From the founders
Last month we said pests were next. Dr. Jason Graham spent an hour chatting all things beetles, wax moths, ants, wasps, mites, bears (oh my), and a long run of questions from the chat.
Most of his answers came back to noticing something early, while it was still cheap to deal with.
Watch the full recap below, and join us next month for our live on honey harvests!
— The Primal Bee Team
When does a pest become a problem?
If you open a hive this month and something smells like bread baking, you have your answer.
That's small hive beetles. They carry a yeast that ferments honey, and the smell shows up well before the damage does.
"Because of this yeast that ferments in the honey the beetles carry, it gives off a smell kind of like a bakery. It's going to smell like bread being baked."
Most of the session lived in that gap between the first signal and the real trouble. Dr. Jason Graham (25 years with bees, from the University of Delaware to the lab at the University of Florida) works from integrated pest management, which sets an order: cultural first, then mechanical, then biological, chemical last.
The order comes down to resistance, since a pest can build tolerance to a chemical you keep reaching for and can't do much about a physical barrier.
Then there's the economic injury level, the point where a pest starts taking real resources. There's a level of ants you can look at and decide is fine, and most of the work is knowing where that line sits for you.
On mites, the tray gives you the trend and a wash gives you the count. Average three consecutive 24-hour tray drops rather than trusting one, since natural drop swings day to day, and act on the direction of travel. A mite population can roughly double across a single brood cycle, so moving just under your line beats reacting once you're over it. If you do treat, a sealed hive changes the math:
"The concentration inside of the Primal Bee hive is going to be much greater than in a Langstroth hive because there's not as much dissipation."
Which is why you never carry a wooden-hive dose into this hive. More isn't safer here.
He covered plenty more: why cinnamon and petroleum jelly keep failing on ants and what he uses instead, telling wax moth damage from beetle damage, feeders that don't attract ants, when a robbing screen earns its price, storing frames over winter, whether follower boards invite pests, and what actually keeps a bear out.
We pulled the whole session into one piece, organized by the questions you asked.
🪲 The varroa guide got its first full rewrite in years. Ninth edition, free, and aimed at flattening the mite curve before winter.
🐝 A South Carolina beekeeper found yellow-legged hornets 150 miles north of anywhere they'd been seen. Hornet hunters tracked the nest down in under a week and killed 400 queens in it. Report what you spot.
🛸 Researchers strapped reflectors to bees and chased them with a drone. Every forager flies her own route, within a few centimeters, trip after trip. The lead scientist's words: each bee has its own personality.
📖 NPR and the Poetry Society of America polled the most beautiful words in English. "Mellifluous" placed third, which we're choosing to take personally.
🍯 National Honey Bee Day is August 15, which lands right about when most of you will finally have something to pour.
We're highlighting the photos beekeepers in our community have been sending in from around the world this year.
Got a hive of your own? We want to see it! Drop a photo in the Primal Bee Facebook group or tag us. We're collecting them for a global gallery 🐝
Until next time
If you've been putting off a mite count, this is the month. Ten minutes with the tray now beats a much worse conversation in October.
Next month we're doing it again, same format, another hour of your questions answered live. The topic will be about honey harvesting, so reply to this email or drop your questions in the Facebook community and we'll build the session around what you send.
Until then, happy harvesting!
The Primal Bee Team 🐝