Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees With Richard Noel - Episode 12

Right, I think we are live. So how about that? Richard came onto the chat and there we go, we've got a live stream with me and Richard Knowle again. So hi Richard, how's it going?

How you doing, Laurence? Nice to see you, nice to see everybody out there. Yeah, it's a bit of a— I thought I'd just jump on, but why not? I've just come back myself from doing some running around, just been to see some hives, and there's the evidence, banged on the eye straight away, my first bit of immunotherapy of the year. Hello, welcome back.

It makes it be interesting, won't it, in like 20, 30 years' time they would have done some studies on like all these beekeepers that have taken all these stings to the eyes. Like, we're gonna, we're gonna look like this, but we're gonna, I know we're gonna live forever or something, aren't we?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what it is, but you just look at a lot of beekeepers and there is that kind of theory that beekeepers kind of never die, they just smell that way, you know what I mean?

I think the honey side of it as well. Like, I'm always, you know, you'll be the same. Like, you drop a bit of honey on like the hive and you, if your mesh isn't down, you eat it, don't you? And it's just straight from the hive. It's gotta be good for you.

Well, I think so. I think also kind of, um, it's, it's very many levels of kind of good thing for your body. I think obviously the nutrition you get from the honey, the fact we do eat a bit of other stuff from the hive, the fact that we're outside, we're probably not eating as often as other people might do when they're, you know, because we're out all day and that's good for you to like, you know, fast a bit. You drink loads of water in the summer. It's that whole thing about, you know, you're sweating, you're working your body, and perhaps that is a really good thing.

It is. The other thing, like the apitherapy, you hear a lot of people like laugh about that and say, bloody hell, that's what a good way to get someone to pay £60 to breathe in some bee air. But you never know with these things, like there's, there's got, there's got to be something in it. Like when you, when you're there with the hive and you get it, you get that smell come up, don't you? It's like, yeah, it invigorates you, I think.

Yeah, I, I, um, I, I kind of, I'm not sure about the, the bee air. But I'm, I'm, I mean, I've obviously just been to, you know, America, and there's loads of people into apitherapy over there. I mean, huge ways with, with different— not just stings and venom therapy, but all the different, you know, when you go, when you go to somewhere like that, it actually kind of took me off guard. I, I was kind of thinking, you know what, I should really get into this more because there's so many really cool, uh, people out there and all across the world doing really good stuff that we kind of I think maybe that the mentality in the UK is we don't kind of go down that road as much. I don't know. But when you get into like some of these European countries— sorry, carry on— that, you know, that do it.

Yeah, I think like maybe it's like frowned upon a little bit, isn't it? Where it's just like, that definitely doesn't work. Where in America it's maybe like a bit more cavalier, just go for it attitude.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

So how's your build coming on? I've seen your steel portal frames going up. I was saying before—

It's amazing. I mean, The size of the build is like, it's just totally blown me away. And I'm thinking, um, I don't know how I'm gonna afford to actually— well, I've got the money to finish it and all the cladding goes up next week, probably virtually finished next week. So I'll do another video next week with like kind of this week's work, but there's nothing happening on the Monday because they're not there. But, um, then you're suddenly thinking, right, well, I've got to get electricity to everything. I've got conduits in, but then there's like so many steps. Um, for instance, the underfloor heating that is going to go in won't actually be connected up probably till later in the year. But I've got to get all the— first of all, the polystyrene goes down, then all the tubing goes in, then it's got to be tested, then we've got to get a liquid concrete capping on it, and that's going to take like 3 weeks to dry. So my priority is I'm pushing my plumber to be there the week after next when these guys are finished, and then at least we can get that done. It doesn't matter if it's not actually connected up and water in it, it's just to get it so I can get it dry and then get my extraction machine on the— sitting in my driveway. You know, I've got a Paradise Honey line sitting there doing nothing for the last 4 months. I want to get into the shed and just get it unpacked just because I can work out how to put it together, but I've had nowhere to put it together just to look at it, you know. So, um, all things like that.

Welcome to the life of a project manager. I know, I know.

It's just, it's kind of a really good learning curve, but I just found that if you keep people in the loop the whole time They kind of can't back out so much, you know, like it's like a weird thing to say, but if you keep them updated, they kind of almost feel obliged to be there when you ask them.

What would be really interesting to see is you're the flip side of Brexit. So Brexit for us over here, like my personal opinion working in like the construction sector and having stuff done on my house, but it is impossible to get trades at the moment. Like, yeah, it's so, so difficult. We had, um, we don't have— we have like LPG for the cooker here, and I severed the pipe when I was doing some work in the garage. So all I wanted someone to come out and do was just to reconnect a copper LPG pipe, probably an hour's work. And that was in September, and I was ringing around and saying to people, I've just got this job, and they said, yeah, no problem, I can do it, but I can't do it until Feb. Like, yeah, 5 months.

I was actually speaking to someone else today about exactly the same thing. I mean, my brother's in Jersey where I was born, and even there, they're the same. You— there is like a massive shortage of people, and the people that are there have got— well, it's like cherry picking. They're just doing the jobs they want. And as much as they're your mate or they'll come and do it, that'll be on a Sunday afternoon when they've really upset their whole family because they should be spending time with them and earning extra money doing the jobs that they kind of doing for mates and favors. Where all these other jobs, they're just lining them up in the week because, like, you know, Trying to get hold of anyone to do anything over the over in France and Europe, we've been we've been really busy. But what I'm seeing now is a slowdown here because we knew it was coming because that kind of takes a while. Because when I bought my building, I got the slab ordered all that. It was like the peak time and everyone was going to me. We can't do really anything till October November. So like I said, okay, that's fine. But um. put me down for then, and then since they've done the work and they've been paid, they're like, oh, okay, um, when was the next bit you wanted done? I'm thinking, ah, things are slowing down a bit now because I paid them and they know that I'm gonna pay, and now they're starting to look around. So it just kind of, kind of just signals to me that it's not a recession, but it's just there's a little bit less work overall in the kind of system, you know. There's— it's only like a 2-month wait now if you want to dig around. It's not like a 6-month wait, you know what I mean? So, um, but I mean— Yeah, it is I know the UK kind of thing. I read and see all these people all the time. Um, it's— there's no winners at all in Brexit. Everyone's suffering. Um, you know, but don't forget, we all got our blue passports, so that's all that matters.

I should know better than to talk about Brexit. It does— it does—

I know. I mean, it upsets a lot of people. It's highly emotive. It's broken families. It's broken businesses. It's—

um, but well, I'm kind of resigned. I'm resigned to it now. We just get on with it, right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn this into Beekeeper, so there are some people asking questions.

We've Yeah, sure.

So Richard, do you think the colder winter will knock back the Asian hornet in Europe?

Well, every year a lot do die off anyway, so you get the typical vespa cycle, and it's the same for wasps, same for all types of hornet. You have the annual emergence, and then they'll grow through the year. Queens are released in the autumn, and then all those queens that are released that have mated well will hibernate and then come out the following spring. And for us, most of the year— most years, I should say— well, this is what we're thinking at the moment. The last year was like the one year in 10 or 20 that we were dreading that might come, that did come because of several sequences that fell into place. But the interesting thing was 2021, we hardly had any Asian hornets in front of the hives at all. So we're thinking, well, this is a great year, so and we're kind of caught off guard, so we didn't maybe trap so much in the autumn because there's like this brief period in September, October time where you can put traps up or redo your traps and try and get some of the queens that are emerging if it's warm. You get that little period then, then you go through the winter, then we didn't kind of trap much in the spring because we were thinking, well, there was hardly any last year, and then we had the most amazing spring and every single founding queen that emerged probably made it to the summer, and every single nest that came did really well because it was gorging on all the insects in that ecosystem that was around each one of those nests, and everything did really well. So when we have a cold winter, getting back to the question, I think it does help because we know a lot of the founding queens do die, and we have had some cold weather earlier on, as you know, in November and December last year, and we had it as well. So it was quite cold, but not unusually cold, but just colder. So it's going to put stress. Let's hope next week that this cold snap. I think if we have a cold snap myself in the next few weeks, that will help massively. But what we need most of all is normal kind of cycles, you know, like in the spring we get hot and then cold, you know, you get like that period where we're trying to get oilseed rape into our hives or whatever it is, spring flowers into our hives, you get really good weather and they all start to swarm, and then when you go and collect the hives, sorry, when you go and pull your supers, all you get is a block of white honey because it's gone freezing cold because the bees have swarmed and it's actually gone cold weather. We weren't seeing that at all last year, We were just seeing really good weather all the way through, and it's those cycles. And we know that queens die because they can't get enough food when it— when they're in that fragile period of trying to build up. Whether it's a common hornet, whether it's an Asian hornet, or even it's a queen wasp, she's got to go out and find enough food on her own in a fragile period where everything else is trying to do the same and build up. Um, it's, it's very easy for a lot to die. But we just didn't see that last year. So a cold winter, yes, does help, but it needs to be a normal season or a season with highs and lows, and that's what tends to kill. I reckon it's something like 50-60% of founding queens will die in the spring anyway. It's quite a high amount, but the figures change all the time.

It is crazy. Like, I watched some of your videos at the back end of the season. I just couldn't believe it because it's— we just don't get it. Like, in North Wales, you don't get them. They're not here yet.

Yeah.

And I'm kind of thinking, are they going to get up here? And I've still— I'm hedging my bets and saying, you know what, I don't think the climate is ever really going to support them to a point where they're going to be so damaging for us. Yeah, might get them in November, but at that point the colonies are—

I think your climate would sustain them, and they would, if they were left unchecked, they would do some kind of meaningful damage without— well, I don't think it's the right word, meaningful, but they would cause some damage. But The thing you have in the UK is you've got a lot of people, and we've just said this before, you've got a lot of foot soldiers. So if you get someone who's a beekeeper saying, I've got an Asian hornet, the, you know, the bee unit are up there like a shot. There's people who have been training in Jersey, they kind of know what to look for, how to track them. I don't honestly think you will have any nests that will go into the winter myself, ever, if that current state of awareness is maintained through the app you've got for the Asian hornets. And so far I've been right, and I hope I continue to be right in my prediction because I, I just don't think it's going to work. But saying that, I mean, one of the— I know a beekeeper who's, um, who's near the New Forest, and he said there's like miles and miles of area there that you could easily get one that does make it through and no one, no one picks it up. I mean, there is other areas in the UK. I mean, you've got, you know, there's vast areas in Wales that are relatively You know, and that's the problem, isn't it?

It's once you get a nest that goes through the winter and it chucks out its queens and it's, you know, it's one nest and it's— how many queens do you get from a single nest kind of back end?

I think it's between like 70 and 100, something like maybe more, but around that area. It's not like thousands, but— and don't forget where we are, for example, the nests don't actually get that big and they actually struggle to complete their cycle because we're kind of quite far north and is climber. So for you guys, I don't think nests would ever get that big, but you've seen some of the size of nests they've had in Essex. I mean, you know, places like that last year, there was a few nests destroyed and they'd already made a good size, but they don't get like you get in like the south of France where they kind of get away early and then they kind of move to that tree and then they just explode and you get them like the size of, you know, like the kind of classic sort of huge beach ball that kids play with on the beach, you know, the multicoloured ones like that big, you know, they're kind of that size, you know, it's just absolutely monstrous.

I've got another question for you here, Richard, which is a good one for you, about your queen caging for varroa. So just, I'll expand on it a little bit. What are you— how are you controlling your varroa at the moment? Is it just—

Well, that's what I'm doing.

I—

okay, so my yearly cycle is I do oxalic acid treatment as 1, 2, 3 treatments in the autumn when they're most broodless, which will be Usually between first week of— last week of November, first week of December. That's kind of when I aim for my— what we think the bees are most likely to be most broodless. It's not a guarantee, it's just that queen comes to the end of a cycle and then she kind of has a pause because we're pretty sure that from January, February on, there's always that little bit of brood in the colony as a kind of maintenance brood. So I treat then, but my main thing is I cage my queens in the summer I'm happy to do a presentation. I did one for Hive Live Conference on that very specific thing. I could do the presentation again, but it's all about these days we've got to look at picking the moments when the bees are going to be available to do something with them at a specific time, and we've got to make sure we work with them so much more than we have been. Not that we haven't been, we've got to work even harder to to use, to seize that moment to really make sure we understand what the bees are doing and when, keep looking, that kind of thing. So I basically, so what I do is I cage my queens in first to second to third week of July. I've got a 3-week period where I cage my queens because we have a dearth then. You might not have that in Wales, you might not have that in the UK, you might be on heather so you can't do it, but some places are, and most areas by July your nectar flow's finished. So I cage them for 21 days. 24 days isn't necessary really, because by that time, uh, most of the— there's no drones being produced anyway. We found last year, and especially last year, there's no drones around because the Asian hornets had ate them all. Because imagine, a drone is like the best thing for them that's like slow, noisy, and fat and juicy, you know what I mean? So that's the first thing to go. And when the colony's under stress, what's the first thing the colony is going to kick out? The drones. So the drones are, A, they're good food, And B, the bees don't want them in the hive. So that's what kind of we work on. But yeah, so I cage my queens in. It's when I make my last nucs. It's when I make my last splits. And I did buy queens last summer because I knew that the Asian hornets were a nightmare, and I managed to get some in. And that made the difference for me because I was able to get over 100 nucs made. There's always colonies that you don't find the queen. The weather was stinking hot. 40 degrees for 3 days, but around that period of hot weather, we had like 20, well, over 30 degrees every day, and it was just a complete nightmare. So queens got missed, the bees were runny, it was really hard work. The long and short of it was I didn't end up doing it. So, but all my nucs that I gave these nice Are we missing? Are we back there? Okay, are we back?

You're cutting out a bit.

Okay, all these nucs I gave the Varroa bombs to when I made, when I made the nucs, they had Apivar. That's what I use on my nucs for the moment because it's a quick treatment, but I also give them oxalic acid when I go and treat after 21 days. See, technically oxalic acid is illegal in France, vaporizing.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's crazy. Same in the UK. So with your caging method there, so you go 21 days for the worker brood, but you should leave it 24 days for the For the drones, is that what you're saying? And then you don't—

Yeah, yeah, and I do, and most of the time it is 24 days plus. I mean, I've left cages, queen's cage, for 5 weeks and they're absolutely fine. The bees are like going, when? Come on, release her please, you know. And the problem is, if you've made a nuc and your colony's already compromised, if you— when you release that queen, you've got 21 days before those first nurse bees are going to be released. So they've got a, they've got a job on their hand, and I don't— the minute I can release the queen, I will. You know, so, and you've got to time it all properly, but it really is a great method because you, you get really, really good control, and it's at a time the bees are doing nothing. They're not, they're not missing anything. You're— all you're doing by caging a queen is you're almost saying to the colony, look, the queen isn't laying much, and we're just confirming that. And it means that they don't take it out on her, whereas if you cage a queen when there's a flow on they're going to go, what's going on here? You know, they're going to try and supersede it. But the cages I use, they're made by appymo.brew. I'm not getting paid to say this. They are the best cages I've ever found. I've— in my presentation, I talk about all the different types of cages that there is on the market, and there's only 2 that I know. Um, this cage is brilliant and it works, and everyone should use it. Because if you realize how well and how much of a great advantage it is, not just on the level of the bees getting rid of varroa. When you cage a queen, all the bees do for that whole 21 days is clean the colony. They polish out the cells. They are also— it's almost like doing a shook swarm but with the brood, with the comb still there.

Yeah.

So they are cleaning that whole colony, and then when that queen lays, when she starts, she just machine gun lays everything, and it's all beautiful comb. So you're kind of just seizing that moment, and that's how I do my summer control. When it works, it's brilliant. It's a lot of work, it's really hard, but I would be making splits then anyway because at the end of our nectar flow, that is chestnut and bramble, that time of year, it finishes the second week of July. I start about the first week. By the time I've got through all my colonies, I managed to get around it. Then I go back, take the honey off, and by the time I've done all that, then all the bees that are in the supers, I go back down and then reinvigorate the colony. They bolster it up with a bit of extra strength, you know, more bees per area. and then I release all the queens, oxalic acid. It's epic to do it all, but at the end of the day, you're not chucking loads of chemicals on. And I'm not one of these, you shouldn't treat with chemicals, but it's just something that if I don't have to treat with a miticide in my colonies, I just feel it's better for the bees.

Yeah, no, I think you're right. It'd be interesting to see how it applies to the UK because like we generally get like a June gap And they call it a June gap. You get like a week or two, maybe 10 days in between May and June where there's nothing.

Like, it's just— We have exactly the same, but we're a little bit earlier. We'd say mid-May to mid-June.

Okay, so yeah, so for us it's kind of like first, second week of June we get it, but it's not very long. So you'd end up having to cage them and then you'd be into the summer flow. But I, I would say do it for us in the UK though with oxalic acid. you can't do it with supers on, so you have to be like putting supers on, taking supers off. Yeah, I'm gonna have a go because I think logistically it might be challenging over here.

We can't— the whole idea is this is at the end of all the flows for me, and it'd be the same for you guys. You still have plenty of time to get those colonies strong because what you do is you cage your queens, you come back, you put your Beescapes on, you remove the honey, get that away, get it either stored or processed or whatever you want to do with it. You've got a little bit of time to do that, but it all kind of works together. It's just a constant work for that period. Then you come back, then you treat your bees. But because there's no— we can't treat with supers on anyway, and we can't even treat with oxalic acid. So technically, you know, I mean, it's a no-brainer. So it gets around everything what we do.

Yeah, so I think for me—

Then, so I'll just say you've got all that end of July and August to get your bees vaped and treated, and the queen's released. You can put pollen sub on, You can give a light syrup, but don't give too much syrup. Just give enough to give that stimulation as if there's a flow on. A 1:1 is all you need, even lighter if you want. And then the queen will just machine gun, and then your flow will start in 2 weeks with the ivy, you know. It's, it's like— and then they just go mad, you know. It's brilliant.

Yeah, the timing for that is— see, I kind of thought that it was like a mid-season thing, but if you do it back end, like, we have a pretty much cutoff. Like, I, I have a cutoff where I just say, right, 31st of August, 1st of September, that's it, it's done. I'm not leaving any supers on after there. So if I went in first week of August, caged the queen, finished off all the flows, took my honey off, and then I'd have a superless, broodless hive to go in and do a single vape, wouldn't I? And then you do your vaping and put your feeders on, and you've got loads of time after that for the bees.

Yeah, what I invariably do is there's always one or two colonies in the apiary that you couldn't find the queen, or it wasn't big enough to split, or whatever. and I'll go back in and I'll— because I didn't want to cage the queen. And you've got to be a little bit— there's certain criteria that would fit. Most colonies fit the criteria by that time of year because they're big, they've got a queen running around, you know, 2, 1 or 2 supers. But when you come to make that split, either you do or you don't. But if you've got a lot of brood in and you can't find the queen, you're gonna have to come back and treat more than once. But it's just the nature of the bee. So often I go back and treat everything 2 or 3 times anyway, because I mean, because I've often got apiaries with nucs in the same yards. So I do them as well. You kind of just have to learn to be a bit more strategic in the way you place your hives and stuff like that, but it takes getting used to. But when you see the results and you get big clusters going into the winter, that's worth its weight in gold because you've got that heat in the colony. You know, you're talking about humidity before and matchsticks and all that. Well, that's everyone's preference, but for me, the best way to kind of help a colony into the winter is make sure it's absolutely beastly before it goes in. and then really you're on to a winner already, you know.

I couldn't be more with you, and I get the comment a lot, which is, you'll get the same, which is, how do you get your colony so big and bubbling and like boiling over with bees? And that's how I want my colonies going into winter, and I do it just by compressing them down. And it's a lot to do with genetics as well, like.

Yeah, absolutely. There's so many factors, you know, there's so many factors in all of it, but, you know, good genetics, definitely. But just having lots of bees, I'm kind of like, I make a split, and if I— when I start making my splits in that summer, I actually make small splits at the start because there's so many bees, but I don't really want to take a massive amount away from the colony because I know it's going to be challenged later in that summer because I've already taken the queen out of the laying cycle. Even though she's not laying, you want to confirm it, but you know she's not going to be laying for quite a while. But when she does, if you've got extra bees there, so it's all about just learning what the right kind of amount is to take out. I mean, I've only been doing it for 2 years, but the 2 years I've been doing it, it's saved me a lot of money and it's given me really good results. I mean, last— this spring last year, we had like, you know, fantastic colonies. I mean, obviously everyone had a massive honey crop last year, and I will probably get shouted down for saying this, but if you didn't have honey last year, you were doing something seriously wrong because there's so much honey out there now from last year. What we really need is a bad year this year because everyone's going to just bring the prices back up a bit.

This is what Murray's saying, isn't it? Let me bring in this question from Joe because it's very much in relation to that. So he's saying, have you seen a downtrend in honey sales as a result of the wider economic situation, cost of living crisis, or is the market still growing irrespective of this? And then kind of linking it into honey prices. What do you think?

Difficult for me because I'm only just going into the retail market. I was selling wholesale and because I'm now on my own and away from the workshop I was before where there was a few people coming in to buy direct from us in wholesale, I'm not able to comment, but from what I gather from other people that it's a job to sell honey, and I heard the other day that someone's buying spring honey at £1.50 a kilo. I mean, like, I couldn't even bother to—

A kilo?

Yeah, wouldn't, couldn't even, as wholesale price, you know what I mean, I couldn't even begin to understand how someone would dare part with it for that price, you know what I mean? Because you can store it for 3 or 4 years if it's stored correctly, you know, in, in like in the shade, out of the sun, at a roughly constant temperature. That's why I've done my new building. I've got the whole place insulated so that it's never going to be too hot and never going to be too cold. So your, your honey stability is at the maximum. Um, that's, that's very cheap.

Like over here, the, the spring honey will go for like the cheapest you'll get spring honey for really is like £3 a pound. Yeah, yeah, so you're talking like £6.50, £7 a kilo.

I mean, I think that was an extreme example, but I— and obviously there's always a lot of people who go, well, I'll sell it because I wanted to get rid of it, and they pay ridiculous— and they'll pay, you know, stupid price, sell it, and, you know, and then they'll kind of moan because they haven't got any honey afterwards. But that's what I see, and I think they're absolutely crazy because they're cutting their nose off to spite their face, you know, because Everyone can just hang on to it for a little while and just dig in there because it's it's a commodity. Things rise and fall, and there's an average price, and we need to kind of be a bit sort of strong there and kind of work together and hold those prices a fair price. You know, for a fair product, a good product. It's not like we're making it and ripping off. We are producing a good product to you know to good clients, and we shouldn't be expected to just sell it for nothing. You wouldn't do that any. You wouldn't ask a plumber and to come and do a job for you if you could get them on site, and then say, well, because you know me, mate, I would want to pay that person the going rate, so why don't they do it for us? You know, this is, you know, this is—

It's true. Talking, talking of spring honey, I, I put 22, 24 buckets in the warmer last week, and then I went out there about 3 days ago, and I take them out the warmer and stack them up in the, the, um, the log cabin ready to go into the creaming machine. And I went in there this morning and there was honey All over the floor. And you know what had happened? I'd—

well, it expanded.

No, I stuck up the buckets like 4 high, and what must have happened is when I put one of the buckets down, like a little button off one of the machines had fallen down just on the top of the bucket, and I put another bucket on top of it and it pierced the base and I lost a whole bucket. And I'm not even fussed about losing the bucket, it was the cleaner. Because it was like heated, it was ready to go in the creamer, it went everywhere.

It's a real job because that will recrystallize as well and it's really sticky and, you know, it's just everywhere. I mean, that's a problem with plastic buckets as well, is you really, when you've got all the liquid honey in plastic buckets, you can't really stack it more than 3 high until it's crystallized. That's why I've gone to barrels because I just love barrels, I just find they work really well and I'm setting up my my workshop to be just pallet. Everything's palletized, and it might not be actually that kind of. I'm going to have to. I'm better off making custom pallets to take a barrel rather than using a standard euro pallet, for instance, for two barrels, because it's actually not a very good use of space. But initially, I'm going to be just using those kind of pallets, you know, because obviously I've got to get barrels this summer. I've got honey to move back into there, but that's in my veranda, in my conservatory still, and I'm actually probably going to leave it in there and use it. and distribute it in there rather than just trying to move it into the new place for the sake of it. So everything I harvest this year will go into the new workshop. So give me a bit of time as well.

So, Richard, you must have spent— oh, but before, before I go on to my next one, just say if you enjoy the Richard Knoll Lawrence Edwards chat, give it a thumbs up. It definitely helps. You must have spent so much money on your power.

Yeah, well, I can tell you that the building was about £57K, uh, the slab, uh, was £40K. 45K. Um, uh, to put the building up, it's cost me 25K. Uh, so yeah, um, and then there's like the digger guy, that's about 15K all in, including because they do septic tanks as well, you see. So you pay your certain foundations dug, and then they'll come back on the second quote and do all the septic tank. But there's so many hidden things that you forget about, like the electricity company. I'm, I'm having to get I've got 3-phase coming to the front door. They connect, they put the trench in last week and put the conduit in, but that's basically a fixed fee of whatever you have. Uh, so it's like one, that's €1,200 just to get the electric company to connect up. But if you look at the processes they have to do, I'm not singing their praises because they're gonna, they're gonna reap their rewards. It's like buying printers, where do they make their money? On the ink afterwards, you know what I mean? What's going to happen with the electricity company? They're going to sell me electricity for years after. And they're going to make a fortune. You know, there's all these hidden things that you forget about, and you're thinking, blimey, I've got to pay for that, and I've got to pay for that. And there's like another thing, uh, there's taxes I've got to pay that when the building's done for the surface area, and I'm putting a mezzanine in, and looking about over £200K overall, £250K to set the whole thing up. And I'm not, I'm not very money or, uh, money-wise, I'm not very money orientated, and, and and I don't mind admitting it, I'm not going to make my money on the building. What I mean is I'm not going to make my money back in my lifetime, but as an investment I can sell it later on. It's like an investment of funds, if you know what I mean.

So have you done it as an investment then?

More so, yeah. But, but so I'm lucky, I'm lucky in the fact that in France, uh, I— the land it's on, which is right next to my house, we bought Uh, 18 years ago. And when we bought it, we were told specifically by the notaire— the notaire is like a land registry officer who does land transactions— and he looks at both parties and says to me, do you know you're buying this land but it's got no planning permission? I said, yeah, I understand that. He said, he said, you can only grow veg on it, maybe stick a shed up on it, whatever you want, but you can't have any habitation on it, nothing at all. So I applied to my local region because I'm technically a farmer To get the possibility of a certificate of urbanism. Urbanism means that you might be able to have a type of building on it. And then the next process was that I got that, and it says in the wording was kind of like yes, it may be favorable. In other words, they tell you straight away yay or nay because I'm an exploitant. And then because of that, I managed to then apply for a building permit, which I got because I'm an exploitant. And they it's very difficult over here to actually get turned down. If you're just doing it as an agricultural building, and that's what it is. It's not a habitation; it can never be lived in. It's purely a workshop. But to have it on the land I own, in its unique area, with its own services, is worth its weight in gold. So it's for me; it's an investment. I'm just.

I'm so. I am so jealous.

Feet a bit, and now I've got. Now I've got to work. Work my ass off. You know, I've got to make it pay. You know. It's it is what it is, as we say.

You know, you've got a perfect set.

Are you?

You're surely going to box off like a section and have like the best YouTube set ever.

No. Yeah, yeah. What what's happening is there's I think we've got a little bit of problems with the signal. I'm just gonna believe on. I'm just gonna open the window. I'm right in the top of the house, and this usually helps. Okay. So what happens is I've got the the canvas, and I've got a mezzanine that will actually be take up approximately one third, and in that mezzanine, I'm then going. To build, because the feet of the mezzanine will actually be the division, and the ceiling is where you screw all your building parts to. And it actually divides it up really well. But then you can make— we in France, you get kitchen companies in that use like, it's like polystyrene material, like we'd say, I don't know, 50mm poly insulation, excuse me, but it's plastic coated, and it's what they would fit out a kitchen with. So it's completely washable, you can pressure wash it, you can do whatever you want, and it makes what we call a sterile environment. So you can then have like a sealed room that is pretty dust-free, and also got a drain in the floor, big drain going down the middle as well. I've got so I've got a warming room, an extraction room, and then the other side I've got a small office and a changing room and that kind of thing. But that will probably change a bit. I'm going to need a more of a storeroom that will kind of be where I can store honey in jars as well. It's all these things that you think of. I've actually just joined a group, it's called the Miel de Breton, which means, well, it's a Brittany honey group and it's unique Brittany honey and we have to, when you join it, you start the process of lifting your own level of accountability for everything you do with your honey, but it means at the end you can have a sticker on your pot that guarantees your honey has been controlled, in other words tested, your honey's been gone through the process of me telling them and improving where I harvested it from, how I— how the bees were when it was harvested, what feeds I fed and when, all these processes. And then they do random testing. So basically it's like a quality control that there is none of at the moment. So if I can accrue to that, it will actually mean I have to bring my whole level of my— not just my honey house in terms of packaging and all that, but also my apiaries. They all have to be Kind of enhanced to make sure that they conform better. So it's a really good thing for me to do, but I couldn't do it without a building like that because you need a proper packhouse. You see, you need somewhere in France they call it conditionnement de miel. In other words, conditioning honey, creaming it, extracting it—all that kind of stuff is conditioning, and that has got to be done a certain way, and it should be because we don't actually have, for instance. In England, you have to have a certificate, Class 1, Class 2, or Class 3 of hygiene, don't you, when you're packing honey? There's none of that in France. You just have an ITSAP book, which is like a ring binder folder that you're supposed to have in your workshop or your packing house to explain what kind of honey— sorry, what kind of standards you've got, and you're supposed to follow that criteria, but it's not official and there's no inspections.

So you're supposed to have like a Level 2 food hygiene in the UK. Yeah. I'm just gonna— I had a question. I'm gonna bring Pure Yorkshire Honey in for a question as well. So my question was, is it just going to be you? Are you still running it just one-man band and you're not kind of thinking you're ramping it up? And then the next question was here from Pure Yorkshire Honey saying wants to expand the amount of hives that he's got. How many hives do you think is manageable for one person with a full-time job? He's thinking maybe 25, 50. So I kind of combine those questions.

I would say you can manage probably 50 hives with a second job, but it depends what your second job is, and it depends whether you get free afternoons. I mean, this is the kind of thing you can't always expect to do the work at the weekends because it just doesn't work. You need a period in that week where you can do those hives. But I think at the moment I'm not intending to expand too much. I'm going to go hopefully up to 250, maybe 300 colonies. As a maximum, but my whole point of having the building and the warming room is that if I can harvest my honey in the spring and get it into a warming room at that critical 2-week period, 3 weeks maybe, when your bees are starting to hang from the trees, if I can be out in the apiaries and not struggling wading through loads of honey, I'm gonna have much more bees in boxes at the end of every year. Because I'm not doing the two things at once, if you know what I mean. How many times have you turned up to an apiary and you see this cloud in the air going, I knew I should have done that last week? I mean, that's what I want to avoid, and that's the whole reason for building, because I don't want that stress and hassle. I just hate that, you know. And I've— and I spoke to loads of people about the best way to stop honey crystallizing. Mike Palmer said to me, do what I've done, get radiant heat in the floor. and you will never look back. And he does it, but he, he actually harvests later in the year all at once.

Yeah.

But then he uses radiant heat to heat it up to 100°F for 3 days and extracts the whole lot at once, whether it's got dandelion in it, lime honey, spring honey, summer honey. It all comes out at the end of the year. But that's just the way he does it. But I— to have the chance to do it, to me, I've— I always maintained that if I could ever do it, I would love to do it. And I— and a lot of people said, oh, you're just a dreamer. I said, well, we'll see. And now I've got that chance and I'm going to see if it works. And it's— you, you've got to set it up right, you've got to have everything right, but I want to be able to be in my apiaries for that week and get around the whole of the apiaries when I've just pulled the honey and go straight back out there putting supers back on, or put more supers on or whatever, just when they need it. And hopefully that will give me more bees in boxes and more, uh, better bees for that summer flow.

Yeah.

Because we find here that half the problem is you spend a lot of your time between mid-April and mid-May, you know, trying to rectify problem colonies that have swarmed. And then if you haven't got them ready for that summer flow, you miss that summer flow, you know. It's the classic thing, you know, it's just bees in boxes.

Yeah, on the Michael Palmer thing, there was a question earlier from Sinister Hippo, which is like the best name ever, saying, how did you score a session with Michael Palmer back in the day? Was it a paid course or volunteering? I would guess—

Well, Mike does have people to to stay as students, um, but I don't know if he's able to offer accommodation anymore. I'm not in a position to say. So what I will say is I wrote to him, and I wrote him a letter because I didn't think— this was 2015 I went, so I wrote to him 2014 when I was just getting into thinking about being a professional beekeeper, you know. And, um, he emailed me back and said, I'd enjoy your visit. That was his words. And I was like, My God, I was just like rocked to my core. And it was kind of quite overwhelming going out because I'd never traveled, I just got divorced, I kind of needed that break. You know, with this kind of times in your life where something comes along and it's like the most amazing opportunity. I actually have to say that it was as good as Hive Life, to be honest. Uh, that was another amazing opportunity that I was lucky enough to, to be, you know, part of. But going away to Mike's just kind of revolutionized everything for me because I knew when I came back I was like I know what I want to do now. I know what I want to do. I, I was in no way anywhere near anyone's kind of level that I saw working there, but I knew what I wanted to, to move to. They say if you want to, um, to move to a new level, you should surround yourself with the people at that level or higher, and that's what I did. And that's one of the most sound pieces of advice. If you want to become a professional beekeeper, look at a professional beekeeper closely and do what they do, and then you might get somewhere towards it. It's not, you know, I consider myself extremely lucky I had that break, and that was that break that gave me that chance to— I mean, but I've still got to prove it, you know. I've still got to— I'm not talking about proving as I'm going to prove to anybody, but I've got to prove to myself I can do it, because I've now kind of had that luxury of, we're doing the build and it's all very nice and blah blah. In a few months' time, a year, so it'll all quieten down, I'll be walking around this big building going Am I paying the bills? You know, is it working? It's all got to be paid.

It's funny you say that because I kind of thought, and if I didn't have a job, I'd definitely do this, which is exactly that kind of like my YouTube channel is, you know, we've had this discussion before, it's just me. Like, I've never claimed to be an expert, and in fact, it's probably quite the opposite. Like, I'm quite inexperienced when it comes to beekeeping, but I would love to turn the channel into something like that where you you go and have a day with Chris Manton, you go and have a day with Murray McGregor, or a week, and you work with them and see what they do and film it. Yeah, because that'd be the fun thing for me. But just seeing, you know, those people who live and breathe bees every single day and don't just kind of tidy themselves up in a nice office job Monday to Friday like me. Well, and like you say, it's putting yourself out of that comfort zone. That's where you learn, isn't it?

It is, uh, and there's no doubt having that comfort zone is the best thing in the world, but there comes a time when your underlying desire to shell that will just kick in and you'll go, you know what, I've just driven into an apiary. What did it for me was, like I said to you before, driving into an apiary for like the 15th time in 10 years or whatever it is and seeing bees in the trees and just thinking, you know, I could have better bees if I was just here more often. And now I'm going to be there, and now I'm there, and I'm actually— I hold my hand up and I admit this year I've let things fall back too much. And I've not made any promises, but I've put a lot of time into the build, more than I should have done perhaps. But now I feel that I've been part of that building already, so I'm going to move into it, and I will just pick up where I can and move forward from there. I'm not going to be going into this year with loads and loads of fantastic colonies. Last year was a very difficult year for us, but I've got a building now, and I've got to move forward with that, and we'll pick up from where we left off. That's what we always do as beekeepers, but You know, all being well, um, by the end of the season I should be back up to my numbers and I should be going in. It's going to take me at least a year to get into that building.

What numbers have you got? What are your numbers now?

I know, I couldn't tell you. I haven't, I haven't done any inspections yet. I haven't been into hives. I know I'm probably down to around the 150. I probably lost 30% of my colonies, uh, maybe less. I don't know. I'm just being Realistic, not optimistic. I, I'm not— I'm an optimistic realist, if you know what I mean. But I'm, I'm kind of funny.

I'm not. I'm, I'm a pessimistic realist.

Right, okay. I, I'm not worried about winter losses, and I'll tell you why. Because I've been here before, and I know that I can bounce back. I know I can raise queens. I know I can make nucs. It's all there. It can all be done. It's just organization. And when I've got my own building in some kind of order, in other words everything on pallets I can just drive in and grab. That's where I will just be able to take off again. And it'll be long days and it'll be hard, but I just hope we don't have a hot summer like last summer. I just, I don't want it that hot again. It was just crazy.

There's a question in here from Mem talking about solar panels. So have you got any solar panels? Is there air conditioning?

No, not yet. I've got quotes. It's going to cost me about £40K To put, I can I can tell you what the spec is based in France. You can what we call inject energy back into the grid if you don't give them everything you generate, and they'll give you six centimes a unit a kilowatt hour, which is peanuts. But if you give them everything back and you do it on a contract, the reason why I'm going to do that is because I the batteries that are existing at the moment are basically a waste of time. And to use batteries, you have to use a lot of energy to charge them. They don't hold it that well, and you need all your other equipment to work off those batteries, if you know what I mean. So it's not really that efficient. In years to come, it will be the thing to do. So what I'm doing is I'm going to fill one side of the roof with solar panels if I can at the end of it all, and I've still got enough left. And that will— and I'll— that will pay— that will give me about £3,000 a year and pay my grand a year. So in other words, I'll get about £4,000 a year back from that. But that will give me about— so in other words, I'll pay it off in 10 years and the panels should last 20 years plus, the new ones. That's what they're saying. And I also get free electricity every year because I'm not paying that bill, I'm getting it back from there. So that's to me the best way to do it because they'll give you 12 cents a unit if you give everything back to them. They give you double, you know.

We've, um, we've had solar panels up for like a couple of years now with batteries and, oh, it's the best thing ever. But it's only a house, so the batteries—

the batteries, I think, in a house, batteries are good.

Would you consider air conditioning if you're sticking solar panels up? Would it be worth air conditioning? Is it going to get like too hot in your shed?

I don't think it will. It might do. I've got windows in the most important areas if I need to. I can ventilate it. There's nothing wrong with adding an air conditioning unit in at a later date because it's, you know, I can easily put it in through the wall. That's possible. I mean, I have thought, because I've got such a great sealed building, there's no— I could even bring my bees in for the winter. There's a thought, because the whole building is insulated, Ian Stepler style. But it's, it's a very realistic possibility because you get your bees out of the rain. You might— and you only would have to leave them in for maybe— you get them in for maybe in December, January, and you get them out the end of Feb, just for 3 months. I mean, that's, that's kind of something that could be really awesome, you know.

Do you think, do you think you'd see benefit for that in France?

I think we would. We are very damp here. And I don't— well, you bees— Yeah, my bees hate the wet, you know, they absolutely hate the damp. So, uh, you know, um, I don't know, it's just something I'm toying with. But let's get on with actually getting the building running first and not trying to be a smartass and all things like that. Because at the end of the day, I, I, I'm kind of— I like to go back to my ABCs. And there's no doubt when we, we all try and get ahead of ourselves, we all think we're going to breed this bee breed that bee, but at the end of the day, you've got to remember the basics and go back to looking after your bees properly and good husbandry, and that's the key to all, you know, all things. Good genetics, learn how to read the combs, inspect your colonies regularly in the summer, and don't be surprised if you don't, that you lose your bees, because you need to do regular inspections. Bees will swarm no matter how good your genetics are, no matter how good they say, I've got this, they shouldn't swarm, it doesn't matter. They've gone, you know. It doesn't— it's never going to get them back. And the second queen you're going to get on the rebound is never going to be anywhere as good as the first one. So just do everything to keep that queen in the box.

Yeah, it's the— it's the big— the big tip there, Richard. I'm just aware I don't want to keep you here kind of as long, so I was going to go—

that's fine, we can, uh, we can carry on for another, say, 10 to 20 minutes if you like.

Um, yeah, all right, we'll cut it off. We'll cut it off at half 6. We've got like 15 minutes left. I appreciate it.

No, it's just nice to be on to— I mean, we could talk about the the, um, the do on, uh, the 25th, which will be— yeah, great. I saw your video this morning and I like the way you pointed that about, um, how it is so important. And I can, I can reiterate that, that when I was away in America at the High of Life conference— I'm not going to go on about it anymore, don't worry.

Lots of fans in the chat, lots of fans in the chat.

It's amazing when you meet the people who follow you and In that, I mean, it's amazing the energy they bring to a conference because all those barriers are broken down and it's all about people just communicating. Um, and, and my big word I have is pretentiousness, and I hate that. And, and I just want everybody to just to communicate and just to enjoy themselves. And what you said in your video is absolutely right, that, um, it's a great way of meeting those vendors. Well, they call it vendors in America, but they Meeting all the salespeople. There's a good— it's a good stand in England. It's, it's going to be a really good show, and I think there's a lot of people going to be there.

It's, it's going to be huge. Look, I, I was speaking to Paul, and I, I think it's going to sell out. He's saying he doesn't think it is and that you'll be able to buy tickets on the door, but like, I looked at the, the list of like the traders there today, and there is nobody that's not going. Okay, there's one notable absence because they've got their own show, but there is Everybody is there. Yeah, it's going to be so cool.

Yeah, you know, I think you'll be bowled over as well. And I'm, I'm not trying to blow smoke up your whatever, but, um, you'll be surprised how, uh, you, you'll almost have to limit your time because I, I found the same over the— in stateside, that everybody just constantly wants to come up to you and it's like a really humbling experience. It's like very overwhelming. And it completely blew me away, you know. And but I just want to make sure that everyone, if you want to say hello to me, I can, but I can't have everyone's time for ages because it's really important that we all, you know, can have a chat and, you know, see everybody. It is really, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's addicting, I tell you, totally addicting, because, you know, people just want to come up and shake your hand and have a chat, you know. And, uh, it's really cool. You'll find that out. So will Griff as well. Um, that'll be good fun. And, uh, yeah, I mean, there's, I think, a bee farmer's— a lot of bee farmers staying, um, the night before as well.

So going ice skating, I hear.

I don't know about that. In Wrexham? Yeah, maybe.

Someone said to me there's an ice skating outing.

The problem is I don't want to end up going there the next morning with a broken ankle. Oh no, I know.

And I think that would probably happen to me. I'm about as good on a pair of skates as It is going to be good fun though, and I just think, as you say, it's that mix, isn't it? It's everyone from, you know, Murray McGregor is going to be there. He's got to be the most experienced bee farmer because he's—

Absolutely.

Down to people who haven't got their bees yet and everyone in between.

The great thing about Murray, he's kind of the most— to me, he's the most unmet person in the beekeeping world because he's, he's like so far up north, and this is just my opinion, I've never met the guy. Um, he's a terrific guy, I know, and he's got a massive amount of experience. And he's also extremely, um, you know, he's really, really good at what he does. Like, he's such a depth of knowledge. And but he doesn't, he doesn't kind of sometimes show that, you know. And I think it'll— because he's just not, you know, he doesn't do that that often. You don't see him at shows. Well, I don't see him at shows much. And it'd be great for me to meet— I'd love to speak to the guy, you know.

He's also a man mountain. Have you ever seen him?

Yeah, he's huge.

Yeah, I know, he's absolutely huge, straight out the Highland Games.

Yeah, I know, I know. You know, it's, uh, it'd be great to meet all those people. I'm sure he'll have some of his crew with him. Um, who else was gonna— looking forward to me? Yeah, it'd be just nice to meet, meet all the beekeepers that we see on, uh, on Instagram, you know, like BS Honey. I know those guys just got a new shed as well. Um, uh, who's the other— this— I mean, I can't remember the names offhand, but there's so many people that are going to be there that are just, just going to want to come out and have a chat. Be great, you know. So I think it'll be the event of the year for sure in the UK.

It will. And it'd be interesting to see like what impact it has on other events. Like, I think like, you know, the National Honey Show is, is different enough, completely different, isn't it? It's a honey show. And then you've got like the other, like the Spring Convention and stuff, they might be different enough. But in terms of going and buying equipment, like I think this is going to be it. This is going to be the one.

Yeah, yeah.

I think I do feel a bit sorry for the British beekeeping show. I know there's like there's some politics behind it, but I can just see there just being no one there.

Well, I've actually seen some photos today and there was very few people there. You know, I don't. I'm not gloating. I'm not. You know, I'm sorry, but. if you, if you play like that, then sometimes that's what happens, you know what I mean? So, you know, um, that's what seems to happen. And I'm not in a position to comment because I don't know the full story, but from what I gather from everybody else who's— it was falling over themselves to tell me all about it, which I'm not repeating, you know, that's what happens when you, um, play with fire, you know. It's, uh—

So you're going back to Hive Life Conference next year?

I don't know. That's, uh, up to Cayman because he's got a lot of people that he wants to kind of Well, obviously he—I said it's a great experience. I'll probably never ever go again because I won't have to be back. I really don't know. It's up to Cam. He likes to—he's not even sure whether it's going to be in the same place at Sieverville next year. It's pretty likely it will be, but he's still not even sure about that. And then I managed to get to chat to him about the complexities of running a conference like that, and it's absolutely massive. The the complexities of it, and it's huge. The location is good because it's central for many people. It's actually really good for me because I can fly to Atlanta from Paris and then Atlanta to Knoxville. It's pretty good. The airport is only half an hour to Sevierville, so it's a great place, and I recommend anybody in the UK who can go to try and have a go. Just something wacky, just go and book and do it. It's not Cost me about grand and a half in airfares, which came and paid me back the entire amount. You know what I mean? I had my hotel paid for. And it was like the best experience of my life, as I said, because, you know, when you get paid to go and just to be part of it, it's just, wow. It's like such an awesome experience. But I don't know, he might say, yeah, we'd love to have you back. He might say, no, we'll give you a rest for a couple of years. Go off and do your building and come back and tell us about it after. Who knows?

It's, um, you know what I think he's done so well with it though? Yeah, it's like how he's, he's promoted it. He's, he's a natural promoter, isn't he? To make it like so exclusive and to get to sell out such a big event, to sell out so far.

It was the biggest. It was probably the biggest beekeeping show there's been in, in, in the rec in America for probably about 8 years. So you have the American Honey, the A, A, uh, HF, uh, the American Honey Federation, I believe is the terminology. But they can have massive shows where they have all these guys who are like professionals. But see, this is what I had no idea— professional beekeepers in America are like thousands of hives. They're not like a couple of hundred like we are. They are like in another league. And they consider Caymans— and I can't speak for them and I shouldn't— but they would consider Caymans thing like, you know, just amateurs. But see, the other thing is amateur beekeepers in America are also called sideliners. But we'd say part-time beekeepers and, uh, sideline is going to have 200 or 300 hives in America. I don't know how they do it, um, but I think a lot of them do nucs and they just keep splitting them all year, buy queens in, do that.

But so, uh, you know, um, but it is the, the beekeeping show is going to kind of be like our own little Hive Life, isn't it? It's got, it's got everyone there. It's got, yeah, it's got some YouTubers, but it's got more importantly, it's got like all the proper vendors, all the beekeepers supplies people. And, and, and it's gonna— and I know it's a horrible pun, isn't it? But it's gonna have that buzz. Like, I just— it's gonna have that feel. Everyone there, everyone's gonna be up for being there. Everyone wants to meet each other. And I think it's, it's going to be a real something that sticks around for a long time. I don't think it's going anywhere.

Well, let's hope so. Let's see, um, how it builds, uh, you know. Um, I'll, I'll try and come over if it's on every year. Excuse me, I can't say I'll be able to, but Um, you know, it'd be nice to be, to be part of it every year in some way. It's, it's a really good vibe. It's really nice for— to meet the people there. I, I love keeping in contact with people, you know. It's just a great thing. I mean, we all benefit from it. I mean, in some way, you know, I get— may get a few more subscribers, but I get to meet the people who thought, you know. And, you know, you get— I also say to people, when you— if you come up and say hello, tell me your name, because we won't be wearing badges. One of the best things about The Hive Life experience was everybody had a badge with their name on both sides of the thing, so you could go, oh, hi Frank, how you doing? They go, you know me? Went, no, I can just read your badge. But it's like, makes a great introduction, you know?

Oh, you know what, you should, you should say that to, to Paul. Yeah, because that's such a good point. And I remember like people who came to like introduce themselves to me at B-TradeX, like I remember their names. And it's crazy, like I'm looking at the chat now, like all the people's names you do, you, you get to know, you know, Joe Murphy. Yeah. tons of questions. You know people's names, but then you can't put the face to a name because you don't know what their face looks like. So name badges would be great. Anybody who has a name badge?

I don't know if they could organize it between now and then because, uh, it's actually quite a lot to organize. You need to get a company in to do it. But it's a great thing because then everyone with their phone—

You just have a pin and there's a pen and just say, right.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I know, I know. But I agree, and it did make a massive difference because it kind of breaks down that, um, who are you and where you're from, or, you know, it just, you know what I mean? It's a really, really cool idea. Um, but that's, that's something I, I've seen. I mean, but the organization, the conference was brilliant. I mean, even though Cayman employed professional people for some things, a lot of it was voluntary people who follow him and help him. And, and, you know, they really pulled out the stops. And that's something—

So he's kind of like, like relying on his community a bit. That's good.

It is. What was the food like?

I hear the food the year before was rubbish, and then I hear— was it upgraded this year?

Yeah, but I mean, there were still a few issues. There was like, there was people that, um, you know, that went and filled up their plates with food saying, I paid for all my food, I'm having it all. And then there wasn't much left at the end for other people who, you know what I mean, who came a little bit later through no fault of their own. But there's always going to be one or two little things like that, um, no matter what you do. There's people that are going to abuse it in some way. but you've got to get a kind of average thing. Yeah, what I was going to say was they have that— Cayman Org has organized a scholarship scheme as well where it's getting like so many young beekeepers a smoker, a hood, all the gear to get them into, and it raised something like— oh, I can't remember the amount, but it's raised thousands of dollars.

Amazing.

To get everyone into beekeeping and give them the chance to maybe take it up, not necessarily professionally, but start down that road if they want to as a sideline first. And to me, that was why a lot of people volunteered to help, because you're— there's like a goal at the end of it, because you're just doing something good, you know.

But I think something like that is so kind of like self-sustaining, isn't it? And I do think like the guys for the beekeeping show, they should, they should look at some of those things and maybe steal them. Steal them with pride, you know. It's not, it's not copying, is it? It's a good initiative. Yeah, especially like that young beekeeping sponsor and the silent auctions and there's a lot to be said, I think, with some of that.

I mean, there's so many things I missed as well because, I mean, the honey show was apparently, you know, I didn't even get a photo of it because I was like, I'll get that later when I come past. And I didn't, you know, and I was like, I was literally buzzing. I mean, it was like, it was a buzz. I mean, excuse the pun, a thousand times I've said it. But, and I came back later, but the honey show was the biggest honey show that's been in America for years apparently. They had Welsh judges as well. I mean, you know, it was just pretty awesome, you know. It was so well organized. Cayman would, like, in all his modesty, would deny all, but everything did go like clockwork. Everything was really good, you know.

And what I really liked about it, um, was the fact that it was 2 days, wasn't it? So it was 2 days, but you couldn't come for a day. So I think it gives people that, well, there's day 1, day 2, what are we doing in the middle? But everyone has to be there, so you get this almost like forced networking, which I think would be really nice. Yeah. and hotels and stuff. It'd be cool, wouldn't it?

Believe it or not, I actually had a minder, and everyone who was a speaker had a minder. They came and found you and said, oh, where are you going to be? Because I've got this for you, you're on in 10 minutes, kind of thing. It was really well organized, but it was like quite overwhelming, to be honest. I mean, you know, then getting on the stage with like, you know, over 1,000 people and presenting to them, you know, it was like weird because, um, I started my first presentation in the big hall there, and I'm like I've just picked up the microphone, there's like someone at the back going, go Richard, go! I just can't believe this, you know. It was like, I don't know who that was, but you know, it was just, uh, to, to be part of that really kind of, like you said, we need to get, uh, sit down with the people who are organizing the next event we're going to and say, you know, we can really make this, um— Oh yeah, someone just said, Lynn just said $17,000 for future young beekeepers. So that's like fantastic, and I'm sure it'll grow more as well because, you know, Cayman's raising money all the time through donations as well.

So what's so clever about what he's done there, yeah, is that— so that's £17,000 for future young beekeepers. So then you think of like the national kind of beekeeping associations, I don't know what they call them out there, but they're going to look at that and think, what an amazing thing Cayman's doing. So therefore they're going to support the event and they're going to look upon it so favorably. Yeah. And then you get this real joined-up approach as opposed to kind of events that are alienating one another.

And that's why I said that's really good, isn't it? That is a big thing at the moment because there's things like, um, the, uh, well, there's various conferences that have run in the UK recently and their numbers have been way down. And, and there's kind of people muttering, and I've spoke about this with other people when I was there, And we're not being rude about the other conferences because they've always been very successful and that's good, but perhaps these other conferences aren't modernizing themselves and aren't getting in what people want. And we, we go to other conferences and you'll hear a scientist give this presentation which is very poignant and to the point, but he's a scientist and he's not offering perhaps something that maybe someone who was giving a more a different approach to how to deal with the same problem. That, that's the art of having a conference. You can get people in that will give a great presentation to the point, but another person would give— and that's why Cayman is so good at selecting people. So I was saying that I don't know why the hell he selected me because I'm just winging it all the way, but, um, that's what he said, and that's why he feels that it's very difficult, very important to refresh it all the time. with a certain degree of some existing, some new. Like, King— he's going to be known as King Bob now, by the way. Um, King Bob Binney will be there next year as well, without a doubt. I mean, he's such a nice guy, Bob, you know, when you meet him. And he's not nothing like when you meet him. He's, he's just like everyone else. He's just great, you know what I mean?

Um, down to earth.

You know, sitting down that morning, I've got Ian Stepler in front of me, I've got Bob Binney on my left, I've got Cayman Reynolds, I've got Etienne, you know, it was just like the whole experience was just amazing, you know. And yeah, they're a group, you're kind of doing it all together, you know. It's really, really cool.

Yeah, really, really cool.

I don't know if we'll break up anyway.

Right, one last question for you, Richard, which is kind of my question. So yeah, anyone else who's got a question in the chat But I think there was one on there, which is what kind of videos are you going to do from the conference? So from the, the beekeeping show, sorry, because I was thinking it'd be good to like not, you know, like we might not— we're probably going to overlap, aren't we, with videos. So what are you thinking?

Uh, I don't, I don't know. Um, I wasn't intending to do any filming there that day at all.

Uh, you're gonna do— you're gonna do anything?

I'm just going there to enjoy it. Like you said in your video, you want to enjoy the middle part if you can. You're helping out one of the stands as well, and then you want to have some time to enjoy it and go around. I wasn't intending to do any videoing at all because kind of this kind of conference has kind of kept— caught me unawares of it really. And I didn't, I didn't honestly expect it to build as much as it has, um, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have done a video. It's just something I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't going to cash in on it, if you know what I mean. I didn't look at it like that, um, not that I would say you are But I just wanted this to be a natural experience, if you know what I mean. I might be able to do something there, but—

It's an interesting take because I've kind of just been thinking, well, I'm going to do this. We've spoken, you know what, I'm going to do that the night before. I think on the day I'm probably going to struggle to do anything because that's the problem.

You know, the great thing about the Hive Life thing was there were so many people doing videos, it was quite the norm. And I did a bit, as you probably saw, and other people did some, and there were some people that actually had a booth where they built to do proper podcasts and everything. That was just mental. I mean, they had all that as well. So they were actually loaning their podcast booth with all the mics and everything to other people who were just doing normal videos for their YouTube channel, which is pretty awesome, you know what I mean?

Well, talking of podcasts, I'm just scrolling back up to the top, and this was mentioned before, and I'm not putting you on the spot because I, I don't know how this works, but it has been mentioned a number of times that we should do a podcast, uh, with Griff. But my view is, it's kind of— we can do a live chat, can't we?

Yeah, I think a picture speaks a thousand words, and I like— I think podcasts are great, and I like listening to them when I'm working. You stick one on and you can hear in the background, but there's nothing better than actually seeing people's reactions, having a laugh as well, because you don't really have that with a podcast.

No, this is where I am. I don't even listen to them, but I can see what people say, that you can just kind of put, put one on in the background and, and do something else. But it's— you've got to learn some new software, haven't you? Which is always—

Yeah, I'm, I'm actually— as I probably told you, we're just about to get fiber, but when, we don't know exactly. But it's very— they're putting all the boxes in now, the lines are going up, and I'm hoping that in my new honey house I'm going to be building a kind of a bit of a small studio in one corner as well, so I can put the French flag up and start competing with all these flags that are behind everyone else. Because Lawrence, you need to shape up a bit. You're falling down. You need that Welsh flag up behind you and you need to get something on the wall there, you know.

I've got a Welsh longhouse, so that's— there we go. That's about it.

You need to up your game. I'm, I'm actually in my daughter's room right now because it's the only place I could go and she's away in university, so, um, it's like, uh, you know, nothing happens up here. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna maybe put something temporary up here for now. But no, you need, you need to sort that out. But that's what— that's my plans, isn't it? And pod, you know, um, podcasts are good, but I think it's way much better on, on the picture. A live stream or, uh, pre-recorded is good, you know. I have to say, it's like, it's another thing to get into. It's like, you know, you know, when you go online and you go online, you haven't been online to your bank for a week and suddenly there's an upgrade on your, on your platform and you've got to learn a new platform. With, for us YouTubers, it's the same. You've got to keep up to date with StreamYard, you've got to keep up to date with YouTube, you've got to keep up to date with Instagram, WhatsApp, um, everything changes and it's just like, it's so hard work to get your head around everything sometimes, you know.

It certainly is, right? Richard, I will let you go. We've gone 7 minutes past, it's 18:37.

Thank you so much. My son's putting his head around the door now moaning, go, Dad, what are you gonna come and eat? I'm starving.

I know, I'm just saying my daughter's coming back and I'm having fish and chips tonight, so that You couldn't get much more English than that, could you? But thanks so much for coming on. I will—

No, it's great.

And the beekeeping show.

Yeah, it'll be great. Uh, everyone come get your tickets. It'll be a great event. Uh, it's all about meeting and sharing, and that's what we want to continue with, just that openness and transparency. Um, we want to continue— we want to continue to show that in whatever we do. So, um, we're all open and transparent. Um, we want everyone to be the same.

Perfect. Thanks, Richard. I'll end that stream now, and I'll speak to you.

Bye for now. Bye-bye.