trying to collaborate with you even after asking like 50 times. Still not up for it. But if you want to want to do something like I'm always up for that. It's just it's just good fun. Like we're one big beekeeping community and there's enough there's enough viewers to go round. Oh, this is the best question ever. Which one of you would win in an arm wrestle? I'm gonna take this one and there is absolutely no way I would win against those guns. Oh my god!

Yeah, I was gonna say I'd win that hands down. Solid Welsh steel. Come on. You know, true. Poo was stealing sex appeal. That's how— that's what I am doing here.

Oh yeah, that's it. Next question. I'm not even going to argue. Here we go.

You would have liked to play back in the day. I bet you're tough anyway.

I'm modest as well though. Um, right. Hi, hi both. I'm looking to invest in a quality bee suit. In your opinion, what's the best one you've come across?

I'm gonna be a bit, uh, biased, and I'd say this— the Swainty is a really good suit. Uh, but you know, being an honest bloke that I am, the only downside of this— of the Swainty suit is, is you can't drive in the suit because it's got the, the special steel veil which can't burn or anything, but it doesn't fold flat when you flip it behind the head. So you actually got to take the suit off to drive. So that's, that's the only downside of the Swainty suits. Um, you know, well priced and everything. But there's loads of suits out there, you know. Uh, BB Wear do a really good one, a British-made vented suit. Uh, I've got one of them. Uh, that's really, really well made suit, you know. You're supporting local people, local jobs. Um, you know, I don't think really, uh, you know, going down the, the main makes, I don't think there is a bad suit out there really. Um, you know, some of the, the imported stuff with no make, uh, you know, maybe be a bit wary of that. But, you know, I've seen some some cheap suits and, uh, they're good, you know. It's just you gotta try them out, you gotta, you know, go somewhere, try them out, test them. Uh, Bee TradeEx is coming up, I'm pretty sure there'll be a couple of, uh, the suit manufacturers down there. I know a lot of the beekeeping manufacturers are not going there for different reasons, uh, but I think the suits guys are anyway, you know. Go down there, try them out, try before you buy like they say.

Yeah, all I would add with the bee suit is that it's, it's the little things for me that make all the difference. So like, I had one custom made. Why don't they put zips on all the pockets? You need to have zips on all the pockets for bee suits. You need to have a pocket that can fit a— I can't do that— that can fit your phone in it. Why don't all the pockets fit the phones in? And it's just those little, those little 2 things. They're kind of, how simple is that? Big pockets with zips. Not all of them have it. Um, So yeah, just it's the little things that I like. Uh, here we go. Joe, are you thinking of going electric to reduce travel costs? I can't wait to get an electric pickup truck when they become available. I'll be straight on that.

Yeah, I mean, I, I would love to go electric. I mean, I'm in the process now of, of— I want to change the pickup. I want to get a big 4x4 van. Um, I want to get like a— I think Fiat are bringing one out, um, like a big Boxer or whatever it's called, you know. V-dub and MAN do a nice one. but you've got to send it away to turn it into a crew cab, which is a pain. That's the kind of vehicle I want. But, you know, to be honest with you, I don't think the technology is there yet. It's probably not going to be there for the next 10 years, you know, especially with the farm work. You know, I'm towing, you know, up to 3 tonne, you know, 3.5 tonne depending on the vehicle. You know, electric's just not there yet, you know. But I would love to have an electric workhorse. I think, you know, we're definitely going to go there in the end. It may be too late for our generation, maybe, especially with the cost. You know, as a business, you've got to turn a cost into everything as well. You know, these electric big Jeeps are going to be double the cost of diesel. You know, it doesn't matter if diesel is more expensive, it's still going to be cheaper to use the diesel. But yeah, I'm really hoping, you know, people like Elon Musk can bring that down and be cost-effective because I think if we're on electric, I mean, that's just great really, you know.

It is good. We've got an electric car and we save so much money on it. But even bigger than that, what we've done, so we've got the air source heat pump, so we've done away with the heating oil, and then we've got solar installed but only like a 4 kilowatt array. But then what we're getting put in, like, like next week I think it is, 45 kilowatt hours of batteries, and then we're going to charge up. So we're paying 25p per kilowatt hour on our current rate, and then we're moving on to one where between midnight and 5 AM it's only 4.5p a kilowatt hour. So then you charge the batteries up overnight, and then you run the whole house and all of your cars and everything off the batteries. So we're saving 80%. So if, so if they've got a pickup truck that could even only do like 150 miles or something, I'd be straight on it without a doubt because you'd save so much money versus the diesel. But I do think like a proper all-round farm pickup truck is, is a good few years off because you've just not got the torque. It's just going to discharge the battery too quickly, isn't it?

Yeah, and, uh, you know, I don't, you know, I genuinely don't know if, if, if the technology is going to be there. You know, I know I follow JCB, you know, the Bomford guy said, you know, you can't have big diggers with batteries. It's just, it's just impossible. They've done, they've done the small ones, but the runtime is like 3 hours. And he used an example, you know, if, if you wanted a 10-ton digger, put batteries in there, the thing would weigh 20 tons and it'll have a runtime of 3 hours. Where, you know, the small machines, they can be on site and have 3 hours of battery because they'll do a trench, the thing is turned off, they're fiddling around in the trench doing the pipe. You know, a big 10-tonner, that thing is going to be going on, you know, 10, 11, 12-hour days on a 3-hour runtime. And it's just, just at the minute, the weight of the battery, you know. Yeah. If I would have a big van now and it would be full electric with a big battery in there, I may only be able to carry half a ton in the van because the battery has exceeded the gross vehicle weight. So I genuinely think hydrogen, like, like what JCB is saying, JCB has done a big deal in Australia. They're going to buy, I think, a huge volume of hydrogen from Australia so they can run their big diggers on hydrogen instead of diesel. And I think the car manufacturers, especially for the heavy torque, towing, maximum power vehicles, I think we're going to see hydrogen. And I think slowly, Vaag, I think if you're going to get a new gas boiler now, they are already plumbed up for hydrogen as well.

They have to be now, don't they?

So I think, um, I think once the hydrogen era comes in, I think it's going to knock the battery stage back a bit. You know, as long as they're keeping the carbon footprint down and it's better than fossil fuel, well, I mean, hydrogen— look how much water we got on the earth. We just need a more efficient way of getting the hydrogen out of it, you know.

Yeah. Oh, we're covering loads of topics today, aren't we, Griff? It's, it's 1 minute past 9, so like—

If you want, if you want to keep going for a bit, I'm So just tap out when it's done, yeah, when you've had enough.

There's some good ones here. This is a good question. So what about offering some discount for people who return clean jars so we recycle and save on the cost of jars?

Yeah, well, that's not up to us. We're not allowed to do that by law. If the law does change, then definitely it probably may be something that I'd be looking into. But you know, it's the reason that's law is, you know, and I'm guilty myself, you know, when you've got an empty jar and you paint in and then you need a little cup to put white spirit in to clean the paintbrush. I mean, the honey jar is the perfect size for the paintbrush, you know. Can you imagine that jar coming back into the system and it's had, you know, white spirit or petrol or chemical in it? You know, maybe dishwasher isn't going to wash it out good enough. So, you know, that's why that's in place. You know, once that jar leaves your premises you've got no control of what goes in that jar after. And I bet you 99% of them will come back clean and safe, but that 1% risk is too high, you know, that 1% is too high of a risk. Um, so, you know, it's just a business. You've got to buy— you just got to buy new jars all the time and be super safe, you know, we're dealing with food.

So, so first off, I practice what I preach. This is a gherkin jar. You know that all my, all my jars are gherkin jars. Um, but secondly, I'm not going to do this, so I'm just going to offer this idea out for someone here. And I know there's kind of a few little issues with it, but you know all of the milk farms that they've set up where you turn up, or you turn up with your bottle when you buy it and you squeeze it in and you get a milkshake or whatever? There's got to be a better way of doing honey with that. And I know you're going to have the issue with it heating it and kind of stopping it crystallizing, but I do think— and Abello sold one, didn't they? Abello used to have one that kind of kept it at a certain temperature. But I reckon that's got to be a goer now. You could stick it next to the milk places and sell little jars, or people can come back and bring their own jar, and then you're not— you're never dealing with the contamination issue. It's kind of on them, and they can just fill it up. I reckon that would— that would sell so well.

Yeah, it's— it's the heat which would be the problem. Now, even low heat for a long, long period of time will affect the HMF, so that's— that's the problem. And, you know, That honey going thick and heavy, you know, you're gonna mess the pump up, you know.

It could, but then you could— like, I'm already thinking outside the box here. So you could— because freezing honey is, is fine. Like, you can freeze honey, defrost it, and it keeps all of the enzymes and nutrients. So you could freeze it in like a cylindrical puck. It goes out of focus when I do that. And then it just goes and just pops into your jar frozen, and then you take it home.

Yeah, it could be.

Yeah, should we do— should we set up— should we go 50/50 on that one? Right, I have no idea what this one is. Grefg, how are Charlotte's bees doing?

Well, she hasn't got bees yet, so that, that's coming next year. So, um, they're building the hives up now and she'll be getting the bees in spring. So hopefully, uh, that'll be a nice adventure and a successful, uh, adventure for her as well.

I've got a follow-on question, which is, um, Which TV producer are you holding to ransom for all of your TV appearances?

Well, I don't know, I was going to ask you that same question.

No, just luck of the draw, innit? I just think, oh, every time I see— oh, he's on telly again. It was funny, um, on the beekeeping forum someone tagged me in something saying, oh, you're on telly, and then everyone was kicking off saying, oh, it's Black Mountain Honey, he's named it wrong, there's no Black Mountains up there. And then, ah, You know, the beekeeping forum is good fun, isn't it? I don't even really post on there.

I learned to keep away from the forums long, long time ago.

The one that came up the other day, and there'll be beekeeping forum people watching this, was they were talking about, um, us copying each other for the content on videos. And I was just, just thinking, how on earth could that— how on earth would that work then? Because I've just posted a video that's gone live, no one would have seen it before. And then within half an hour you posted the same one, and I was saying you'd have to be pretty nippy with the filming and editing, wouldn't you?

Oh, it takes me half a day really, between, uh, you know, psyching myself up, getting the camera, whatever, charged, going out filming something. And when you're filming yourself, it takes like twice the amount of time to actually do something because you're filming it. And then you go back in and a couple of hours ago, you know, editing it. And, you know, if you, if you like me, do loads of mistakes, so there's loads of edits. Then maybe I want to overlay something over the top of it. You know, you're finding all the different footage, you know, that you want to find. You know, hours goes on the editing, and then, you know, you upload it. And my internet's really slow, so it actually takes me sometimes 48 hours to upload a YouTube video. Um, you know, you just gotta leave the laptop on charge and just leave it for 2 days really for it to go on YouTube because we're trying to upload in 4K. Um, that's what we're trying to do. And then a good hour will go on the thumbnail as well, you know, fiddling around with different layouts, whatever. You, you look at, uh, you know, I use Canva, you know, look at the different templates they got to see what I could use on there, you know. Best, best part of half a day goes, you know, for me anyway, you know. I don't do a whole video in a day, um, you know, not, not very efficient with my time there. Maybe, you know, I used to in the season, you couldn't like block videos, you know, you go down the down the apron and maybe film 5 videos in, in one sitting and then edit in the night. Um, but yeah, you know, it takes me best part of half a day. So if you put something out today and I got a video coming tomorrow, that was already coming out. And, uh, you know, it's like, uh, I, I started to be family today and, uh, he described his business tour of the oil tanker and it really stuck to me. You know, I, I'm like the oil tanker when I do a video. It takes me ages to get one out, and you know that oil tanker don't turn very quick, so you know it turns really slow. So if if it looks like I'm copying you or whatever, that that thing was already come in. You know, it's just I can't stop it.

I just I just say to people, look, we're kind of we both got beekeeping businesses, and we're both doing beekeeping YouTube. There's going to be some crossover, isn't there? You can't you can't not do the same videos. Oh, he's done a video on catching a swarm; therefore, I can't do a video on catching. catching a swarm up. There's always going to be crossovers, isn't there?

Yeah, and I mean, the, the long— the longer you're doing videos, the, the more that is gonna— is, is gonna happen, really. Um, you know, there is only so much beekeeping content you can do. You can do it in a lot of different ways, uh, but, but the core message is, is going to be limited to what you can do, you know. But, you know, we've both got very different channels. I mean, there is some overlap But like we say, we're not in competition, and I tell that to every beekeeper out there. No beekeeper is in competition with each other. You know, we're competing in a market where all the beekeepers in the UK is producing 14% of the demand. I mean, you know, everybody's honey is going to get sold. You know, that's not the problem, you know.

Yeah, it's very true. You don't get to the following year and get stacks and stacks of honey unless you're a bee farmer, you're doing it in bulk and you're dealing with the tons, um, then yeah, you're going to sell it all. Right, here's a good question. Have you signed the BBKA petition?

Yeah, I have.

Me too, and I recommend everyone else to sign it as well. What do you think about it?

Well, I think it's long overdue. You know, hiding honey behind, you know, a blend of EU and non-EU honey is, is just a way of saying, uh, hiding what country it actually comes from. You know, if that honey was coming from a country with a good reputation for food standards, why on earth would you want to hide the country of origin of that honey? I mean, I put Welsh honey on my jars, very proud that honey is coming from Wales. I mean, if honey is coming from the UK, I mean, put Great Britain on it, a very proud country producing fantastic food. French honey, the same. And I mean, There's not many countries out there that haven't got a good reputation of, you know, having good quality. And you can go down, you know, really far, go to Africa, you know, they've got some fantastic honey, you know, wild, wild areas where the honey tastes totally different. You know, just, just because it's, you know, it's a developing country, that doesn't mean it's a bad quality. I mean, they've probably got a better forage than we've got. Um, it's just the countries that that, you know, industrially make fake honey. You know, I don't want to mention the country and upset anybody, but, you know, there's some countries out there that, that will go above and beyond to make fake honey, uh, add synthetic enzymes and chemicals into that for it to pass honey tests. Um, these big, uh, packagers and bottlers, uh, they, they know this, these countries do this, but yet they still buy the honey from there. Uh, they buy honey from those countries and they know full well they export way more than they can produce, yet they still buy the honey from there because it's cheap. Um, and you know, you've got to stop it, you know, and you've got to stop it by law. You know, I would never go down that route of buying honey and then trying to hide the country of origin on it. You know, it's something I've been thinking of bringing, uh, you know, a specialty range of honeys from different countries out. And you know advertising and promoting that the honey is from that country. You know we live on a small world. You know there's some fantastic honeys out there. It's just you want to be making sure you're eating honey, and I don't think you know if there was Brazilian honey on the shelf, I'd buy it. I taste it. You know it tastes literally tasting that country. You know that that's what honey is doing. So if anybody wants to hide the country of origin of their Honey. I mean, they are doing that, uh, full knowing that that honey is coming from a dodgy source, and there's, there's no other way around it, you know. That, that's why, uh, the law— and I'm surprised, you know, Europe back in the day, they, they allowed that to happen. It just shows the power these big food, uh, packages have got, you know. But, you know, people are getting wise to it, you know. People are really, uh, worried about what they're eating, the quality of the food they're eating. Uh, you know, I don't want to go all conspiracy theory on you here on the channel, but you know, cancer and everything, all that stuff didn't exist back in the day. Look how much preservatives and everything that's in food these days. You know, there's just total garbage out there. You know, if you're eating good, wholesome, natural food, um, you know, I, that's what I try and do. I can't eat that all the time, and you know, I love McDonald's, don't get me wrong, um, but you know, I do, I do try and eat good quality food. I think that's one of the biggest life hacks in the world that people forget. And, you know, good quality honey is a food product and it's a pharmaceutical product. You know, eat some proper stuff. You know, it's about time that law changed.

Yeah, I think I agree with everything you said there. This next question from Joe is such a good question. If you were in government, if you were in power, what would you do to help beekeeping in the UK?

I'd say, uh, I'd do what they do in France. Uh, I bring like a single farm payment for beekeepers based on the number of hives you've got. So if beekeepers, you know, I know you lost— you work full-time, but if there was an incentive out there that the government would pay you a cheque every year for X amount of hives you keep, it would make bee farming a lot more, um, appealing for someone to go into. You know, even in a bad year, you could work out, well, even if I get a really bad year, I've got, you know, 200 hives, I'm guaranteed this check to produce food and to be a bee farmer for the UK. I mean, we're doing that in farming. We pay farms a single farm payment so they can produce food at a low cost and, you know, support them in the bad years so they have got some, some source of income. Now, I know people, uh, are against that, uh, so some people are against that, but, you know, if you want good quality British food then at the right price, then, you know, that's got to be subsidized. You know, other countries do it with different industries. I don't think there's a more important industry out there than food, and you know that works really well. You go to France and you look at some of the bigger units there. You know they've got the best beekeeping kit out there. You know they've got companies like Thomas Eco. You know those companies do really well because the beekeepers there are paid by the government as well. You know it does some. I'm not saying that it's enough to live off. But it certainly helps with investing in the business. And you know, the industry in the UK is tiny—14% of the demand. I mean, it's you know, it's a joke. We need we that needs that number needs to be way more. You know, bee farms need to be bigger. We need more young people coming into the industry. And I think by subsidising bee farmers, I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't go as far as subsidising hobby beekeepers. Um, you know, you're not really gonna improve the honey industry there, you know, and the whole supply chain of food. Um, but you know, that's, that's definitely something that I would bring in. I'd look at the, the model they've got in France and how they support their beekeepers with subsidies there, and, uh, I, I think that'd be a good idea. I mean, that should be the case now, you know, farming, beekeeping, bee farming and farming is the same, you know, we keep livestock and we produce a crop. But, you know, we don't get any kind of subsidies from the government for it.

I think that would be very good, something that I would welcome. So something that I would add to that though is linking back to the previous one, which is putting in place some real stringent controls on what you can sell as honey, the testing that needs to go into it, the labelling, the country of origin and everything like that, and make it really, really difficult for the supermarkets to sell honey, honey in inverted commas, for 50p a pound or whatever it is, which is just sweet syrup in a jar, um, because they could really cut down on that and do it quite quickly. Right, so Griff, I'm just firing the questions, just tap out whenever, whenever you're done. Here's a good question though, uh, you've mentioned— both mentioned the price of raw materials rapidly increasing. Uh, Barber's Bees says they make everything from scratch, all my frames, floors, boxes, etc. Have you ever thought of doing this?

I've done some floors. I've done some roofs. I've done that out of scrap wood. I think that I think that's a good idea. I mean, you you're doing your own frames. I mean, fair play. You you've got really good hands. You know, I've seen people do their own frames on jigs with routers and stuff. You know that that is a high level of skill to be able to do that. You know, fair play to you. And you know. I, I've built some hives from scratch as well, but, you know, I compare what I've done with, uh, what, what Thorns has done, and, uh, you know, it's, it's as if my kids have done it type of thing, you know. Um, and I don't think the economies of scale is there. I still think, uh, from a bee farming point of view, not, not for everybody because there's some big units out there that do build their own, um, but the majority, I think, um, is still cheaper to buy the equipment in. But no doubt, you know, if you've got the time and you've got the skill to build that yourself, um, you know, there's a big saving to be had there. And, you know, compare that to farming, it's very true. Some farmers, they don't contract anything out, you know, they do the hay themselves, they bale themselves, they muck spread themselves, they hedge cut themselves, they do everything themselves. They keep that cost down. Where other farms, then, their model's a bit different, you know, they get contractors in and contractors do most of that work. It's just, you know, there is no right or wrong answer. It just depends, you know, what's your model. But I don't think everybody is going to have that skill set in their business to be able to build hives and frames and boxes, etc.

I'm completely with you on that. Like, we do make all our own floors because we can make them really easily and they're really cheap as well, but everything else we buy in. And especially what I always recommend to people is kind of like cedar seconds. Seconds in the sales are very, very cheap, um, and they're good, good quality cedar, well cut. It's just English-grown cedar, um, so it'd be difficult to, to build something for less. Um, I remember some of the first hives that I built when I was trying to not spend any money, and I've gone like full circle now because I just spend money like it's going out of fashion on bees, but I built them out of old oak floorboards thinking Oh, it's going to be the best in the world. And like you say, it looks— even your kids would have done it way better than this. But they were so heavy. And on one side, I tried to do like router out some handles, like freehand, completely messed it up. So then I stuck these 2 big handles on the side. Oh, it was so heavy. And I ended up just burning it. And it was quite good for burning because it was oak. But yeah, I don't— I, I've got zero skills when it comes to doing stuff like that. Right, Griff, next question. You can just say pass and then I'll answer it. But did either of you get any bother from anyone when getting started in beekeeping? Can be pretty cutthroat for younger lads.

Uh, I have had some problems recently, uh, which, you know, we've had to take legal advice on and stuff. Um, you know, go, go to the police and stuff, uh, to build a case up. Um, I don't want to say any more than that, um, but you know, the internet can, can be a cruel place. It's a place where people can hide their identity, uh, and attack you, uh, either to, uh, try and benefit their own business by bringing you down. Um, you know, you just got to look at any famous person, look at the comments, it's horrendous. Um, you know, people don't act like that in, in real life at all. It's just, um, I think people just think it's okay to act like that, uh, online because they, they can hide their identity. Um, you know, but, you know, people think they can hide their identity, but, you know, there's— every email is IP tracked, you know, with, with the right people you can, you can track that down right back to their address. Um, and I think there should be a lot more rules regarding that. But, um, yeah, it is, uh, it's not just beekeeping. The internet can be a cruel place. Um, you know, I, I do get a little bit of abuse. I put myself out there online. Um, I'm okay with it, but, um, you know, it does upset my wife, uh, a little bit when that does come in. And, you know, it's, it's not right. You know, it's, it's not right at all. And, um, I, I don't agree with, with people acting like that. But what I will tell everybody starting off You know, don't don't let people bring you down. You know, no one in the history of the world has ever lifted themselves up by taking someone else down. You know, that's all that's going to happen if someone is is pulling is trying to take you down. They're actually just going to raise you. It's just going to backfire really and and do the opposite. But yeah, don't don't be scared to put yourself out there. Chances are you won't get any any kind of hate. You know, not not for a long long long time. You know, we we don't we don't get a huge a huge amount of it, but I think anybody that puts themselves out there will get a degree of that, and it's it's not nice. You know, it it is hurtful. It does hurt your feelings. You know, I'm not some kind of emotionless robot when I read this stuff. You know, I read all the comments. It is it is very hurtful, but but you know, don't ever let that. Put you off chasing your dreams and building something special. Because, you know, if you're gonna let what, you know, a small percentage of people think of you from you from chasing your dreams later on, that's going to be the biggest regret of your life. You know, don't listen to the naysayers. You know, there's been naysayers since the beginning of time. And, you know, people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, you know, they had people way above them at the time telling them that they can't do it and that were stupid and they were silly. Look at them now, you know. It's, um, never let, never let the thought of people not liking you or disagreeing with you put you off doing something.

Yeah, I stand by all those comments. And what I just find strange, taking it back to beekeeping, is that everybody has this impression of beekeeping is like kind of like it's a, it's an old man's pastime and people like smoke a little pipe and You go to your meetings and you have a nice cup of coffee and a tea and some nice cake and stuff, but it's so cutthroat. Like, I just— I still can't get over how cutthroat beekeeping is. And I think it's just the same as anything really. And I— and Griff will get it and I get it, where you're— you are— you're putting yourself kind of in like in the spotlight a bit and you're saying stuff. And YouTube come— does come across like that. You're saying, this is how I do something, and people take it as, why does he think he knows everything? And I always try and make it clear on the videos, I'm not, I'm not saying I know better than anyone, and, and in 99 out of 100 cases, I definitely don't know better, but it's just how I do it. But I do think it can, it can rub people up the wrong way. Um, but the, the thing that I always try and tell myself, and you, this, this is 100% applicable to you, is that the only reason people care and they try and bring you down is because you're successful. That's it. And it's that they'll look at your company and they'll kind of think, They're jealous of what you've got, so they try and bring you down. Because if you weren't successful, they wouldn't care. Um, but yeah, it's a good one. The majority of people are really friendly, and I've spoken about on it on here before, like, I take great pride in, in banning people from the YouTube page because I don't, I don't want any of that hate here. It says it on my Facebook group, no hate. If people start kind of shouting at each other and saying, that's not how you do it, you don't know what you're talking about, they just get banned. Because I've got no time for people arguing. You can have a nice friendly conversation about things and learn from each other without getting abusive. Um, so yeah, I don't like any of that. Uh, this is good. This is a good comment. It's like watching Rod Gilbert and Jimmy Gervais. Jimmy, Jimmy Gervais as like some— the love child of Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais, because that is the best comment I've ever had.

But what do you think? I'm taking all Gilbert, I'll take that.

It's amazing. Well, I'm going to ask you a couple more very quick questions, right? How do you see climate change affecting your beekeeping business?

I shouldn't say this, but it's probably going to benefit us in Wales. You know, if the country gets a bit warmer, I mean, we're wet enough to take that heat. Um, you know, I'm not going to go out there and say let's have more of it because you've got to think of, of the bigger picture. Um, you know, and we're seeing some, some of the guys, you know, in England, in the Midlands, where historically, you know, every year they get good crops, and, uh, it's affecting them negative. Um, which, which we don't want. You know, that's the breadbasket of the UK there, really. Uh, we, we don't want anything kind of messing around with, with that. but in Wales, I think it's going to improve beekeeping. Not to say that's a good thing, that's just me being bluntly honest about it.

I think that's right. And there was something that I never really got with global warming, which was like, not again, not that you want it to happen, but it means that everything's going to get warmer. And thinking, well, that means it's going to be sunnier, and then not really realizing it doesn't mean that. it just means that the air is going to hold a lot more water, so you're going to get much more turbulent weather, you're going to get a lot more rain, and it's going to be hotter. And I do think we see it, we've seen that over the last few years. And for us in particular in beekeeping, I don't think it's the end of the world because you're much better off having 3 days of really bad storms and then 4 days of warm sunshine as opposed to 7 days of drizzle. Because the bees don't— they don't need 8 weeks of solid good weather to get a good crop. Like, they'll pick in— they'll take a year's cropping in a week if you get the right conditions, like they do at the heather. Uh, but yeah, there is a real shift. I know Chris Manton's very worried about the Goldilocks zone moving north, isn't he?

Yeah, well, you know, hopefully it just expands, doesn't move.

Right, Joe's asking the difficult questions that no one wants to ask. Some of the debates in beekeeping on the forums can be brutal. Do you find that, or is it just me?

Forums can be a brutal place, you know, it's a place where people can hide behind an identity. I think the best debates happen where, you know, it can happen on a forum, of course it can, and if people know who, you know, they're not hiding behind a pseudonym or whatever, they're Their name is who they are, then it can be a great place to have debates, you know, a really useful, uh, tool or resource to, to gain knowledge. Um, it's just a shame really, you know, you know, the, the second you start leaving people hiding their identity, then, then the, you know, the kind of moral code, uh, you know, it disappears really, and, and it can just turn into a fight pretty quick. Um, and I, I think the whole world is going like that really. I, I mean, you can't even have a a decent debate on the news anymore without, you know, someone calling someone, uh, you know, he's either far right or he's far left or whatever. And you think, well, you know, where's the— there is no central ground anymore. I mean, I think that the world would be a much better place if, you know, for example, in politics, if, if Labour and Conservative could get on and meet in the middle instead of just trying to pull people that way or that way. Um, you know, we get along a lot better, and I think in real life people are, you know, easy to get on with. And if you do have a genuine debate, um, you know, sitting down around a table having a pint or whatever, the, the debate is genuine. Um, forums tend, you know, if, if someone is there bad on a forum, then that tends to, um, expand the bad type of thing. Um, but yeah, I, I keep away from forums really, just, just, you know, I I like Twitter. I think Twitter is probably a good place of a beekeeping debate. I mean, you know, a lot of bee farmers and beekeepers are on Twitter. They're not hiding their identity. And, you know, I, I, I say a lot of the bee farmers have actually— I've put notifications on my Twitter because I like to see what everybody's talking about and, and, you know, what's happening in the world of beekeeping in the UK. I think that's a great place, uh, to have the debate and to learn. And, you know, without people, you know, biting your head off. You know, some, some of the biggest bee farmers in the UK, you know, you comment on their stuff, they'll comment back. You know, they're not like superstars with a million followers, you know, they're just the guys at the top of their game. And, um, I think all of them— I don't think I know any bee farmer that, that's, that's not willing to help anyone. You know, you put a comment on them asking their opinion, I mean, you're gonna get it, and it'll be, be an honest thing. You know, there's sometimes there's no need to join the forum and, and having these people think, you know, I've got to win this debate. You know, once you start thinking I've got to win this debate. I mean, the debate is over, you know. And the truth is, it's the truth within beekeeping as the truth within politics. You can't change people's mind once someone's mind is made up. No matter how much facts and figures you've got, you can't change people's mind. You know, I've learned that a long time ago. That's why you never see me debating stuff online, because you just get sucked in and And, uh, there's, there's no winners at all.

It's so funny. I wish I'd— I wish I'd— I wish we'd had this stream a few weeks ago before I released my Brexit beekeeping pros and cons video, because oh my God, all hell broke loose when I released that one. And I had people messaging me. I had 2 exact comments come back, which was, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, I knew as soon as he opened his mouth he was a Brexiteer. And then someone sent me the exact same message saying, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, as soon as he opened his mouth I knew he was a Remainer, and I kind of just thought, well, you're not— you're definitely not both right. You can't— you can't both be right. But because they were so entrenched in their side of what they kind of thought in terms of the politics, they perceived my words to be the opposite of their views. Um, and I, I just found that amusing. But I'm definitely not doing any more Brexit beekeeping videos because, bloody hell.

Yeah, Brexit's a hard one because it is 50/50 down the line. So, you know, the vote was so close Um, it is literally— you're gonna alienate half your viewership either way, you know. It's just, it is a hot potato, that one.

I try— I tried to keep that one as, as fair as I possibly could because I, I, like, I was completely honest in the video. Like, I, I voted to remain, but I do see that there's pros and cons the way that it goes both ways. And I think in the future, I hope we look back and think maybe, maybe there were good things that come out of it. In the short term, I've not seen them, um, but I am still optimistic in the, in the longer term that we will see things. And queen rearing is one of the ones where I really do think that could have a dramatic impact. And it's had a short-term positive impact in terms of pushing the price of nucs and the price of queens upwards. But I think the longer-term impact, if they do ban the import of queens, is that we will become kind of world leaders maybe in, in home rearing queens, and that we'll get some really good stocks into the country. But yeah, I think, I think it came across maybe a bit one-sided. Right, we've got to half past. Griff, do you want one more question? Do you want me to find one more?

Yeah, do one, one more, and, uh, I'll call it a night.

I'll tell you what, do you want to ask a question? I'll find one more, but is there anything else you want to say about your shop or anything?

No, I mean, uh, I mean, I've enjoyed this afternoon, this evening. Uh, thanks for the invite, and, uh, maybe next one now we'll do at my farm and, uh, you could come down. And, um, you know, I, I think it's good, you know, um, both, both of us are very similar, I suppose, you know. We both got into bees, we both got, uh, social media, we both doing YouTube. Um, I think people wanted this video to happen as well. I mean, we were similar age as well, I suppose, and we both live in Wales, which, which is, uh, funny enough. But you know, this you know the more beekeepers they talk, they mix up. They put you know we've disagreed on some points today. You know I do things different to you. You do things different to me. I mean, you know that's that's the thing people got understand is that there is no right or wrong answer in beekeeping, in farming, or anything in anything really. You know you just gotta go out there and try, you know, and. That's, that's what I'm still doing now. By any means, I'm not an expert beekeeper, you know, I'm not a master beekeeper. I mean, anyone who calls themselves a master beekeeper, I'd be very wary of, you know, their knowledge really. You know, I would class some bee farmers that I know as master beekeepers, you know, they've been keeping bees 30-plus years, hundreds of colonies. I mean, those guys have seen some stuff. Um, you know, that, that is true knowledge, you know. Um, you, you— this isn't something that you can just pick up in the book, um, and become really good at it. You've got to have time on the bees, um, and, you know, you're going to try to try different stuff out. You've got to talk to different people. And like this YouTube thing where you and me talking, I think this is great for the industry and, you know, great for people to see and to learn that there's more than one way of doing things. And, you know, you can not make forums a lethal space. Maybe, you know, if everybody knows there's different ways of doing things and, you know, everybody gets the same kind of income, then I think that's just all the best.

Yeah, again, I completely agree. And, uh, I'm not going to ask you another question because you've done kind of like Rod Gilbert's final thought there. Um, I thought, I thought it was a good summary. Like, it's been by far and away the most requested person to come on and do this stream. Like, I've had a few other names thrown in there. People have been commenting on this for years saying, when are you going to do something with Griff? When are you going to do this? So I know, I know this, this will go down really well and a lot of people will watch this stream. And it has been really good fun having you on. And like I said before, before we went live, I think we just need to like have a chat because we're kind of so similar, so similar in terms of the businesses, the age, the fact that we live in Wales, the fact that we do YouTube. I don't have any friends who I can kind of talk to any of this stuff about, and there's all the background stuff and the strategy and the controversy and all the things. So yeah, we'll have a chat outside of this, and we'll definitely do a catch-up later on in the year. So if anyone has any thoughts of what we can do, I'm going to go down there and have a week in Pembrokeshire on holiday, and then I'm going to pop over to Griff's and we'll do a video as well. So if anyone's got any cool ideas as to what we can do that isn't, um, maybe it has to be some sort of bee smoker dance. I think we'll have to do that as well.

Yeah, maybe more people need to do that.

Um, but yeah, that's it. I'm not going to stay on any longer than that because I think it's going to dilute how good a chat this was. I've really enjoyed it. That was a good hour and a half. Uh, thanks for coming on. Thanks for being so punctual and being so honest with your opinions. Nice one. So I'm gonna finish the broadcast now and I'll see you all soon.

Cheers, Griff. Hey, thank you very much.