Black Mountain Honey: Let's Talk Bees with Just Alex

So another episode of Let's Talk Bees, and without a doubt the most brilliant episode of Let's Talk Bees because we have Alex Smith, Just Alex, who has joined us to do the live stream today. So welcome to the show, Alex. How's it going?

Hello, thank you. This is, um, really, really nice to chat with you. I actually saw you yesterday, Laurence, so it's, um, it's a bit odd seeing you again but on a screen.

We, we had really good fun yesterday, didn't we? Well, I certainly had good fun. Um, but for people who don't know, do you want to kind of say what we did yesterday?

Yeah, so I came up to Wales. So I currently live in Bristol, but I traveled about 3 hours to, uh, Richard's apiary site where he keeps the nucs, um, and picked up one of your nuc boxes, uh, 6 frames, 6 frames, 6 frames, um, really nice queen with a red dot. So it's from last year, right?

Yeah.

And yeah, we had a day of filming, talking about bees. I learned loads because, um, I was with 2 very experienced beekeepers, so it was great to ask questions. And yeah, it was a fascinating day and a beautiful place. Like, the best. I really like Wales. Yeah.

It was nice. Tell us about your, your mushroom because I saw it on Instagram. I didn't know about this. You drove— did you get it on the way here or the way back?

It was on the way back from you guys. I, I got in my car, started driving, and then by the side of the road I saw this big orange mushroom. Now if there's any mushroom freaks out there, um, you will know what it is. It's a chicken of the woods mushroom. It has like the texture and maybe a bit of taste of chicken. That's what some people say anyway. But it's a mushroom which is edible, basically. And so it was quite exciting. I jumped out my car. I stopped the car first, got out my car, cut it off the branch that was on, and it was my dinner this evening. So yeah, it was a hectic day yesterday.

It was because it was probably, what was it, like 3 and a half, 4 hours for you to get up there? And then we spent quite a long time filming and chatting. And it was sunny though, wasn't it? Which was Nice.

It was— we couldn't have asked for better weather, and it was so cool as well. You, you have these really nice, uh, like zoom lenses, like macro zoom lenses, so I got to play around with them. I checked, I checked the footage today actually, and it was so crisp and so nice. Yeah, I really liked it.

Um, it was— it made me feel like great inside when I said, well, just, just get a close-up of the Queen on there, and you said, oh, my current lens is probably not good enough to get that zoom. And I thought, well, do you know what, Alex, I have something prepared in my bag for you here, which is the zoom lens, and it was pretty good, right? I'm going to do an icebreaker. Yeah, so, you know, in the corporate world we love to do icebreakers, and I've learned to do something that I'm well proud of, and everybody who's watching can try it themselves at home. So this is dead simple. Yeah, so you have to put both your fingers together like that. Yeah, and then you have to do separate circles. So one's going clockwise and one's going anti-clockwise. So everyone, everyone have a go, see if you can do it. All right, so—

Oh no, that's tricky.

It looked like you were doing it. So, so when I did it, like, nobody, nobody I've seen yet can do it. Go on, you do it. Like, Alex is basically a genius. So let us know.

I can't. I did it once.

No, you started doing it at first. You started doing it. So I've basically nailed it because I've been practicing it for about a week. So mine is working. So that's it. That's it.

Oh yeah.

Right, so Alex, you've got to go like up and down.

And then turning. Gosh.

Well, the trick is—

What has this got to do with bees, Laurence?

Absolutely nothing. Perhaps I'm just really proud that I learned something new, but people at home can have a go. I thought it was quite tricky to learn, but—

Why were you sat there on your own learning this? What are you doing? You know what?

Why would we say that? My wife has a proper go at me for like something that I learned when I was a young child and obviously just like had loads of time on my hands. And I can't do it. There you go, first time to do it and I've messed it up. So there we go, it's just spinning a pillow on my finger like that. You can try that one at home as well if you want.

Wow, that is—

what?

It looks like it's speeding up.

Yeah, well, it's pretty quick. I can see if I can get it there. So people come to this stream thinking that we're going to talk about beekeeping and we've done so far—

A little bit in front of the camera. Oh, there we go.

Look, we throw it off like that. That's it. So, oh no, that was insane. Yeah, I'm really, I'm really proud of that. More so than the finger spinning one, I guess.

Yeah, that was, that's amazing. I'm definitely going to try that later.

So, so I call it an icebreaker. I guess it was me just maybe like showing off what I could do. Have you got any like party tricks? Yeah.

Um, no. Oh no, I must, I must, I must have something. Oh yeah, okay, there we go. If I could cast, I can do this sort of weird shuffle thing.

I'll do it again, it cut out for me. Go and do it again. Oh yeah, oh yeah, nice. I like how you've definitely been hustling some people at poker. Right, okay, so like I said, people came to this stream thinking we were going to do beekeeping. We've done shuffling, we've done spinning a pillow, we've done that thing, and we've spoken about chicken of the wood mushrooms. So we should probably talk about a little bit about beekeeping. So yeah, Just Alex is like the number one beekeeper on YouTube now, taken over. Tell me how you— tell me how you started beekeeping and how like you got your first set of bees.

Um, I'm definitely not, um, qualified to teach people about beekeeping. Like, I've only been beekeeping for a few years. I, I've been making videos for a lot longer. So, um, yeah, don't take any advice from me when it comes to beekeeping. But, um, no, it was, uh, uh, I think like 3 years ago now. I was walking, just— I, I used to live near Brighton, actually in the countryside. near Brighton, and I was walking. I used to love going walking every day after work, and I saw a swarm of bees. And obviously, like, swarms of bees are fascinating. And if you've never seen one before, it's like, whoa, what is happening? It's scary, it's exciting, and it made me want to learn more about these animals. I went— it was like during COVID time, and I went online. I was like, where can I learn more about bees and beekeeping? And I found like my local bee club, um, and they were doing Zoom meetings at the time. So I joined this club, went on to this Zoom meeting, and they were like, whoa, you're our youngest member here by like 30 years or something.

Yeah.

Um, but they basically— I, yeah, went along to this Zoom meeting. They were like, why, why are you here? Do you keep bees? I was like, no, I just, um, kind of want to learn a bit more. And I just kept would like go into these bee meetings and then I would keep learning bits and bobs about it. And more and more the idea of giving it a go and keeping bees myself sort of, um, I thought it might become a reality one day. But I certainly wasn't like really planning on keeping bees. I just wanted to learn a bit. And then like bee club people seem to be really nice and friendly and welcoming. And, uh, one of the members was like, hey, I have a beehive if you want. And I was like, that's cool. Um, I'm not sure if I'm ready to take on this, this challenge, but okay, I'll take your beehive.

Um, yeah.

And then another member said, I've got a swarm of bees that I got like recently. Um, do you want them? And I was— I think I was working the day that I got the message from these people and I was like, what should I do? Wow, my life is really taking a strange turn. I'm, I'm gonna become a beekeeper. what's going on. And yeah, I accepted both their offers, went and picked up the bees, went and picked up the hive, and it just happened so quick. And I was like, whoa. And then once you've got the bees, you then, I don't know, you sort of enter a spiral into wanting to learn more and more about them and expanding the colonies. And yeah, since I've had bees, I think my life has genuinely been better. But yeah, that's kind of how I got into it.

It's— it definitely is. Like, beekeeping is great, and I think it improves kind of everyone's life a little bit. It's really interesting to hear that you like started kind of like in an educational setting. I think not many people will do that. I think I certainly wouldn't do that because I'm kind of a case of, oh, I want to try something new, right? I'll buy it and then kind of like justify the purchase later on.

Yeah, yeah.

I've already bought it and jumped into it. So it's good to hear that you've done that, but also It's also good to hear that the beekeeping association was nice and friendly and welcoming and helpful. And so that's really good. You stay in touch with them at all?

Yeah, they actually— I did a talk at the club last year. I went to the village hall and did a talk about how I make my films and how I— yeah, I can't really give a talk about how to keep bees, so I talked about how I make films about bees. And, um, yeah, I mean, normally with things when I start them, I do go for like the approach of just getting stuck in, like gardening, um, sports. I will just go and do it. I'll buy the stuff I need to do it and then just get stuck in. But beekeeping is— I don't know, it felt a bit different. It's a bit more daunting. It's like, maybe, yeah, these, like, these animals can sting. There's loads of them. There's like thousands. And it just felt like I needed to learn a bit before I got started. But, um, the most I've learned is just by doing it. And I learned so much over the past few years by just every week going through the bees and looking and watching your videos, of course.

Um, but I think you, I think you underplay kind of just what you do on YouTube with the beekeeping front though. And I think for you it's just like one strand in the wonderful world of Just Alex, which is kind of doing all the things that you enjoy and filming them. But you, you would have built up like a good kind of understanding of how beehives and stuff work. But what you bring to YouTube, kind of like in the beekeeping arena, is like true inspiration. And I think I've seen a few people already commenting on that already. Like, people will watch your videos and they've never even thought about keeping bees, and like your approach to it is so infectious and so like charming that you just give this lovely like a view and kind of slant on beekeeping. So people will watch it and they'll be genuinely inspired to go and start beekeeping themselves. So I think you— like, I'd be amazed, uh, I'd be really interested to understand how many people have started beekeeping as a result of watching your videos, because you get so many views.

I would love to know that as well, because I get, I get messages every day, and on like the videos I've made, I get comments from people saying like, yeah, you inspired me to buy a nuc of bees or get a beehive or learn about bees. So I would, I would be interested. But yeah, it's amazing. I'm glad that I can bring something to the beekeeping community, even if it isn't like top knowledge and like years of expertise. I'll leave that to you guys. But, um, I, I realized that like I get— when I start something new and I find something interesting and I get a bit obsessed, I get so excited. And I kind of wanted, yeah, to capture that excitement on film. Um, I get a little bit overexcited probably, but, um, I think it's great to, to see that. And often when you see people, other, someone else get excited about something, it makes you more likely to find it exciting. Um, but yeah, it, it's, it's cool being able to share these, like this beekeeping journey on YouTube. And it's quite cool because I can, I can look back to like right at the start because I filmed it all the way from the beginning. I can, I can go back to those first videos and, and see myself like literally picking up the beehive, really afraid, not knowing, yeah, like what's gonna happen. So now I definitely come across a lot more, um, confident, and I'm much more of a beekeeper now. Um, so that's cool.

We, we spoke yesterday, didn't we, about like competition within YouTube and like what, what I thought of you as you came kind of out of nowhere, and I, I very much welcomed it. And we did, we come to the conclusion that we're we're not in competition at all. And I think that you've just nailed that niche within the beekeeping sector, which is incredibly watchable, so people can just sit down and enjoy the content. But you're bringing beekeeping into the mainstream, and that's the big one, is that it's kind of been hidden in the niches, in the people who just want to learn about beekeeping. They've already found it and they just want to learn some more, but you're bringing it to this huge wider audience. I'd love to know the demographics of your channel as well in terms of age, because mine is like basically anyone under 25, 0% interest, really, maybe like 1%, and then very even after that. But is your— what's your demographic like? Do you ever look into demographics or things like that?

I do. I couldn't tell you exactly. I don't know them off by heart, but definitely most of the audience is 25 to 35. But then after that, it's the young. I can't remember what the youngest, um, yeah, 13 to 19.

Yeah.

That section, uh, is second, I think, and then next it's 35 to 50 or something. I can't remember. But so yeah, mostly 25 to 35.

But, but that's what's so interesting. So for me, that 13 to 19 is, is literally zero. They're not interested. Like, is this old fart kind of talking about beekeeping education? But you've nailed it and you've made it interesting for them and brought it into the mainstream. And I just think that the difference that that will have kind of over the next like 5 to 10 years with the amount of people coming into beekeeping. But you really can't underplay how, how much of an impact that's, that's going to have or is having. So well done. It's good.

Yeah, I, I, I, I— if, if, if it inspires one person to, to get started and give it a go, then it feels, it feels, it feels pretty good actually. Yeah.

Well, it's definitely done one person. Look, Dale Hancock says, it's true, Alex's videos made me want to keep bees and made me take the plunge, and it has changed my life for the better in so many ways. So thank you.

There you go. That makes me so happy. Wow.

Um, so next question is then, so you started off with a swarm and then you've got a few hives. Like, where, where are you going with your beekeeping journey? Is there a destination or is it just see what happens?

Um, at the start it was all just about learning how to take care of one beehive. Like, I didn't have a clue. I'd never even thought about bees. Like before, um, yeah, before I started like 3 years ago, I'd not— I've, I've thought about them, but certainly not in any more detail than, ah, there's a bee, they sting. Um, so, so yeah, at first it was just about learning, uh, just a little bit more than I already did. Um, I, I'm very much a— I do kind of like the business. This is the thing, the great thing about beekeeping. Is that it's so multi— I don't know how you say it— it, it, there's loads of different aspects to it. It's not just, uh, it's a bit of biology, it's a bit of food production because you're creating a food product, it's a little bit of business, it's a little bit of marketing because you've got to market your product. It's so many different things, and that's, and that's sort of what, what made me quite excited about it, is that because I I struggle to stick with one thing for too long, but beekeeping includes all these things. Um, so the idea of like building, building up— because beekeeping is quite a scalable thing, you can scale it up— and then business, like the idea of earning some money from it gets involved, and then that, that gets exciting, and you're like, how can I make a profit off this? Um, so yeah, always in the back of my head is like I want to build this. I want to double the hives each year and build up and turn it into a little business. Because the other thing which I found was the best feeling ever was last autumn, and I had a decent harvest of honey, way more than I could eat myself. So I had enough to sell, and I sold it to people. I did an Instagram post and I sold it to people who replied, and people were coming to my house collecting it, and it was just such a good feeling meeting people who had watched the videos, who had seen how this, um, seen how this product was made, um, and then sharing it with them. And, and that was probably when I realized like, yes, it was all worth it. Because with beekeeping, there's a lot of time where you're like, whoa, everything's going wrong. The bees keep doing things I don't want them to do. They're trying to swarm. My queen's died. uh, colonies die over the winter and you're like, is this really worth it? You're looking at the outgoings that you're spending, but then, then something— then the harvest comes in, um, you earn a bit of the money back, you get to sell the honey to people and people are loving the product. And yeah, it, it's, it's a mix of all those things why I do it. But, um, I think the growth, the growth of beekeeping is sort of the, the main thing I like about it is expanding the apiary, making the hives growing throughout the spring and summer. It's amazing to watch the colonies go from a few frames out of winter and then they begin to fill a whole hive up and then they go into the supers and draw out those and you see the honey coming in. Yeah, it's a mix of lots of things, but yeah, I love it.

I was going to say, what's your favourite part of beekeeping? But I guess you've kind of answered that with the honey harvest. Is that your favourite bit, like the actual The harvesting and giving it to people.

The same with gardening. The gardening is hard work. It's like a job. You have to really work at it. You've got to wake up in the morning, water your plants, look after them, feed them. And often through that, I think maybe I'm a bit lazy, but I always find the work bit a bit like, oh God, is it really this? I don't really want to have to put in all this effort. But then the harvest makes it all feel worthwhile. So Yeah, harvesting and, and selling the product and giving it away to friends and family is definitely like the, the best, the, the main reason I do it. Um, but there's so many different reasons.

We're so similar in terms of the laziness. I'm like that, and I, and I absolutely love gardening as well. But it, like, for me, some people would like going into the garden and just weeding, and they'll come along and just help weed, and they're not like, oh yeah, not really interested in the tomatoes at the end. And I'm just like, all about the tomatoes at the end. Like, I don't want to do anything and I just want to eat the tomatoes at the end. Yeah, sure, we'll go, we'll go slightly off-piste because I have a favorite, like, fruit. What's your favorite fruit or vegetable to grow?

Uh, the tomatoes I grew last year were so tasty. They were a variety called Sungold. Um, they're like these little cherry orange color. Yeah, little cherry tomatoes. And I have not eaten a sweeter tomato in my life. And I— and like every day throughout the summer I was having tomato basil and mozzarella salad, like on some like fresh baguette. It was so good. But no, second to that is sweet corn. I grew some sweet corn last year and gosh, that barbecued was just so good.

With Jasper in the background. Sweet corn's one of those ones, it's when it's growing, it's still got all the sugars in it, and apparently as soon as you take it off, all of the sugars convert to like some other carbohydrate or starch. That's it, they convert to starch. And there's nothing worse— my wife tries to give me sweet corn like at this time of the year and it just tastes like wallpaper paste. I really don't like it. But sweet corn from your garden's amazing. Uh, no, the one— I'm not sure if you've ever grown it or even seen it, but a Cape gooseberry. You ever had a Cape gooseberry?

Heard of a gooseberry, not a Cape gooseberry.

Yeah, so you have to grow a Cape gooseberry. So it grows on like a vine and it has— it's like a— it's interesting you say because it's very similar to the little Sungold tomatoes, but then it has it It has these little kind of—

oh yeah, they're amazing. I've had them. Um, I had them, it was in a dessert when I was in Austria. Yeah.

And they taste a bit like— they, they don't really taste like anything. Closest thing they taste to, I think, is like a passion fruit. But grow them because they're just—

you can't really grow well in like your climate.

If you, if you've got a greenhouse to grow the tomatoes— were they in a greenhouse?

Uh, no, they were actually outside.

Okay, so I've got— I'm trying one outside this year, but I normally grow mine in a greenhouse and they go really, really well.

So they prefer warmer weather?

Oh, I was trying to think of the word of this. Simon said also called Physalis. Physalis, that's what it's also called. Uh, but they're— oh, they're really, really nice. So we'll take it back to beekeeping then. So like, I have this challenge with like, how do I keep beekeeping fresh on YouTube? And I've kind of resigned myself to the fact now that it's an education channel. Not going to do dramatic kind of things on there, but you— you've— the world is your oyster in terms of beekeeping. So how— what, like, crazy things could you do with bees? Because that's what I want to see. I want to see, like, beekeeping at the top of Mount Everest, or I want to see, like, beekeeping on the top of the Shard in London. But you could take beekeeping and put it into all these different places. Have you got any plans for anything outlandish like that?

Um, I actually haven't. I feel— yeah, sorry. I haven't had any of those. I haven't had any mad ideas. I would love to watch those people harvest honey in Nepal, like from like those cliff faces. That looks incredible. But that's the thing, you don't know anyone who's done any of those. Yeah, I think it would make a great— I mean, but people have made those like documentaries. I don't know if I could do it. I don't think I could bring something new to the— to that sort of thing.

You definitely could. Just Alex calming, beautiful videography. You want to see it? Make it happen.

Maybe I would do that. Yeah, but no, I, I haven't really— I'm, I'm currently like, my main project is just trying to keep track of and keep on the top of my, my apiary. Um, but I did— I have done some traveling to like meet up with beekeepers in other places because like when I'm on my travels I always try to meet up with people and I often end up meeting up with beekeepers because it's like, I don't know, it's something I can relate with and I can have conversation with them because it's the same sort of thing over here. But I met up with a guy in Switzerland who had this incredible bee house, like this multicolored temple. It was like a temple for bees.

Nice.

But that was pretty cool. But no, no beekeeping at the top of Mount Everest. Do you reckon there's any— there's no flowers up there, are there?

No, Mount Everest is probably not a good one, but I just, you know, you know, yeah, like when we did—

when we did go down, like down to the flower, then they would come back up. Or maybe they just get so tired, like flying all that way up to the—

well, no, I reckon, yeah, maybe, maybe that's a bit high. But then you could even like bring it back back down to ground level. You know the one where the people, like, in someone's house are basically like built into the wall? Here you have like a hide and then you have like a pipe going out to the top or something. I think those ones are cool. You need to do—

I could, I could try and build one into my bedroom.

Yeah, I want to—

I'll get kicked out by the landlord.

They have to get in first, get in to kick you out.

That's true.

Okay, cool. So, so you've, you've got the nuke. So you came down and got the nuke. What did you think of the nuke?

The calmest bees I've ever seen. It was amazing. It's funny because this morning I went over to my apiary to like bring the bees that I got from you yesterday to then to the site. Um, and whilst I was there, I was opening up some of the other colonies and I'm opening them up and I'm like, they're coming straight off the frames. They're not stinging, but they're going around my head and they're interested. I transferred one of your nucs over, like I took the frames out and put them in like a full-sized hive. Um, and it was just like none of them even— they're walking around slowly, none of them are coming off the frame. It was just like really easy to, to look through them. And, um, yeah, I think it is very Like, it makes beekeeping a more enjoyable experience having bees which aren't stinging you, because as soon as they're trying to sting you and getting mad, it's like it puts you more on edge, and then you're rushing through it to try and get it done, and you can't relax as much. Um, so yeah, no, those bees, um, uh, were really— I'm really happy to have that, those genetics in my apiary now.

I'm glad you're happy with them. It's, uh, it's interesting. I'll just, I'll just chuck a couple of comments up here. So you've got BBB says, got 2 Buckfast colonies on Tuesday and was blown away, no joke. And then I think somebody else up here was— where was that? Yeah, so said Lawrence, my Langstroth nuc arrived today. This is my 16th colony. All have your queens. Mia Fluke, age 12. Hi Mia! But my favorite part— when people say to me, what's your favorite part of beekeeping? I say it is definitely— I know I said to you yesterday it was YouTube, but it is— it's making up the nucs and sending out the nucs to customers. That bit's pretty stressful, but then it's watching like their Instagram and their Facebook and them saying, you know, the postman's come and they bought the bees, and then watching the colonies expand and thinking, you know, these These are our bees. And what I'm even more excited about is now that you've got some of the queens and you've got like the nuc, I just can't wait to— I can't wait to see the video, but I can't wait to like follow the journey of them as well and see, you know, how long is it going to take before that queen swarms, or if you make loads of splits, or if you make more honey than you were expecting. So I'm really excited just to see how they go and how you do with them.

Yeah, I'm gonna document it all. Um, so It will be there for people to see. I, I'm still not totally sure what I'm gonna do. I'm, I'm half tempted to split them because I want, as I want lots of colonies to go through the winter, like to build up this year and then go through the winter.

Yeah.

Because last year I had a few losses and it made me think like, yeah, last year I just went for a honey harvest and then I lost some colonies. But this year I'm like, I should really split so I have more colonies So if I lose some, then it's not as much of an effect on the next year. Um, but then I also want to see how much honey I could get from, from that nuc that I, um, got from you guys yesterday. So I'm not too sure yet. I'm going to think about it over the next couple of days.

Yeah, you're in two minds, and me and Richard were in two minds as well, weren't we? I, I recommended building up a bit and then splitting, taking some splits, and Richard said no, let's just, just keep it. But I do, I do, I recommend to everyone, and if people have bought nucs from me this year, like, my recommendation is before they fill the brood box, just take a split. Take a 2-frame split out, 2 frames of brood, 1 frame of stores with the queen. And if you can, go and take it to a new apiary. Um, but if not, do it within the same apiary, and then just let both of those colonies build up as, as a minimum. So, you know, split from 1 to 2 because it just gives you that insurance of having more colonies. But even more than that, it just gets you through the swarmy period, so you're not going to lose your good queen. You know, they always swarm in awkward places, the best queens. They'll go into the chimneys and you just never see them again. You just think, oh damn, I wanted to keep—

Yeah, I don't want to lose— I don't want to lose that queen. I had a question for you actually. Um, the, the queens that come in your nucs, are they, are they from like a, a breeder queen that you get? Like, are they— so they come from another queen? They're the offspring of like a really good breeder queen.

Yeah.

Then if I were to— if I were to let that queen raise, like, lay eggs, and then the colony— and then I make a split, and then the colony which is queenless raises a, like, a queen from that, then that would be like a second generation from the breeder queen. So it'll be like an F2. Um, have you noticed much change in, like, the Because I guess it is further away from the parents, um, so the genetics are from a wider place, so they could end up quite different. But have you had mixed results with like some— some can be really calm, some are angry, or yeah, what's sort of what, what happens there?

So, so as you, as you go down, so if you imagine the, the F0 or the pure is like 100% genetics, you know, the maternal and paternal, and then when you go down to F1, you're only really guaranteeing the 50% of that maternal side, and the drones in the air are doing the other 50%. And then when you go down to F2, you're down to like, you only really know 25% of the mix, and then you've got 75% of the drones. So it quite quickly dilutes it, uh, and you're much more reliant on the drones that are in the air. And then that's, that's where it becomes important to be able to control them as best as possible. And, and you saw yesterday, it Richards is in the middle of nowhere, isn't it? It's absolute middle of nowhere in a valley, and it was— it's difficult for the drones to kind of get out that much. And that's why we think in that, in that apiary there, we get very, very good, um, kind of control of the matings as best as we possibly can. And that's how you get like the really nice calm bees. But as you go further down the generations, you're just getting more variety. So you can have very calm ones, you can have very very aggressive ones, but it is, it's the drones that are causing that, the drones that are in the air. Um, there is, there is a myth, it's, it's not so much a myth because it's not not true, but a lot of people who don't like Buckfast bees say F2 Buckfasts are really, really aggressive. And you can get really, really aggressive F2 Buckfasts, but it's not really the Buckfasts that are making them aggressive, it's the drones that are in the air.

Drones that have, they've had no control over. That you have no control over.

And if you look to places like in America where people have got like masses of land with no bees and they keep 30 or 40 or like hundreds of Buckfast bees and they'll just— they're almost just kind of like F2, F3, F4 and they're just the same all the way down because there's no really like interference from any other drones. But you can— it'd be an interesting take to see what happens if you do take some kind of daughters from that one. You can do just walkaway splits with it. So you could just, once you get that colony to build up, take the queen away in a split and then just let the remainder of that colony requeen themselves, and then you can assess what, what the temperament is like.

And yeah, I'd like to give that a go. So just to clarify, F0 would be an artificially inseminated queen?

Yeah.

Is there any other way that you can guarantee The, uh, the drone genetics? Like, could— like, because I've seen sometimes people take them to islands.

You can do island mated as well. But sure, yeah, surely island mated, it is effectively F0. People don't like the, the terminology F0, so they say it should be called pure. I call them, I call them F0. Um, but yeah, that's what they do. So some of these, some of these islands, they are absolutely piddly tiny little things in the middle of the sea. Like, just— I always thought them as being like pretty big, like Isle of Wight or something like that, but they are not. They are like the size of a house, some of them. They're tiny.

Yeah.

So you're kind of thinking, well, you, you basically are controlling— you're controlling the drone population because you know that queen cannot fly any further because there's just sea. So a lot of the island-mated ones are good. And even in Germany, they have stuff like the doctor— they do— a guy called Dr. P. Stoffen And in Germany, it's not on an island, but it's kind of like on this part of the land that goes out to sea. And then because of the way that the wind goes over, that they get these really good controlled matings. Um, and I've got a couple of his queens that I use as broody queens, and they are, they are very good queens. Some people don't like artificial insemination.

Yeah, I guess it's probably a controversial thing. Um, but no, I think that would make a really interesting video, like the whole The whole island mating thing, the whole like, um, uh, breeding of bees is so fascinating. Like how humans can have, have an impact on like the, like how an, how an animal is. Um, I think it's—

I think we should have like an away day. We should just have an away day to Germany and just go and do some island hopping.

Uh, absolutely. I'm game for that.

Let's do it.

Let's do that. Let's take an island trip.

Yeah, I'm well up for that. Okay, so you're gonna, you're gonna take some splits from your bees, you're gonna make some more honey. There any, any more plans for your beekeeping, or are you just seeing, seeing how it comes?

I, I really want to— this is something that I wanted to do, uh, is have a little— someone actually put in the comments there, um, Alex needs to, needs to market stall for his honey. I really want to do like a farmer's market. I'd love to have like just Alex at the market and I can sell like my bee products. And then I've got some friends who also are skilled in some other things, so they could join me and have some of their products. But yeah, like I said before, I love the bit where you meet the customers, meet people. I think I just love meeting people. And when you sell honey at a market stall, I could just imagine so many people Like asking questions and wanting to learn about the product. And yeah, so that's sort of one of my goals is to harvest enough honey to make it worth me doing a few market stalls. Because last year I had, I think I had like 250 jars of like 8-ounce jars, but they went like in a couple of days.

Goes quick.

I need to have a bit more honey and then I'll do a market That, that's my— I think that's my next goal. I think it's realistic. Um, so yeah, that's the plan.

I, I think that'd be really good. Like, I, I love doing market stalls and talking to people, and there's nothing better than— because everyone gets to— you've got to have tasters at market stalls and getting them just to taste the different honeys. And you get a lot of people, oh, I don't like honey, don't like honey. Oh, go on, I'll have a taste. And they're like, that's like no honey I've ever tasted before. And you get the old guy who's like 85 and he tastes it And he's standing there looking all pensive and he says, that tastes— that takes me back to when I was a little boy. And you just think, oh, that's really like— I really like the comments like that.

Yeah, I'd have a little plate of— sorry, I'd have a little plate of tasters and it would be cheese and honey. I'd have like, yeah, cheese dunked in honey because like that is the— in my opinion, that is the most incredible thing, a piece of cheese dunked in honey. And I think if you put that at the like at the front of the market stall as a taster, then you're selling, you're selling a lot of products.

This, this is going to seem like a shameless product plug, but you know, it's not. Like, but I, I have the cheese with my hot fire honey is, is like my favorite thing. So we'll just have like a platter of salami, cheeses, and I can't have it now without like the hot fire honey. The chili honey is, is a little bit addictive.

Yeah, you gave me some of that stuff when I met you last year.

Oh yeah, did you like it?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's good on pizza as well. Yeah, it's nice. Um, my brain was just ticking there in terms of like other beekeeping videos that you could do. I think going to like crops would be good, good videos for you. So, you know, going to like, going to Ling Heather, that would be cool.

I would really love to do one of those, like, yeah, putting all the colonies in the back of a trailer and driving somewhere like onto the heather moors I think that would be a really interesting thing to document, uh, for sure. Yeah.

And, and then the extraction of the honey as well, because ling heather is a pain to extract. But it's—

yeah, pretty— explain that. What is the—

So it's thick, it's thixotropic, which means that when you kind of like move it, it doesn't move. So it like, it's basically like jelly, but then when you put kind of like motion into it, it liquefies again. So if you just try to uncap the frames and spin it out, it just says No, no, no, no. So you need to, you need to agitate it first, either through little needles, or the way that I found is much easier to do it now is you use plastic foundation and then scrape the plastic foundation back and then press it out. So you can use like an apple press, like a manual mechanical one, or what I've got is a hydropress, which is like an inflatable bladder.

I have seen them.

Yeah, but it basically, it makes, it makes for good YouTube content as well. It looks, it looks quite nice, and the honey is like some people don't like the honey. I'm not— I'm not— it's not my, my favorite honey. I do like it, but it's very strong. Like, it's like a blue— it's like a blue cheese of the cheese world, you know.

It's really dark in color as well, isn't it?

Really dark. Yeah, dark and, and full of like bubbles. You get a lot of bubbles in it as well, but it is nice. And it would be— it would be a cool video because, you know, where there's Ling Heather, it's pretty awesome scenery and stuff as well.

It is, yeah. No, definitely all those things. I think like as I do more and more beekeeping and learn more and more over the years, I, I definitely want to, yeah, tick off all these things and, and try them for sure.

Um, so in terms of like just Alex the YouTube channel, we, you know, you're doing your gardening, you're liking that, you're doing your beekeeping, you can see you're getting like these different segments, and then there's always going to be the crazy new adventures that you've got going. Like, what's— I know you don't like to plan too far ahead, but do you want to give like a flavor of anything you've got in the works at the moment?

Um, I am, uh, what have I got? Um, I've got one abroad trip, so I'm going away to Canada, um, to do like a mushroom foraging adventure. I'm actually meeting up with these, um, commercial morel mushroom pickers. So morel mushrooms are like one of the most sought-after, um, edible mushrooms. They're quite incredible actually. Uh, they look like little, like brains almost. Actually, they look a little bit like— the, the texture of the, the mushroom is a little bit like honeycomb. It's got these little holes in, which is a bit like a, like a comb of honey.

But you've got to clean them with a little brush, haven't you? Because you can get like sand and stuff in them.

Yeah, they get very, um, dirty. But yeah, I'm, I'm gonna meet up with those people and film like, like a little mini documentary about these morel mushrooms and, and how they go about collecting them and then processing them ready for like selling. Um, but there's 2 things that I really want to do which I'm— I can't do currently because I haven't got the space. And probably the time, but I really want to have pet pigs and I really want to have pet chickens. So those 2 things are things which I will do one day in my life, but right now I don't have the space for it. I wonder if I can maybe fence off my apiary area, which I keep my bees on like a farmer's land, but I could put a little fence up and then keep some chickens in there as well. Um, yeah, yeah, I think bacon chickens, that would be really—

and what, and what would you do with the— like, I'm guessing it's not just like pet pigs. You'd go—

No, I don't know why I said pet pigs. I'm probably not gonna name them. Uh, they're gonna be, they're gonna be bacon, unfortunately. But, um, I think it would— I like the idea. Again, it's like I'm really drawn to things where you have a harvest, where you put in work and you see like a quality product come out the other end. And I mean, I love eating bacon, I love eating pork, I love eggs. So pigs and chickens just seems like a very natural step to take. Um, so yeah, hopefully at some point I'll have a little— around my land where my bees are, I'll have bees and then I'll have chickens walking about and some pigs fenced off. Yeah, that's, that's That those things are in the pipeline.

You're definitely going to retire to like a farm or a smallholding. And I say retire like in 10 years or something like that. And it's just, you're just going to live the dream of doing YouTube videos. I think those videos would do really, really well. It's weird, I did a, um, a salami-making video. It was one of like the first videos within the first 6 months, and it still gets quite a lot of views, like surprisingly. And it's terrible, rubbish video. It's just me in the kitchen with a KitchenAid like really boring how to make salami, and then didn't really even finish because I said, oh, now you just have to leave it for 10 weeks to cure. That was it, that was the end of the video. But I enjoyed making salami as well, it was pretty cool. So how does it work in terms of like you choosing the videos? Do you sit there and you plan to think, right, this year I'm going to do these videos, or do you get people like coming to you and saying, come and film, we'll do this, or like how does it work?

It's a mix of lots of things. Like, I— some things I can't control. Like, for example, the beekeeping series. I, I didn't really plan that. I just sort of got into beekeeping and I just sort of documented the, the journey. I didn't sit down and go, right, the next 5 years I'm going to become a beekeeper.

Yeah.

And the next year I'm going to expand the apiary, and then I'm gonna meet up with Laurence and do some filming with him. Like, it all just quite organically happened. I got into beekeeping and documented it, and then things happen as well. Like, for example, we got talking and then we discussed the ideas of making videos together, and that came about. Um, so yeah, I, I don't, I don't really Sit— I do sit down, and sometimes for hours and days, and try and plan things. But then the way things actually happen is nothing like the plan. And I don't know why, but I like— everything I plan never happens, and everything that happens is I can't really see coming. Um, but I— to a point, I guess. Like, I know that for the next summer I'm gonna have to tend to the bees. So I can make some kind of rough plans of like, well, I'll probably make maybe 4 videos of that. I don't know what's going to happen in the videos because that is a lot down to the bees and what happens. And I think that's something interesting, that is that I'm really not good at writing stories. Like, for YouTube videos, lots of people, like some of the top YouTubers, they write their stories, they script it. They like Um, they storyboard it properly, but I, I'm not very good at that. So I found the, the way I do it is I let the projects script the video for me. And beekeeping and gardening and anything which is nature-based gives you that story on a plate. It's like I don't have to do any storyboarding because the bees are trying to swarm and I've got to react to that. I think I'm more, I'm more reactionary than Like planning and script, script writing based. Like my videos are, uh, uh, yeah, I just react to what happens. And, and yeah, by making beekeeping videos, there's always so much stuff popping up and you can't really plan for that stuff.

And, and that's what makes beekeeping videos so good. I, I had the perfect example. It's, it's a video on the channel membership section that will be out in the next couple of weeks. But I went to go and do a video. I had basically an artificially inseminated queen that I got given last year that was— it was a good queen and I intended to graft from it this year. And it's just failing. It was failing miserably. Spotty drone brood everywhere, wasn't building up. So I went to go and do a video saying this is, this is what happens when a queen fails, and got there and pulled the frame out and I was like, that's, that's not the queen. Like, the queen had a big pink disc on her back. I said, that's a, that's a different queen. And then I found some supersedure cells and then I thought, you know, they've, they've superseded the queen. And then I found the original queen as well. So spoiler to everyone who's going to watch that video, I've got to watch it to the end now. But like, I didn't go to do that video at all, but I basically found 2 queens in one hive in the middle of a supersedure. And like you say, you can't plan a video like that, can you? And you can't plan a video if you turn up to the apiary.

But it's almost like it's a, it's a better story than you could come up with, like, if you sat down and tried to write it. That's, that's what I love about making videos which are nature-based. The uncertainty. Yeah.

Um, so there's, there's a couple of questions, beekeeping-related questions. If you've got, if you've got beekeeping-specific related questions for Alex, stick them in. I will, I will chuck a couple up here. So Bert says, how many hives do you have now, Alex, and what types are they, and do you have a favorite?

So I, I have such a bad memory. I was at the hive this morning and you're asking me how many hives I have, and I, I have to go on my phone and look at a photo because I can't remember. There's a lot more than there was. I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We've got 7 now. We had 6 yesterday and now I have 7. So cool, it's, it's expanding rapidly. It's exciting. And then, so yeah, yeah.

So what type of hives are they? Do you like— are they wooden?

They poly?

Like, do you have a—

Um, I have a bit of a mix. I have a couple of old wooden ones which I got like secondhand hives from the old beekeeping association that I was a member of. I've got a couple of newer wooden ones, like really nice cedar ones, um, which are— they are really beautiful wood. Like, I think they're like the most expensive type of hive, but definitely the, the best looking, and they smell amazing as well. I don't know if you've noticed.

They like British National, just like wood, or they, they WBC with the slants?

They are National. British National. Yeah, nice. Yeah, um, yeah, all my hives are National. I, when I started beekeeping, it was one of the, one of the things that was kind of quite confusing as a beginner. It was like, well, you've got all these hives, what, what do I choose? What do I buy? But the decision was kind of made easy for me because like the first hive I was given was a National. And then when I learned that you're often like switching height, like boxes over. And every— it's kind of easier if everything is interchangeable. So I was just like, right, I'm just gonna stick with National for now. It, it makes sense. Everything is, everything is the same. Very easy to get hold of new National equipment. Um, so yeah, all of my stuff is on National. I have a few Poly, uh, like Pains Poly Nukes. Um, the Transport box that you gave me yesterday was a Payne's Polyglot, wasn't it? Um, and then I have a couple of— and I always have one that I made myself, a little wooden—

Yeah, yeah, you showed me this one yesterday. I like, I like that one.

Yeah.

Hey, so there we go, there's another idea. It could be like making a beehive out of like a really exotic wood. That could be pretty cool.

You could like start felling a tree.

Yeah, the whole process.

Yeah, but like, I'd need to get some help from a proper carpenter, I think, because like my beehive that I've built, the roof doesn't fit on properly. It's terrible.

It sounds like me again. I'm shocking at DIY. I love, I love DIY. I love the idea of it, but I'm not set up for DIY.

I, um, I measure everything so much and then I always cut it inaccurate. I don't know what's going on. But you know what it is?

But measuring stuff is actually quite difficult when you're trying to get stuff— not just like measuring a piece of wood, but trying to get stuff square. And then when you're— you get something kind of as square as you think it is, or you, or you do a miter cut and you think it's 45 degrees but it's 44, and then you go on to the next one and it just— before you know it, you're miles out. I find it very frustrating.

You make one like off, like one not straight cut, and then you measure everything off that. That straight edge, and then everything else is out. Yeah, it's pretty tricky. And I was trying to do it all on like this hand circular saw, um, by like clamping a straight edge onto the wood and then cutting. And it was just like, it was moving about. It's really tricky. I think you need like a— for the plot, like big sheets of ply, you need a table saw. Um, and then for small bits you need like a chop saw, one of those things that you just pull down. Those are—

Yeah.

Cool bits of kit. One day I'm gonna have a workshop which is like— all right, keep going.

No, I'm just gonna say I need— I nearly chopped my finger off. You can't really see it, it's doing it like that. There we go. No, see the scar on it there? It was really bad on the chop saw. And, and I'll tell you what I was doing with it. Yeah, it was on a chop saw. I was trying to cut little strips for some frames, and you're just like, I shouldn't have been getting that close to it. And it's just— I did the plunge, cut down, and then let it go back up, and as it went It just hadn't stopped spinning, and I just— and that's it. It was basically hanging off.

Nasty.

They salvaged it, which was pretty good.

Well, I'm glad you still got that finger.

I have, yeah. So, uh, like we said, we said this yesterday, like, I'm, I'm really envious of your life as a YouTuber. So, so tell me about, like, an average week in the life of Alex, because I don't think it's as glamorous as it looks, is it? But go on, what's your average week?

I don't think anything, I don't think anything is as, as glamorous as it looks. Um, no, I, I live in a house with 4 other people that are all, uh, school friends. Um, and because they work like Monday to Friday jobs, I try and do the same because then we can all have like the weekend off together and then I can hang out with my friends. So I, I try to work like, uh, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 sort of thing. I find that keeps me sane. I, when I started making YouTube videos, I was like, wow, this means I can work whenever I like. I can like work late one day and then I can wake up at midday the next day. But I actually found that like, I, there's something about, there's something good about a schedule and Yeah, not just staying in bed all day or until midday. So I try to do things in an organized way. But the actual work-wise, it is pretty amazing sometimes. I get to work a bit outside doing the filming and the beekeeping and gardening. And then I do the editing inside. So there's a nice balance between outdoor work and indoor work. And I'd say the best thing, but also at the same time it's the trickiest thing, is being like your own boss and being like managing a business. Because in some ways it's like, well, I can come up with the ideas and the plans and the future model for this business. Um, but also it means you need to bring the motivation and you need to bring the energy. There's no one else like tapping you saying, get up now, it's time for work. And I find that is actually probably the trickiest thing. It is on those days where you don't feel like doing anything, you're having a down patch, you have to bring yourself up and, and Without anyone telling you to. And I'm not always great at that. Over the winter, I went through many weeks of being very unproductive and very unmotivated, and it wasn't that great. I find I'm best when I'm busy. I really enjoy being busy. And in the winter, when there was less to do, I just found myself lazing around and It just wasn't a healthy lifestyle, I don't think. So in those quieter times, it would have been nice to have people that I was working with to work alongside and kind of help motivate me. But on the flip side, when I'm feeling positive and I am motivated, like currently when the weather's good, the bees are active, there's stuff to do. Um, it's the best thing ever. I have so much energy and, um, I can plan my days and it is kind of great. So there is that, but there is some great things and equally some not so great things. I think like everything that people do in their careers.

You see a lot of YouTubers now when they get, when they get big and like your channel is, is huge. It's nearly, nearly half a million subscribers.

They, they nearly—

they won't, they won't edit their own videos anymore, will they? Wait, have you, do you, have you hit half a million yet, or is it, it's still just below?

No, not, not yet.

Like seconds.

Yeah.

Um, so a lot, what a lot of them do is that they'll start subcontracting out a lot of the stuff that they don't want to do. So maybe the script writing or the thumbnail production or the video editing. I think a lot will subcontract that out. Do, would you like to do that? And do you think if like the channel continues to grow, that's something that you will do?

Um, I've definitely thought about it. Um, and I have a few messages from people saying like, I'm an editor, I can help you edit, which will give you more time to do things that you want to do. And they are— I have thought about that and gone, okay, so I would be able to spend more time outdoors, maybe doing the things which are really exciting and fun. And then I can get help with the editing, which can be very boring. But I think editing is— the editing is part of it, and the boring stuff is sometimes necessary. It's beneficial for keeping sane. I find a day of editing isn't necessarily enjoyable, But it keeps the mind really busy. It keeps you focused on a task, and that is really important. I think if I gave my editing to someone else to do, I, I would be missing something. Maybe not the, the boringness of editing, but the— I don't know, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to, um, yeah, I wouldn't want someone else to do editing.

Um, yeah, yeah, maybe the analogy is like when you, when you're eating your food and maybe you like, I don't know, you're like, maybe, maybe you like drinking beer, you think, I love drinking beer, and then, but you also drink tea and you drink coffee and you drink water and you think, you know what, I'm just gonna drink beer and it's all I'm ever gonna drink, and it just becomes a bit stale and a bit boring, doesn't it? You're just doing the same thing.

So that's a great analogy. You're like, well, I love sweets, are really nice. They're way nicer than cabbage. Yeah, I'm gonna eat sweets all the time. But then you realize, no, you need a balance of things. Yeah, that's, that's, that makes sense. Yeah, I think I want to do the editing because it's a great balance to the exciting stuff. It's like, yeah, they balance each other out.

And I think your editing style as well is something that possibly can't really be replicated, you know? Like you say, it's not scripted. You don't kind of start at A and finish at Z, and you could give it to someone and they produce the same thing as you. Like, the way that you cut things together is very much your own unique style, isn't it?

Yeah, I guess, because I look at the videos I've made, and it's great that people want to watch them, and I think, yeah, you're right. If I had someone else editing them, then that would be moving away from what it currently is. And people are obviously enjoying the videos how they are. So I feel like I should keep making them how they are in sort of the style that I have. So yeah, you're right.

It's an interesting business kind of observation that I'll go on to next, which is if you're doing something well, which you clearly are, Should you focus on continuing to do something well, or should you try and keep ahead of the competition by like changing things? And I think it's very relevant in the YouTube world. Like, what's your take on that? Hmm.

Um, it's such a— such a— so many things to think about there. Um, yeah, I, I'd say that because I can only really talk from my situation. And as a YouTube video maker, and the videos I make are quite closely linked to the things I do, they're quite personal videos. They're quite based on me and my life. And although, yes, right now people are enjoying the videos and I could just try and make them exactly the same and not change, As a person, you're always changing. Like, me 5 years ago is very different to me now. And naturally, without even thinking, the videos are changing with that. So I think when you're making videos about your life and about things that you do, you often— like, the way I've done it is I've just stayed kind of true to myself and tried to film things as much of like as real as possible. And over the years I change and the videos naturally change with it. I don't think like I've personally not put much thought into that. And as my interests change, as I maybe get interested in pig keeping or chicken keeping, the videos will walk with that. And whatever direction it goes, it will, it will keep, it will keep evolving if I keep evolving. And I think everyone does. Everyone does keep changing.

It's a really good answer to the question because what you're basically doing is like you're putting faith in yourself to say, well, I'm not going to remain static. I'm going to keep— I'm going to keep doing videos and I'm going to keep doing what I want to do and I'm going to keep doing as much as I can, putting it into the videos, you know, the videography and stuff like that. But I'll just back myself as a person, which is nice. It's very refreshing. It's a good answer. There's a couple of, a couple of cool questions in here. So Lynette says, have you— you have tried so many things, Alex. What was your favorite and least favorite things to do?

Um, gosh. Yeah, I've done, um, mushroom growing, beer making, mead making, um, gardening, beekeeping. Or beekeeping, I think, has possibly been the best thing. Uh, skiing could be the— my favorite thing. That's like the most fun that I've had, probably skiing. I made a video. For those of you who haven't seen, I made a video about learning how to ski, which was great. Like, skiing is great fun. Skiing and beekeeping on par. My least favorite things. I don't think I've done anything which is like, oh, that wasn't fun. I've got something from from all these, these things. But if I would say least favorite, it would be the part of the mushroom growing where I got ill because all the mushrooms were releasing their spores in my bedroom and then it was affecting my lungs. That was, that was the nice—

Yeah, I can see, I can see why that would be your least favorite. It's weird, like, I, there is a phobia out there that I have. I have a seriously bad case of this phobia, and the phobia is mushrooms growing. I like— do you know what, it's making me itch even thinking about it. I, I just can't stand it. It properly got like— I'm genuinely like, like shaking a bit and itching just thinking about it. Uh, sorry. So yeah, that was my least favorite one. Yeah. Oh, do you know when you see— oh, I can't even, I can't even talk about him. Yeah, we'll move on to the next question. Um, next question is from Bert again. So he says, and I think this is very good, relevant question, How far away is your apiary from your house in Bristol? But more importantly, how do you find it compares to keeping bees at home? So do you prefer it now with an out apiary?

That's interesting. Um, I— so this is another thing which is like, I— because the bees are further away from my house now, my visits to the apiary are a lot more of a special moment because I don't get to see the bees every day. It's like the less of it I have, the more exciting it is. So now I go and see my bees maybe once or twice a week, and each time I'm so excited on the drive over. I'm listening to my music, I'm getting into it. I'm driving across the river with the— you can see the suspension bridge in Bristol across the river. You're driving into the countryside down these nice country lanes. And that I really love about having an out apiary. And also the fact that you've got to be a little bit more prepared because you can't Because you've got to load up your van with all the stuff which you're going to need. And if you've forgotten something, it's quite a way back home. How far is my apiary? It's about 18 to 20 minutes, 18 to 25 minutes depending on the traffic.

It's a fair way then.

Yeah. So it's a bit of a drive, but I absolutely love it because I can leave the city and go out to this beautiful part of the countryside where, like, on, on the edge of this little farm, and it's just beautiful. And that, I would say, is, is possibly the best thing about having an outer apiary, is, is the excitement of going to it and getting to visit once or twice a week. But I think in terms of, like, learning about your bees' behavior, when you're at home with them, you can observe them every single day. You can see every single, like, whatever the weather, if it's pouring down with rain or sunny or morning, evening, or anything, you can see how they're sort of reacting and you can sit with them more. You can just sit outside, have like your plate of food and chill next to the bees. So there's benefits to both. Um, I'd like to one day have bees at home and then bees at an apiary.

Yeah.

But, um, yeah, I would say it's, it's great having our tapery, but I would struggle to drive more than like half an hour to, to do it because it is, it is quite a way, um, to drive.

It's funny when, when, when people in America hear about us Brits moaning about driving half an hour. I wouldn't drive half an hour because I, I said this, I gave up a really, really good apry because it was 35 minutes away and I was just like, it's too far, you know, it's 35 minutes there, 35 minutes back. And they're like, we drive 6 hours to get to our apiary. And it's like, whoa, it's just different magnitude, isn't it?

Yeah.

I'm not a fan of bees in the garden anymore. I'm just not. No, but I'm lucky here because all of the apiaries are pretty close. So like the one up at the mountains is 2 minutes in the truck. But I just, I get a bit nervy with bees in the garden. And, and because, you know, like, we've got, we've got nice calm bees, but they're not always nice and calm. If you get like a grumpy day, you'll get a few. And then if you've got like the, the neighbors like mowing the lawn or something and they're pinging here—

That is something which I did get worried about. Yeah, like neighbors when they swarm, it's a bit hectic.

Yeah. And then, and this is the thing, and when they swarm, you know, like around here, obviously everyone's got, everyone's got chimneys, I guess most places. And then we've had swarms go into people's chimneys, and I just think it's probably my responsibility to get them out. And then it becomes quite expensive. And even just when they're up in the air and I'm watching my neighbors looking at them thinking, what is this guy doing? Because we had 35 colonies in the back garden once, and it was, it was at that point, 35 colonies, and a couple of them turned angry and then they started swarming and going. And I just thought, that's, that's it, we're done, we're done in the garden. So I don't have any anymore. And then someone was supposed to collect 6 nucs a couple of weeks ago and they on the day. They didn't cancel, they just rung up and said, oh, something's come up, can we postpone till Friday? And I said, yeah, it's fine, I'll just leave them in the garden and let them fly. So I had 3 days of bees in the garden and it was just— they just kept going in my hair. And not in an aggressive way, but just in a— there were just loads of bees in the garden. So yeah, I'd say to everyone, if you can do away with it and have them in an out apiary, it's nice, especially a nice quiet one. Yeah, the drive to the countryside is nice and it's, it's nice and quiet and stuff, isn't it? But it's a bugger when you forget something.

It is so annoying and I'm so forgetful. I, I forget stuff every time. And with beekeeping, you like, if you're trying to keep track of like, I don't know, for me only like 7 hives, but I have to think about each of those hives and how many supers will I need to bring for those, how many of everything, and I'm like I will always forget something.

Yeah, you definitely do. Well, I said we would do an hour and we've done an hour and 6 minutes, and I, I could continue chatting all night long, Alex. It's been an absolute pleasure, really great chatting to you. Um, but I think we'll, I think we'll call it a day there, keep it short and sweet. I finally say, like, I enjoyed the streaming yesterday, uh, the, the videoing yesterday so much. It was really good fun and great.

It was great.

In action. Yeah, it was really good. Uh, if you everyone subscribe to Alex's page everywhere. He's got like half the UK. If you've not though, obviously go over, subscribe to Just Alex. But more importantly than that, hit the bell so you see when the, the new video is coming out showing my bees. How long do you think that'll be?

Um, that, that video, gosh, I've got loads of other editing to do, so it might not be for like another few weeks. Um, a few weeks or maybe even a month. So I'm sorry, but it will be coming soon-ish. No, no problem. Click the bell.

Yeah, click the bell.

There we go.

We've got the plug in for clicking the bell. But thank you for coming on. You didn't, you didn't have to. And like, we've done the double whammy. We did yesterday and today. You got any final words? Anything you want to say to anyone?

Um, I, I actually don't. Um, no, thanks. Thanks. Thank you to all the people who have left really nice comments. And, um, I appreciate it, and I hope you found this stream interesting. And yeah, I, I definitely am— I'm really excited to show everyone the video which me and Laurence filmed yesterday, uh, because it's got some really nice B-roll. Excuse the pun. But, um, we got the— we got the proper lenses out, did some nice B-roll, and, and yeah, got some filming done with you, both you and Richard, full of Incredible, great knowledge, which you don't normally see on my videos. So yeah, definitely keep your eyes out for that.

Excellent. Well, thanks, Alex. Thanks everyone for dialing in. I, I will be doing a live stream at this weekend for the Q&A, so for people who just want to come and ask questions, I'll do it either Saturday or Sunday night. But for this stream, we are finished. So thanks, Alex. I'll see you all later.

See ya.