Kamon Reynolds Uncensored: 30 Minute Straight Talk - Let's Talk Bees

I'm just not good at all that stuff. I stuck my hand over my coffee. Hi, Bob. Yes, you're old.

Obviously, this video will go out after you've announced that I'm coming to Narby. But he suggested that instead of me kind of coming up here and saying, "Hi, we're going to talk about Cayman Reynolds," he said to you know even things out. We're not talking bee expo. We're not talking Black Mountain honey. We're not talking anything like that. We're going to talk about bees. So. We get caught up, don't we, in our businesses and doing all of that stuff? But we never get back to like the real nice thing, the fun stuff, the thing that started out, which was beekeeping.

The passion.

Yeah, the passion. So, Vaughan, where's— is the passion still there?

Oh yeah, I enjoy the beekeeping more than any of it still. Raising my own queens, building up splits, that's my favorite part of the bee business. And it's definitely more fun than the logistics of running an exposition. It's so fun being here with you because I get to have relaxed conversations like this versus having to deal with the logistics at my own event. I'm very sleep deprived. The jet lag is a real thing. 7 hours difference.

So I'm not accepting any of these excuses.

Well, no one else would either, I don't think. But the passion is still there for the bee side of things. I really enjoy the bees, dialing in my operation and helping other people be able to enjoy their bees. Bees are easy to enjoy when things are going well. And people want to love the bees. They want to stay in bees, but it can be difficult. And some people say, well, it's expensive and that's why they get out. I don't believe that most of the time. I really believe when they are struggling to be successful and keep their bees alive, there's a guilt thing because you feel bad that you've lost your bees, or maybe you feel like you're not a good beekeeper and you see it in gardening and other things too. Well, I'm just not good at gardening. I'm just not good at all that stuff. I stuck my hand over my coffee.

A ball came in like a European-style coffee, and he was like, "Yeah, man, I have it with." Was it like heavy cream?

I don't know, but it's good.

It's good. And anyway, I bought him another one, and he he doesn't drink it like a European. He does this thing. You know what you do? You know Austin Powers? They call it the Belgian dip.

No, I haven't known anything about that. What? Why?

Milk nose. I know, I know, I know.

Meant to.

It's how we drink it in Belgium. It's called a Belgian dip.

Dr. Evil, while you were frozen— I, uh, I was homeschooled. I didn't watch TV.

Oh, did you not? You don't know Austin Powers, the film?

I mean, I know of it. I've never seen it.

Dr. Evil, when he drinks his— he drinks it like this. This week, let's go.

They probably made this for Europeans to watch. I don't know what you're Is it?

Well, maybe.

Probably not. It's just, it's probably American films. But anyways, I really do believe that people want to enjoy their bees, but they get out because they feel guilty because they're not good enough to keep bees. Okay. And so we need to get them past that point to where they can have some success, stay into beekeeping and grow. And even if it's 3 hives all they want, we need to help them be successful. So I have a strong passion for making my own bees. have a passion for helping people be sustainable with bees, just as much today as I was 20-something years ago.

And I love that, and we're very much aligned on that because I think there's nothing worse, yeah, than making up a nuc, yeah, giving it to— say I'm giving you a nuc, there you go, Cayman, there's your nuc, see you later, and just— and then they ring up and they say, oh, like I saw on another person's website in the UK, a customer had rung up and said, or sent an email and said, I don't know how to open the entrance of the nuc. Do I need to open it? Like, that's the question that came through. And the person, the kind of like seller of the nuc, was like making fun of them a little bit. And I thought, whoa, like there's 10,000 bees that are probably going to die there. Like, tell them how to open the nuc. And then if they're asking that question, they need some help, they need some assistance. And like, that's our job, isn't it, to educate?

We also have to set realistic expectations. There are some out there who will say it's just throw bees in a box where it's easy and And things like that. And, and sometimes things work out and some locations are easier to keep bees than other locations. We have parts of the United States where you don't even have to be near as dedicated to beekeeping to have bees. You may lose them, but you're going to catch a lot of swarms. People watch a YouTube video and think, well, it's easy for them in Florida or South Louisiana. I can do this in Michigan. Absolutely no, you cannot do the same thing. The forage is different, the season's different, the winters are different. And so you have to watch those YouTubers and hopefully the YouTubers will provide some of that context. So we want people to also have realistic expectations that losses are part of beekeeping. And so you are going to have that, that is normal. What we want to do is help you be successful to the point where you have insurance colonies That you're— whether it's catching swarms or whether it's making your own splits, that you're sustainable. Because I lose about 30% of my operation throughout the year. We just run a few hundred colonies, but we can do our very best. We've talked to experts like Bob Benny, who's been doing this longer than I've been alive. Hi, Bob. Yes, you're old. What a wise guy. Wise enough to be able to put up with wisecracks like me. But, you know, you talk to these experts, they lose bees. Everybody loses bees. That's part of it. In nature, most bees don't live multiple years. That's nature weeds them out. And so we need to make sure when we meet a new beekeeper that's getting into it, we give them, give them these realistic expectations.

Honest expectations.

Honest expectations. And teach them that part of life is death. Obviously, as beekeepers and caretakers of the bees, We would like to avoid as many or all of those as possible. But many times we'll come to a yard every 2 weeks. We like to inspect every 2 weeks. And out of 40 colonies to a yard or whatever the number is, we're going to typically find after a week or 2 of— we've done queenless with one of the colonies. And so sometimes they'll requeen themselves. I would say probably 70, 75% of the time, if it's a good time of the year, they're going to requeen successfully. There's a lot of things that could cause them to not be successful. And then the new beekeepers may not know that yet, and they have those losses and they think it was their fault. And sometimes nature's just hard on them. So we always— if I want to keep 100 colonies, I'll have 130 go into winter, and I always have my own backup queen. So once I started getting to that point, we just don't have to buy bees. We produce higher quality bees than most of the time that we can buy from a large commercial operation who Can't take the time to let queens lay for several weeks before they ship them out. And so it just keeps us sustainable. We have more uniformity. It makes us profitable. And not everybody's in this to be profitable, but everybody is in this to have live bees in their boxes. So realistic expectations and having these backup colonies. I'm very passionate about splitting and sustainability.

I'm a big fan of splitting. I think one of the things you hit on there that is very important though, and I speak to some people and they say, I've never lost a colony of bees. Yeah, never.

And you just go, how long have you been keeping bees?

And they're like, 15 years, and I've never lost one. And I say, what's your secret? And do you know what their secret is? Do you know what his secret was? That he just, he goes through all of his colonies. Yeah. And if he finds a drone-laying queen, he kills it. And he shakes colonies out. And if a queen comes back and it doesn't, it isn't mated, he kills that one. And I say, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's, that's, that's—

They're losses.

They're losses. And he's like, oh, well, if you counted, those are probably about a 30% loss. And I'm like, you know, what you're telling people there is quite dangerous because you're giving this perception that beekeeping is really easy.

Yeah.

And that you're never going to lose colonies and, you know, you're going to get 100% success rate. So when inevitably beginner beekeepers do lose them, they feel bad, don't they? And they blame themselves. Yeah.

And then they get out because they feel guilty because they're just killing bees now is what they feel like. And let me tell you, I was really good at that when I got into beekeeping for several years. I was probably losing 60 to 70%. In Tennessee, we have a fairly long season. We start brood rearing in February.

Wow.

And then we stop. If you have Italians, you'll have brood almost 12 months out of the year. So we're reproducing a lot of varroa mites.

Yeah.

And so you're going to have a lot of collapse usually by the end of September and October in Tennessee from varroa and the viruses. And I didn't know what was going on for a number of years. And then when I started treating, I was reading literature from the '90s, which worked in the '90s, but didn't apply to that time period. And so I wasn't treating enough. And so now we started doing alcohol washes and we've dived into what works for our season. And so since we never let the mites get large enough to affect our bees anymore, they're just so vibrant.

Yeah.

I'm drawing comb at times of the year where I used to struggle to get bees to be strong to go into winter. So it's just this Totally flips the script on that. And you talked about these people that are giving this bad information out. Some of them do it with no harm intended, and then some of them, they don't care if harm actually happens. And there are very few of those, but there are some that they're just like, well, new beekeepers, you know, they need to learn anyways, you know, just let them figure it out, you know, whatever. I think it's a terrible idea.

Hunt on the bees.

It's hard on the bees, and some people don't want new beekeepers coming into the industry, and I do not like that idea at all.

It's an interesting angle, that one, because I feel that pressure as well in terms of people not wanting new people to come in and do things differently.

Oh, it's going to be competitive. They're going to compete with our honey cells. They're going to compete with our bee yard locations. They're going to compete with this. Well, but the industry is thriving, so I guess you have to think outside of your own selfish desires to a degree, and To me, the stronger the beekeeping community is, I think the more opportunities there are created for people who are willing to look outside of whatever I guess they want. You know, we have guys down there who, like you were saying, don't count these as losses. One of the main things I see in those southern states is, well, I always have 12 hives. That's my number. I never lose anything. You look into it and they are losing. But they replace them with swarms that they catch.

Yeah.

And so that, that those are losses. And not everybody can catch that many swarms. I, again, those southern states, there's so many commercial beekeepers down there running tens of thousands of hives. And the climate is perfect for bees. There's almost no winter at all. There's pollen in December. It's so much easier to keep bees in those areas. And the commercial beekeepers, send off a lot of swarms, so they repopulate those wild populations of bees that people keep catching.

It sounds really nice and easy to keep bees in America, but when you look at like what's going on in America with bees and collapsing and varroa and stuff, it's not that pretty, is it? So what's going on? Why is it so bad?

You know, so like everything, it's complicated, and that's why you can't believe media for everything.

Indeed.

Watch those YouTubers, they could be the worst. Not the American ones, of course.

Obviously.

No fake YouTube videos. Some of that's true and some of that's not true, Lawrence. So it's hard to get to the bottom of it, but beekeeping has its own politics and stuff like that. And the more I've looked into it, yes, there are some significant losses. You know, if it was absolutely catastrophic, nuc prices would have gone up, package prices would have gone up, queen prices and availability would have been harder. There was a tiny bit of that, but there wasn't an extreme amount of that. But government funding did go up for beekeepers with losses, and some people were pretty excited about that.

I'm not a skeptic. Do you think that's potentially engineered? Make the numbers look worse than they are so we can get more funding?

You can spin stuff, and it's not like it's a flat-out lie, but it's not the full truth either. And there's a combination of stuff, because every year we have beekeepers that have really bad losses, but I know a lot of commercial beekeepers Who had great overwintering success. These are guys that breed for hygienic bees. They do the washes. They're super dialed-in beekeepers. And funny enough, they have consistent success and have had it for many years. Whereas some of these guys are shoot-from-the-hip cowboys and they just like, well, I think we need a treat, we're going to throw it in there. And so it's a hodgepodge of different things. Getting to the bottom of it is really difficult. So when I see people who I know are financially doing just fine trying to get more government money, I do not like the looks of that, whether it's legit or not.

I'm not a fan.

I'm not a fan either. If something really catastrophic happens, I'm okay with some assistance in that time period. But consistent assistance props up bad beekeeping. We're seeing that.

We definitely are. You know, one thing, one observation, differences between the UK and the US. In the UK, to get any sort of funding bee-related is difficult, even for things like research. Do you know, a real good amount of money is going into research for different things. Don't really get that in the UK that much. But in the US, it's a big, big thing, isn't it? You put huge amounts of money into it. I saw one of the posters down there and they were evaluating like the different protein supplements for bees and which one is the best. We need more of that, I think, more good research.

We do need more good research, but we also need accountability. And a lot of times when we do get money, there's, there's not a whole lot of accountability with it from what I've been able to observe. Throwing money at a problem rarely fixes things. If it's going occasionally to the right person who is going to be honest and have integrity, well then that's great. But some people don't have that drive to accomplish a lot with the money and a lot of it gets wasted. I get tired of seeing it. So I'm more of an economic person. I want to see the research done. But I want to see that go into a tangible product or tangible information that's useful to beekeepers, that helps them save money or make money. And hopefully it helps a company that's producing the product, maybe designed from some research from the university. And so it's a circular effect that the universities are helping us create solutions for the industry, and products can be created that then the beekeepers can use, and the economics of it Works out.

So it's like self-perpetuating, almost kind of like self-perpetuating.

You know, we're seeing that a lot at the Bee Expo where we're getting a lot more communication and involvement, and we're seeing some great PhDs and bee labs working with good beekeepers so that they're able to do more research and test more bees. And I think there was already collaboration between some researchers and some American beekeepers, but now it's actually getting on our stages. And so people get to see that collaboration. It inspires more collaboration. And also a lot of the information was known by the commercial guys, but it wasn't known by the small-scale beekeepers. And so just being able to communicate that information at a faster pace, and I know that's what you try to do, that's what I try to do, and the communication is important.

Yeah, it's sharing the knowledge, isn't it? And I think in addition, accepting that nobody knows it all. Like, I learned, I've learned so much since I've been here in Copenhagen, just about different things in beekeeping.

It's been great.

Yeah, it's good, isn't it? And I think a lot that you get some beekeepers who say, well, I've been doing that for 30 years and 23, 23. Yeah, well, 23, and it's the right way. And I think, no, you can, you can try different things. So I said I wasn't going to talk about the Bee Expo or you coming to Apimondia, but come on, tell me about the Bee Expo. Tell you why you're here at Apimondia and give it a plug.

Well, I'm here at Apimondia because I'm a beekeeper first and foremost. Some people are coming up to me and, hey, it's a YouTuber, and You know, I'm a beekeeper that has a YouTube channel, is the way I look at it. And now that happens to have the Bee Expo. But I'm here to have fun first and foremost, because I'm just a bee fanatic. I love collecting old bee books. I love old bee gadgets. This is my thing. And it has been my entire adult life and all of my teenage years pretty much. So it's my thing. And then getting to meet people like you and collaborate and learn More about the UK beekeeping and other countries as well, helping give me perspective so I can make better educational videos based on that perspective. Plus, there's tons of brilliant minds here, and so I want some of that.

And and Cayman Reynolds.

And and and Cayman Reynolds, I guess. But brilliant thinking to hopefully leech onto me a little bit. And of course, the innovations here. I'm wanting to see what's the latest and greatest and stuff. So that's the Apimondia decision. I've never been before. It hasn't disappointed. And it's very different from what we have at the Bee Expo. And I'm honestly thankful because since it's fresh for me, it's really exciting. I'm not running anything here, so I just do whatever the heck I want. It's awesome.

Isn't it nice? It's like a breath of fresh air, isn't it? I didn't know Cameron was coming here and I Obviously, this video will go out after you've announced that I'm coming to Navi.

Surprise!

Yes, so I'm going to speak at Navi, but I'd messaged Cayman because I said, you need to— we need to fix this presentation, Dan, don't we?

Yeah.

Cayman messaged back saying, can't talk, I'm in Copenhagen. And I said, well, I've got a surprise for you.

I am too.

I'm literally behind you. There we go. So we caught up, didn't we? We got the presentation sorted as well now.

Yeah, we got the presentation sorted. Looks like we're going to be doing a workshop too, which will be an exciting offering for people who want more hands-on and able to ask questions because there's a few thousand people at the show. And just like this one, it's hard to move around. You know, there's just— there's so little— there's— you have a few days, but it's not enough to talk to thousands of beekeepers. So the workshop is real intimate for those who want to be able to get the details. And I'm not going to spoil the subject, at least I'm not going to. There's a lot of people who want to learn from each other, to get excited over and see the latest innovations. Education, but also just fervor and having a fun time and a bunch of laughs. Obviously, nobody understands what a beekeeper goes through better than another beekeeper. And so we can kind of celebrate our love for bees in one location. The North American Honeybee Expo does have some international interest, but that's where it's really different here, where you just have so many different languages in one location. Where the North American Honeybee Expo is really mostly North America, Definitely a significant amount of participation from countries like the UK.

We have, and Canada, eh?

Well, Canada's part of North America. We we do claim them.

That is true.

Yeah, for sure. I don't think they'll they'll let us forget it either, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Ian Stepler, we're talking about you.

Is Ian making an appearance?

You know, we talked about it, and he he thought he was going to, and then he changed his mind or something like that.

So he's holding out for a 2027 slot.

Well, he was. That's what he said the year before. So you know, he just playing hard to get like. one of those girls that wants to kind of lead her boyfriend on for a little bit. So we're just waiting for Ian to come around and let us have him back, I suppose. We love you, Ian. Yeah. Don't forget to treat another round of oxalic acid vapor on those mites for me. So, but as far as the North American Honeybee Expo goes, we are a selling conference. And I think that's where the biggest difference between Apimondia and our show is, is You're moving semi-loads of product and people are excited to do that. So it's just a little bit of a different take, but massive respect to the Appamundia folks because to move it from one country to another, I understand the logistics of just moving from one state to state. I can't imagine country to country. So very impressive work. And of course, it's just been fun.

It has been very fun. Right. So to finish it off then, Kamin, give me your Favorite moment of the last few days can be anything. It can be the it definitely aren't going to be the coffee that you've got in your hand. But, Bon, what is it? You can take a moment to think. Best moment.

Oh man, there's been a lot of great moments because there's a lot of great people here. I need to stop slouching down like this because it makes you look even more tall than me.

Am I doing it right? Sorry. Yeah, this is yeah. That's not to this position here.

Yeah. As far as funny moments go, we obviously don't speak Danish or anything like that or or any of the language. I can barely speak English properly.

I'm not the greatest.

English either. And then there's guys like Gwen that don't speak English at all. Uh, successful title defense for the heavyweight champion of the world. My guest at this time, Hulk Hogan. I hope he's watching this. We will. We love you too. It was great to meet you. That was, that was, that was a highlight to get to meet him. I didn't know he was going to be here and getting to hang out with you.

Uh, did you know that Griff— that my favorite thing about Griff, I'll let you come back to yours, is that he seems to add an extra R into Varoa. So how'd you say Varoa? You say a thorougha, thorougha, thorougha. Listen to Gris, he's a varora. He has 3 Rs. I don't know where he's got the extra R from.

It's hilarious. We literally watch his videos just to hear him talk. It's not that the content's not good, it's just his speech is even more entertaining. So unique. And unique. And it's what bugs me the most is my wife enjoys listening to it more than listening to my voice sometimes. So it's kind of painful. But it is what it is. I watched him, you know, walk in. He's wearing all this Carhartt stuff, all this American stuff.

Wow. His branding, his branding has gone down well then. Even Cayman knows that Griff wears Carhartt.

I'm jealous of the stuff he was wearing because Carhartt's my thing too. But I—

Is it really?

Oh, I'm wearing Carhartt boots right now.

I'll tell you what, I'm not even joking.

Griff, I mean, look at this.

Sort it out.

Yeah, you got all— I got all the gear, but I didn't come fully decked out because I didn't want to look like just solid American. Yeah, and so I was like, you know, we're gonna try to, you know, be a little bit more blend in a little bit. I wasn't gonna wear like a giant USA flag shirt or anything like that, and a cowboy hat or something.

Macho Man Randy Savage is what I would have gone with. Yeah.

Oh yeah, Macho Man.

Oh, I'll tell you something.

We're gonna go to Applemondia, and let me tell you one thing.

This is the best. This is turning into the best interview ever. Can I be Hulk Hogan? I want to tell you something, Mean Gene.

You know, I don't. I've never watched any of the fake wrasslin'. And what a battle that one was.

Well, you know me, Gene. Ever since I won the WWF, World Wrestling Federation, heavyweight title, man, I've been on one heck of a roll. I've been to Tokyo, Japan.

Or anything on the fake payment. It is totally fake.

Slam like that.

Right. That's right. I've never seen any of those, but I've just seen a couple clips of, uh, Macho Man, a few of those guys. And there's a lot of guys in my area that seem to like NASCAR and stuff like that. I'm what you call a Southern gentleman. Okay, not a hick or a redneck. There's a distinction. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff.

So that's a good question though. What's your hobby outside of beekeeping then? If you were going to settle down for a weekend of having some fun, what's fun for you?

So it's hard not to turn everything into a business or a job. I love agriculture, but I turn it into a lot of work. If I'm doing something strictly for fun that I just won't turn into business, I have to say it's scuba diving, snorkeling, or swimming or something like that.

Oh, I really, you know, I like scuba diving. I'm a bit scared of water though, like deep water. I love snorkeling. Snorkeling is, you know why snorkeling is so nice? And I bet this is, you'll be the same as me. Your head, you're manic in your head. Yeah, it's just a million miles an hour, so much stuff going on. And then when you're snorkeling, you can't do anything. All you can do is just like watch the fish and relax, and your body's like, yes, that's what I want.

It is, uh, I feel so much healthier after doing it. I think there's a lot of different effects to it. The water is really good at anti-inflammatory properties of water cooling your body down, but also, like you said, watching the fish, it deafens the sound coming into my Like all this noise has an effect. It's not that I can't handle it, but it just shuts things down. And so you go to the Big Island of Hawaii, you go to Two Step, and you will forget to breathe. It's so beautiful.

Oh, it sounds really—

I mean, we're talking corals 3 times the size of this table. Wow. Needlefish this long. I mean, just all kinds of tangs. And my favorite is the black durgons. But as far as The hobbies go, that is my favorite because I'll just enjoy it. I feel good afterwards. I would love to be doing that right now. This has been really good because I've learned a lot from Aprimondia. I've listened to some really good speakers. I found a couple that it's going to be great at our show in the future. Awesome. A couple researchers that just have some really good stuff to share. We've been talking, of course, to several people about Tropilaelaps and the country of Georgia. And so Finding out what is actually going on. And so it's been a very worthwhile trip. Just having a blast. But I just want anyone who's watching this to realize that, hey, beekeeping is a journey. It takes time. You can be very successful at this hobby or as a sideline or as a business, but it doesn't happen by accident, at least not in my experience. So, you know, put your brain to it. Be patient. Don't understand that losses and dealing with that is part of the process. And also enjoy. Don't forget to, even if it's your first year, get you a spoon and get you some of that natural honey in your system. Your tongue will thank you. It says it's— we're producing a health food product. And so we need to all be conscious of that and protect— use pure wax if we're going to use a treatment, which is what I recommend. Use the organic variety that are very clean. And maybe the thing that bothers me the most about beekeeping, yeah, this is definitely what bothers me the most.

Go on, getting into the nitty-gritty now.

Is all of the fraud. All of the what? Not just the fraud with the honey.

Oh, the fraud, yeah.

The fraud is we're seeing a lot of it with the equipment that new beekeepers are buying, and they don't know because they're just getting in, and they're buying these kits that have these petroleum waxes on it that are not food grade. They're not tested, and they come from certain parts of the world that do not care. And the bees are taking that off of the woodenware, and they're mixing it with beeswax or mixing it with propolis, and they can have heavy metals in them that does not belong in our hives. Not good for the bees, and it's not good for anyone who's eating the wax or the honey.

I hate this, and I see, we see it at home. You go to good manufacturers of foundation, and you pick it up, it's a nice color, but it's not like glowing, but you pick it up, you smell it and you're like, that is beeswax. And then you get this luminous yellow one that is like, oh, it looks the part, but oh, a bit sticky, a bit plasticky. And you go, you're like, the smell of anything. That is not beeswax, is it?

We're seeing a lot of it.

Oils, blood.

Yeah, and well, it's a terrible way to start. It is so discouraging because bees will not draw that foundation correctly. And so people think that they're getting a good kit, and a lot of times they'll even stamp made in the USA, at least for us, Probably for you guys, it's England Woodenware.

Do they do stuff like packaged in the USA and put a big American flag on it?

Oh yeah, but there's like Bee Castle USA and all of it comes from China. They are not using beeswax and pure products. And unfortunately, it's hurting the local companies that are doing things properly. It's cheaper. Of course, we can't compete with the price, but if you're wanting your bees to be more successful, Just spend just a little bit more money, and you'll have a pure product, and your bees will thrive on it instead. But it's frustrating because the new beekeepers already have such a mountain to climb as far as learning about bees and all the dynamics there, much less using equipment that will never give them results that they need. So that, I don't like that.

That's really, really good advice, Caiman, because as you say, you want to set people up for the best chance to succeed, don't you? And if you're giving them substandard equipment, They've not really got much of a hope. But for those people, just make sure when you're buying your kit to go out and like challenge it and ask the questions, and don't be afraid to spend a little bit more. Your return on your investment is going to be much better with like a good start and good kit.

100%. And if I'll add one more thing, is that losses are part of beekeeping, but bees are super dynamic, and that goes in both directions. So when they're healthy, they grow at such an exponential rate, And when the season allows. So as beekeepers, we need to realize this, that everything comes in seasons, and bees want to increase in spring and in summer, depends on where you're at. And so when it's time to reproduce, it's a great time to make a split, have an insurance colony or 2. And, you know, if you have a great year and you don't lose anything, well, you've grown your apiary. And then if you lose a hive or 2, you already have those insurance colonies with a great young queen ready to Combine back with maybe the colony that's queenless, and you don't have to buy bees the next year. And the beautiful thing is now you can still get a honey crop off of that colony the following year and then split again. But we can't fight the seasons. That's something that took me a while to learn in Tennessee is we have about 3 months of a dearth in my area. After June 15th, there's no nectar or pollen of significance. And we have robbing until almost September 15th. Wow.

And then you get a flow back in.

And then we get a fall flow if the weather's good. But if we get a drought, it's, it's very— it might be 5 to 7 days.

Wow.

And so we'll have to feed a lot. And so you get these people online that will give you just never feed, never do this, never do that. Never say never. This is agriculture and this is nature.

Livestock.

It's livestock. And so nature some years is overabundant and benevolent. And so in those years, You'll just make a wonderful honey crop and it'll be easy. And those are great years. Then there's years that are oftentimes in between that and the really bad years where you have to feed more than you typically have to do. And so as beekeepers, we have to understand that. And where nature would normally kill off a lot of hives in nature, we can go, okay, these hives are just a little bit below where they should be. As a beekeeper, We're going to keep our bees and recognize they need a little bit more feed, a little bit more TLC. We're going to keep them alive because that's our job. It's a balance between nature and realizing that sometimes the bees just are on their back foot. You know, late swarms, that kind of thing. We could talk all day about bees. That's why we're here.

Cayman, thank you so much for giving me all that time. I really appreciate it. That is it. We are done with Cayman Reynolds for a few months. I'll see him back at NABI. I'm definitely not going to pester him that time. Shout out to anyone?

Uh, hi, Mom. Hi, Mum.

Yeah, say hi to my mum as well. Final word is something that I learned from Griff, which is, if you're going to keep livestock, you're going to have dead stock.

I'm sure I've heard him say that before. I probably just couldn't understand it.

Yeah, but it's true though, isn't it? It's saying to people, if you keep bees, if you have a number of bees, you're going to end up with some that die. And that's a normal thing. Don't beat yourself up about it. Do what you can to keep them alive, keep them safe, and go again.

Just have some tenacity. All the best beekeepers are tenacious. And that comes from Bob Binney. So if Bob Binney says it, it must be true, right?

Yeah, definitely. And Bob Binney, we need to get me doing this with Bob at the North American Home Expo.

So you're like, make it happen. We'll make it happen. The grandfather of North American beekeeping will be at the Bee Expo.

Brilliant.

For the 6th year in a row. Thanks, Bob. Yeah. Be safe.

Awesome.

Good talking, Laurence.

Cheers, Caiman.

Have fun.

See you later.