Beekeeping Insights From Ireland's Honeybee Guardian , Boomtree Bees

The following interview was recorded for the Poor Proles Almanac podcast with guest Mick from Boomtree Bees in Ireland. Boomtree Bees's mission is to help conserve and rewild the native but not very well-known honeybee through habitat creation and development. What's particularly interesting is their use of log hives with the goal of mimicking the natural habitat for honeybees in the Irish countryside. Mick's incredible knowledge on the subject of honeybees, and specifically the native honeybee to Ireland, is inspiring.

While most of our audience is in the United States, I think it's really important to understand the context of the honeybee and maybe start thinking about its place within our ecosystem.

Andy:

Mick, thanks so much for joining us, so tell me a little bit about this organization, boomtree Bees. Where it came from, kind of, what was the inspiration for it?

Michiel Verspuij:

Right. So I'll have to start off kind of with my background. So I grew up in Holland, where I kind of lived in the countryside, and because of the involvement and me being out there all the time, I got real interest in trees and conservation work. So I kind of followed that up with studies then. So I did an international, went to an international college in Vilp, you call it, so that's in Holland, where I studied forestry and landscape management. I did finish off with a kind of more individual subject in conservation work, so looking after national parks and trying to increase the remnants of forests that we've left and obviously to improve them for long-term outlook for the public. So with that, I came over here in Ireland in 1999, like a small project with a couple of national parks.

While I was over here, I noticed that the kind of setup over here, like in the forestry and the landscape management, was quite poor. It was very focused on big-scale production, just timber production and nothing else. There was no real scope at all for a kind of natural regeneration, I suppose, like nowadays you call that rewilding and everything. But yeah, so that's my, my whole kind of like studies kind of tied in with that. So the company I worked for the time like they said, like I'm really keen to have you over and do some work for us.

So I actually then came back after finishing my studies, and I started up my own contracting company. So I looked after quite a bit of the national parks from there, and obviously, I saw more and more as the years went on. I saw more and more problems, and obviously, I wanted to kind of do something about it, leave a tiny little footprint behind, like if possible. So I actually stepped away from the forestry. I went into organic farming. So I worked for a 30-acre organic vegetable farm, and that's where it became really apparent in that there was, like, was a big problem with pollination here now. So I started to kind of look into how I can improve it. So I started to improve just around the farm. I started to improve the kind of foraging areas for the bees, obviously to attract the bees and to pollinate the crops. So that's where my kind of interest started in bees as well.

But during that period, pure by chance, my friend who was a beekeeper he suddenly passed away and I was then faced with the situation where I inherited a couple of colonies of bees Nice and obviously not knowing what I was doing, because obviously I'd been reading about it but obviously I had no hands-on experience. So I took on a conventional beekeeping course, trying to learn, and obviously, with my background, I kept asking questions and questions kind of more to the natural aspect like of the life of the bee-like, and the more I kept asking, the less answers I was getting. So I started doing more research then afterwards and found a bit more wholesome approaches like that were kind of practiced like in Europe way, way back. We're talking like what, five, six hundred years, where they still use like old tree trunks to manage bee colonies.

From there, I kind of drifted away from organic farming, and I became increasingly interested in bees. So, I started up my company, Boom Tree Bees. It's actually kind of like a deviation, so you have the first section. Boom is actually the Dutch word for tree, but it sounds really good: tree.

Andy:

I was like, what? What is a boom tree? I've never heard that term. I couldn't find anything on it. But now, I know, yes, it's just tree trees. Yes, oh, that's interesting. It's funny.

I think a lot of people go into beekeeping, and your natural inclination is to say I'm going to go take a class. They were cheap. And these people have been doing it for a number of years, often decades, and especially if you come at it from an ecological bent, you end up getting really confused but not making any sense. And then, and then you, you start to think about it. I mean, I remember I'm just like “Jesus. I feel like I'm am totally out of my element, and this should be really. I don't want to say it should be easy, but it shouldn't be this hard.” And then it kind of dawned on me that maybe it's time to step back and reassess all of what we're doing here.

What's interesting about what you're doing is that you've also brought up this idea of utilizing honeybees as pollinators. Now, that is here in the United States. That's kind of a I don't want to say triggering type concept, but a lot of people get really concerned when you talk about save, or they use the phrase save the bees, meaning save the pollinators, and then people start talking about honeybees and it's like no, the honeybees don't necessarily need to be saved here because they're non-native. Now, what's the case in Ireland? I know that England still has a native bee, and I know there's been some really interesting research about the genetics surviving despite the overwhelming number of non-native bees moving into the area. Tell us a little bit about Ireland.

Michiel Verspuij:

So, the situation in Ireland is until a good five to ten years ago, there was no understanding. There were no wild bees whatsoever, no Apis mellifera mellifera. But then, in 2017, there was a study done on 200. I think it was 200 hives, and from the 200 hives, they took samples. They took genetic samples from them and compared them to old samples that they had in one of the European museums. They did a backlink from the early 1800s, I think it was and they compared genetic data from the 200 samples here with those ones, and they found out that a good majority of the samples that they had taken from the hives had still that genetic code, but they had slightly adjusted. So they found out that it's very unique.

So we're actually one of the classes. Now, it's like one of the strongholds of Apis mellifera mellifera in Europe, so we have a completely separate genetic code from the Apis mellifera in other countries.

Andy:

Awesome.

Michiel Verspuij:

Yeah, so, which is very good. So from there, from there then, sort of obviously trying now to protect it. So they actually, from that research, have drafted a bill that went into the government two years ago. They're now trying to protect that genetic code that is found here in Ireland, and it's it's been, it's going through the motions at the moment. I think it's at level two at the moment, so once it gets to level three, then it definitely gets a protection status.

Andy:

The honeybee that raises a really, I think, important question around how do we, how do we define when things are naturalized, you know, is it when the genetic code has become so much different from what it was? And how does that impact, like the relationships that it has within the ecosystem? Because, again, here in the United States, there's a lot of concern that honeybee Apis mellifera mellifera or the Italian or whichever they're outcompeting native pollinators, and to an extent, that is slightly true, but it's a much more complicated conversation. Yes, and I'm sure you're seeing that debate happen in real time.

Michiel Verspuij:

I still get the same question because when people come to me, they ask me, "Oh, well, so how do you work with your bees?”

And when I tell them then right, I have over 250 colonies myself, they go, oh, that's going to have a huge impact, the local environment, this, that and the other. But when I explain to them, then is how my hives are spread out. So I would be working on, say, a grid pattern like on the local map, and I have gridded out in one square kilometers, and I have a hive in each square kilometer.

So I've spread out all over the area and obviously I'm trying to figure out where there is the kind of that natural level of that is not going to be competing with anything else, and so you'll see, some years you might get a slight increase, you might have a few more colonies and some years it might be dropping down, but it's always around that 250 now at the moment. So I see that for myself as a good level, and with it as well, and obviously with all the research that's been done, when you have them that spread out, there is absolutely no problem of competition in between the wild pollinators and honeybees.

Andy:

What are you using to define where you are seeing negative impacts? What do you identify as the key indicator? If somebody is thinking about getting multiple beehives, how many could possibly be too many?

Michiel Verspuij:

Well, you know yourself like a range like of a drone can go up to five kilometers, thereabouts three, four mile. So if you were to put 10 beehives in one location, you have a possibility. There are 600,000 bees. At one given time, they could be out foraging in one little small area, and obviously, at that stage, then obviously, you're going to definitely have an impact because those honeybees will definitely be foraging away, and obviously, they are very dependent on the variety as well. As you're talking about your slightly different subspecies, like the honeybees, some are a bit more competitive than others. So, yeah, our Apis millefera is a bit more frugal, so it doesn't need large stores at all, but say, like some Italian bees or something like they, just they get into real big colonies. I've seen colonies around here, like where you get the numbers up to 100-120,000 apiece in one hive.

With that, obviously you're going to have definitely a certain impact and they've been studies done on, studied where they had in certain locations, say, 15-20 hives where they started to look at, just, for example, the bumblebees and what they're noticing is that actually the size of the bumblebees started to change after a couple of years so they actually went smaller and that's an indication that obviously they don't get proper feeding anymore, so that obviously there's a lack of food for those and obviously then those honeybees and obviously having an impact on the forage for the native pollinators as well so do you think you've kind of figured out and obviously there's a number of things that can play into what kind of food availability there is for pollinators?

Andy:

But have you found kind of in your ecosystem that around one hive per kilometer seems to be a pretty stable and healthy place?

Michiel Verspuij:

Yeah, I tried the first one where I had higher numbers, and I just found that some of the hives today started to slow down. They didn't do as well as other ones in the same area, so I just started thinning it out and thinning it out, and that's what I'm down to now. So, yeah, I don't, but most of the colonies now I have no issues whatsoever. I have colonies on the go now. They're eight or nine years old, and they're thriving every year.

Andy:

That's awesome, and I'm assuming you're not treating them or anything. No, no treatment whatsoever. No, awesome, that's a great transition point. I want to talk about how you're actually housing these bees. The log hives themselves are a really cool concept. Can you speak a little bit about what these might look like to someone who's never seen one and then kind of how that works as a beekeeper?

Michiel Verspuij:

Yeah, okay, so kind of the natural habitat for your honeybee is all tree cavities, and obviously, depending on the type of tree, you're going to get certain shapes and sizes. On the type of tree, you're going to get certain shapes and sizes. But what we find around here are natural cavities. They're roughly around eight to eight and a half inches in diameter, and obviously, they're not perfectly straight. They could be kind of more twisted and up and down, whatever.

But that's what we're kind of seeing because here in Ireland, I don't know if you know the last century most of our forest cover is gone. We're down to about 1% of native woodland left and the rest has been all cut away. So the only thing we have left now is young trees up to the age if we're lucky, up to the age of maybe 80-90 years, because they only start to plant again in about the 20s. So obviously, you're going to be working with thinner trees, and obviously, with that, you'll get cavities in the air that are not going to be as big as when you have real old, mature trees that are 400 or 500 years old. Obviously, your cavities could be slightly larger in size, but yeah, so the natural cavity is about 8 and a half inches, so we're trying to mimic those cavities in the trees.

So what we're doing is we're using trees that have died of natural causes, either by storm damage or they have fallen over, or they died of natural causes and they're causing a health and safety risk so they have to be taken down. We repurposed those tree trunks and turned them into those kind of cavities like man-made cavities, but that looked like the natural kind of format.

So, on average, the logs they're in are around three feet long. The diameter of the full log we're talking about is about 20, 22 inches. It can be more, but that's kind of the minimum. So that's allowing a good thick cavity wall of a minimum of 4 or 4.5 inches at least. So the more protection they get from the extremities from the Irish weather, the better it is, because it's much easier for them to sustain that stable temperature inside of 33-35 degrees. So yeah, once we have them hollowed out to that kind of eight and a half inch diameter, we then put a ceiling because we come in lengthwise like through the log, like so with the grain we go straight through.

So we just bore the whole log out and then obviously put it like a ceiling and a floor on it. So the floor is about three inches thick, but it's removable so we can still inspect the height, like from underneath. And then we can go in there with cameras, little borehole cameras, so we can position them in between the cone to still be able to check how the cone is progressing. And then the ceiling is kind of the same, slightly thicker, because obviously we're trying to retain all that heat. So it's a three-inch piece of timber, and then there's insulation above it. It's either sheep's wool or sawdust, and then over that, you'll have a proper roof then, and depending on the situation, it can be either a flat roof, or we can go a bit more aesthetic ones, like so I make thatched roofs as well. That go over protects us more for the look than anything else.

So, I position those logs into trees where possible. From lots of research that's been done out there, especially by some of your fellow countrymen, Thomas Seeley, as well, he did a lot of research on that. There's been quite a bit of research done now in Europe as well, like all the wild colonies that we all find around four to eight meters high where those bees prefer to live. So that's where I position them, higher than into the trees, and then they can take an up, like then with swarms, and move in, and obviously then from there on then they build their own, their own comb all the way down on average, like we're working on about six, seven sheets of comb.

They build in that cavity, and the nice thing about it as well is what we see bees say in a conventional situation: when bees come out in the winter, a good, strong colony comes out in the winter. You know, kind of like a rugby ball shape to have in the hive, yep, and they normally cover six to seven cones.

Andy:

Oh, yeah, that's perfect when you think about it.

Michiel Verspuij:

So it's an ideal size because what you get throughout that whole winter period they're sitting from wall to wall. There's no cold spots at all in that hive. So yeah, that's why we're kind of working with that kind of a format now at the moment and we're kind of toying a bit like just trial and error, changing the volume size. Initially, I started off with maybe 43 liters, and I've gone down to now about 34, 34 liters in volume for the hive.

Andy:

I feel like the last, or at least, maybe I'm just becoming more aware of it, but the last few years, there seems to be a lot more interest in the idea of insulating the hives better because trees were thicker and they provided that natural insulation. And even if you look at the old Langstroth hives, they were originally designed to be much thicker than the Langstroth hives we use today, and I think commercialization has pushed for these. You know, half-inch walled boxes, everything has to be lightweight.

Michiel Verspuij:

Yeah, exactly because the idea of those framed hives is not to suit the bee; it's to suit the beekeeper. They're lighter to pick up, yeah, and they just struggle. You know it's so funny. I see a lot of research here locally, like people applying for grants to trial different ways to insulate the Langstroth hives, and it's basically the government is now paying people to figure out how to do how we used to do 150 years ago. So it's like we're relearning ourselves, even though the information is already out there. We just have to go find it.

Andy:

Now, with these log hives. We're talking about history way, way older, but there are people that have been doing it basically perpetually, somewhere, mostly in Europe, Eastern Europe, and Northern Europe. How accessible is this idea of using log hives for the average backyard beekeeper?

Michiel Verspuij:

At the beginning, when I started off, I was very much frowned upon. I was getting the same kind of reaction as what geese are getting over there with saying it's good to protect honeybees. The whole idea of me just putting out hives, not checking them at all, yeah, no one likes that here, because I only go in twice a year, like for my inspection, once in spring and once in autumn time, just to see how the colony progressed and what they've done throughout the season. So I was getting lots of frowning, and it took a couple of years for sure, where people obviously could see then.

My numbers were only increasing. I wasn't losing any numbers. I went like, say, from I started off with a couple, just big four or five and then very rapidly, like it, went into 50, 100 and turn now over 250 and they can see now that the bees that I have myself they're much calmer, they're not aggressive at all. There's no need to go in there with guns blazing, with smoke and everything, because it's so calm.

I can literally lean up against the entrance hall with my eye, and they fly around, and nothing happens at all. So now I have people constantly coming to me looking for bees. They say, "Oh, is there any chance we could have some of your bees?" Uh, because they notice them. They definitely notice that they're much calmer than their ancestors, less stressed, and less aggressive as well.

Andy:

Yeah, and that's how you get the genetics out there, as long as they don't treat them basically.

Michiel Verspuij:

Well, you see, the whole idea behind the project that I started myself here with all these hives is to establish a sustainable population of good-stock bees.

So bees that are able to fend themselves like in the wild can do whatever they want, and every year they produce in a swarm of bees, and those bees then I can either pass on or, if they're too far away from from your own house, I could say to local beekeepers if you're looking for bees there, these are the locations in your locality.

If you want some swarms, you can go and put up some bait boxes and use those. So what you're doing is you're getting rid of the need for importation of important bees because the demand here is phenomenal to buy, to have. Just in general, I think we're ranging at around 400 euros per little nook, like a six-frame hive for bees. That's for repair now, and it's only getting more and more because the demand is going up. So I see there's a great opportunity for the whole country if we get it on a nationwide level. Got it on a nationwide level where you have all these spots dotted around with native stock sitting there, and all the beekeepers then can benefit from it. So you can completely then rule out the need for importation.

Andy:

Are you seeing people becoming more open to the concept of natural beekeeping?

Michiel Verspuij:

Yeah, definitely, and with the game, because people get so frustrated with treatments and chemicals that's being used. We over here, like our most basic hive, like we call it a national hive, the depth of the brood frames; they're only nine inches. And they're just not suitable.

You just, when you're looking at the colony, when you inspect them, you can see it doesn't suit those bees at all because they'll just fill that whole frame with brood, yeah, literally from left to right, from bottom to top, and there's no way where they have that classic band of pollen around it or only stores. So what you're doing straight away, when you have a solid frame, then somewhere else in the hive they have to store away the food. And obviously, when they're rearing brood-like, obviously, the closer by you can have it, the better it is for the development of those of that new young brood, so it's, it just doesn't suit at all. It doesn't suit at all, unfortunately. And then you just that's why I see then lots of call, they're getting stressed over time. They swarm more multiple times as well.

Andy:

This past year is my first year testing doing an extra deep top bar hive as opposed to Langstroth and, um, giving them that extra space. It's the first year I didn't treat and the first year that I had a successful overwinter. And I'm sure those three things are not correlated. It's because they have access to the food that they need, the spacing that they need, the insulation that they need, and they've been successful. And that, I think, is given the fear that is around this concept of natural beekeeping. Here in the United States, in particular, people will try to get you in trouble with the government for not treating your bees. It's absolutely insane and frightening. So it's cool to see it seems like it's starting to change a bit here, but it's awesome to hear that it's also changing over there.

Michiel Verspuij:

Yeah, oh no, it's definitely the only thing you're doing. You're stopping the bee from actually adapting naturally to the likes of varroa or other pests and viruses and whatever, but you treat them constantly, like you're kind of subduing them constantly all the time, and you're just making the thing worse. Because now we I think it was only this week now we've got now a new chemical that's brought onto the market for the treatment of Varroa, because they said now some of the other treatments that they have, they don't work anymore. So what they're saying is well, they're not saying it, but what's happening is the Varroa is getting completely resistant to those treatments and obviously you're just creating a more powerful pest and obviously, as that goes on and on and on, like you'll get to the point where you can throw any chemical at it and nothing will happen anymore. And then obviously, the beekeeper is then completely defeated because he doesn't know what to do anymore.

Andy:

Yeah, and it's like we're basically creating a superbug for our bees, and it's like we haven't learned anything about America or the way we take care of our bodies and the way we think about health care for people. Where we're dipping into this territory of there are things we cannot fix because they're resistant to everything we give them now, and we're just translating that to the way we maintain one of the most important pollinators for our food crops.

Michiel Verspuij:

That is kind of like the main three. So for me, it's all about the forage and the landscape around them, obviously proper housing, heaven-rise, nice, relaxed, and can be easily so. They don't have to work three times as hard to keep it warm, they don't have to work hard to fend off pests and diseases because they're sitting in such a humid climate inside that nest. Because what I've monitored now, my average humidity in the hive is about 63%, but what I get is I don't get any condensation on the roof level of the get is I don't get any condensation on the on, say, on the roof level of the hive. I don't get any of that at all.

The only place where I get condensation is at the entrance, and obviously, that is the coldest spot in the hive. What the bees actually do there is actually reusing that water that condenses at the entrance and bringing it back into the hive again. So which because with conventional hive, like most of the times, your crown board is is where all of all the humidity condenses on and especially in the winter months, like, you get um downfall from that like and it actually drips then onto the comb where the comb gets wet and obviously you can build up mildews, funguses and whatever it is causing obviously bad health for the bees and obviously the bees come out of the winter more stressed and weaker and obviously the beekeeper has to step in.

But yeah, what I'm really keen to find out myself as well is because of that humid air, because in the log, all my walls are completely coated solid with propolis. As the bees move in, they just kind of naturally build like a complete cocoon all the way around them.

I've seen situations now where it's nearly like two to two and a half mil thick of propolis, like on the walls coated. So any water vapour that is on there is in contact with that. So I'm hoping now that someone is going to do some sampling for me where they can actually see that water that they ingest in the gin that condenses at the entrance, if it already has natural properties like the propolis as well. Because I've seen and I've read a lot of studies like on the good benefits like of propolis for the bees and obviously for the whole superorganism. So I'm wondering if they're ingesting that water that it will have then obviously a beneficial effect of the micro gut of the bee itself and obviously if it improves, it's an obviously make some strong bees as well in the long run yeah, self-perpetuating, basically.

Andy:

Yeah, that's awesome. It sounds like you've been doing all vertical hives. Have you tried any that mimic the top bar style but within the log?

Michiel Verspuij:

So I do them for observation purposes, especially for education, where I make a much shorter hive but use larger logs. So the logs are, on average, probably about a good 28 inches in diameter, and I make it much shorter then so they have a wider comb. The cavities are probably about 12 inches wide, so I can reduce the length of the log. But what it does is it lets them build them. So I then have at the back an observation window where, say, especially for schools and community groups, they can actually take away the backlit and then observe the bees from there without interfering and obviously breaking that seal completely.

They're completely still sealed in, so they don't lose that environment. They build up inside, like over time. Yeah, I do them. Yeah, and they're very successful. I do notice that with that format, the slide lists swarm a bit more than the vertical format. The vertical formats they literally only swarm once, I'd say with the observation one, the kind of horizontal format, I do get cats as well coming from them.

Andy:

Gotcha. Yeah, I know you said you've got hives that are significantly older than anything anyone would ever expect, at least here in the United States. What are like your general survival rates? Like overwintering?

Michiel Verspuij:

Okay, well, last year I lost two colonies.

Andy:

Jesus Christ, I lost more hives.

Michiel Verspuij:

one was a swarm that I caught actually into a log in the first week of September, so I kind of already knew they were going to make it, because our autumns here are very wet and obviously the bees just don't get the chance to build the cone and the other one, I cleaned it out in when was that? The first week of May, I started noticing there was was going into the hive. And when I checked it, um, it turned out that the previous year, like it swarmed, swarmed out and, uh, the new queen she wasn't getting mated or didn't get mated right, because by the time I checked it the only thing that was left in the brood area was old drum brood. So she obviously failed. For whatever reason, maybe she didn't get mated right, or she failed completely. She got taken over by a lame worker.

Andy:

Yeah, well, I mean, that's the selection process.

Michiel Verspuij:

I get loads of people come to me, and they say, like, oh, I said what happens if you see a colony failing on you? And I'm going like, yeah, so be it. I said I'm not going to do anything. I said Obviously, there's a reason why they're failing, and I'm not going to step in at all if they're dying out. They're dying out. Oh, but yeah, you have to protect the bees, and this, that, and so on. So this is the way it works in a natural situation.

If you look at the research, on average, to say that one in five should survive, I find that the success rate is much higher here once they have good housing. You see, it's all down to, um, because every time I put up a hive, I really study the landscape around it as well. So I kind of take into consideration whether there is going to be enough food available throughout the full season. I think it's prime.

You do get people like they buy some bees and plonk it into their backyard and think it's all going to be fine because within the first couple of hundred metres, they might have a few bushes that are flowering at certain times of the year, but other parts of the year, they don't. That's where you get your issues if you don't have that constant supply of food, Especially for here. For us, here it's September time; it's a crucial time for a good flower supply because obviously then you get your. Because here it's September time, it's a crucial time for a good flower to buy, because obviously then you get your forming of winter bees, and obviously those are the ones like if they don't get fed properly with a good pollen mix, then obviously your bees are going to become very weak out of the winter or you're going to have to supplement them with something.

Andy:

Do you supplement at all or no? I'm assuming not.

Michiel Verspuij:

There was no need, absolutely no need. I had colonies going into the winter, and they literally would be the size of your two fists put together, tiny little balls of Beasley after they're swarming out, and next spring, they come out perfectly fine, and they're absolutely thriving. I'm watching one here now. I have cameras in some of my hives that just observe. I actually taught one stage there last month that one colony completely died out, but then all of a sudden, they just started flying again, going back and forth. When I inspect them, they're only sitting on maybe two or three frames at this time of the year, but I guarantee you, like next year, they'll come flying out to the hive again, like in springtime, that's awesome.

Andy:

Yeah, for folks that that want to get their hands involved in something like this, is there a really good resource that you would recommend?

Michiel Verspuij:

If you want to take a more holistic approach to The Natural Life of Honeybees, I recommend it, over here education is very focused on the beekeeper.

Andy:

The treatment schedule.

Michiel Verspuij:

Especially the way to go about by teaching and everything. Everything you learn into a beginner's course is kind of 50-50. I think it should be 90-10, 90 all about the bee and 10 only about the beekeeper. But once you go into this course I find myself maybe it's different, with yourselves, I find it's. I wish it was. I take it it's more focused on how the beekeeper gets through the year and not the bees.

So I think there should be a good focus on natural life first. Get a real good understanding of how that works, how the whole process of a swarm moving into a hive or into a space, what to do of a swarm moving into a hive or into a space, what to do. And obviously, from there, you make the decision what kind of hive is going to be most suitable for you with that in mind, because if you can compare your Langstroth or our national hive with s absolutely absurd if you think of it. Yeah, unfortunately. So, there should b’ there should be a real focus.

So for books, yes, obviously you've got your own Thomas Sealy over there. He wrote some brilliant books the Life of Peace, honeybee, democracy and others. There's a few more that he wrote, but definitely those two would be brilliant to start off off, just to get that understanding on what bees actually want and do in the wild, in a wild situation where no one interferes with them. You understand that, and from there on, you step into your conventional beekeeping course because I'll guarantee every person that starts off with that first and then goes into conventional beekeeping because they'll have 10 times more questions for their tutors and look a lot more confused during the class.

They'll see straight away the format of your square box hive, which was at 10 or 12 frames and that's not suited to bees. It's suited to beekeeper so he can go in there, he can pull out the frames left, right, and centre and do the inspections, and then you'll see, sometimes as well, where they literally go. Oh no, I don't want it here in this position. I'll put it over there. Well, that's an absolute no-no in my eyes. But there's no point going into the whole practices of beekeeping and everything. But yeah, no, definitely very good books on that. There's a couple of nice books, like Dawn by Celia Davis what do you call it? Again, Bee Around and About and the Bee Inside Out, I think as well. Very good, interesting books.

Get a couple of books on some of honeybees' inside workings as well. Get a good basic understanding of all the glands and everything and how that works, how the bees communicate. Not many bee courses like that are being taught. They would actually speak about the proper way of communication. They'll do the basic and say you'll have your bee dances and the ram dance and the waggle dance. But the main source of communication is all about pheromones, and that's what they let off by their glands.

The honeybee has multiple glands on their feet, on their head, torso, abdomen and they communicate and with that. If you know that understanding of those glands, you can understand as well when you're looking at the frame. It's what is actually going on with those bees.

Andy:

The pre-homework before you get into the class.

Michiel Verspuij:

You have to because you're taking on a responsibility. If you're committing yourself to taking on bees, it's a huge responsibility because over here, they're still classed as well as livestock. I assume it's the same with yourself. You have an obligation to look after that livestock, and just by you going in and using chemicals left, right, and center, that's not the way you treat animals.

You have to really, really know, like how they operate and how everything works inside the nest for you, then actually make a good judgment of what you have to do, like if there is a problem. Yeah, because the way I always look is, once I see a problem in a hive, I always ask first why I don't go or how do I solve it. No, I always go and look for the problem first. What's actually causing it?

Andy:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's key, absolutely key. Do you have social media for people who want to see your very cool log hives?

Michiel Verspuij:

do. Yeah, yeah, there's a website out there, and so that's boomtreebees.com on Facebook as well. Instagram. Well, it's all the basic stuff. I'm not very good on some of the platforms, but I try my best. Anyone who has any questions can always contact me, either by phone or telephone or email or something on the website. You can contact me as well, and I'll be always happy to help as well.

There's a few times now I've been speaking as well, like for certain beekeepers associations in America. So if groups were interested in that, yeah, always good as well, more than welcome to share like what's going on, because at the moment now

I'm tied in with research as well, like through the university, where they're actually trying to figure out why these colonies are so long-lasting as well. So it's part of now. We're in the second year now of a five-year project where they're sampling bees, they bring them back, and they're testing for diseases and pests and seeing what actually goes on inside the hay. So they're going to be taking the actual samples of any debris that's there. They can see if there's any buildup of heavy metals or anything like that. So we're working on that and then along.

I'm trying to force a new kind of research because I think it's completely neglected. Everyone talks about pesticides and everything, but one of the main things the honeybee collects is water. So I want to have a very good understanding of the water quality, obviously, especially here in Ireland. But I think for yourselves, it should be crucial going to take on bees, and you're going to set them near a water source. If that water source is completely contaminated, it doesn't matter what else goes on, because they're using so much water constantly in the hive, obviously to dilute winter stores, to cool down the comb, they're constantly using it as well, like to for the food as well, like so they're always always at it. If you have a really bad contaminated source, well, there's absolutely no point in even putting bees there because you're asking for trouble then, because it's very quickly those chemicals and heavy metals that build up in the water, especially here.

We probably have one of the worst water quality currently. Bees are struggling in certain areas where we shouldn't even be drinking it. It's that bad. So, obviously, it's bads definitely going to be bad for the bees. So, I want to know what happens w’ what happens with that water.

So, especially in the summertime, when they're using it to cool the comb, where obviously they're kind of just spraying it over the comb to cool it down, how quickly does it build up? So I'm going to use a couple of samples of how I think I'm going to use a couple of samples of hives. I'm going to sit them in certain locations where I know where the water quality is very poor. I'm going to then do the same where the water quality is very good and compare the comb strokes and actually take samples of the comb and do some testing on those, so hopefully I can get that off the ground in the next couple of years as well, where we can do that sampling but lots of money involved.

I'm waiting for the results to go back from the first sampling batch, like last year, so hopefully we get some good data back to find what's going on with the local population here, because they actually found that I had a couple of bees, a couple of colonies, that they actually had a color morph on the pollen basket which the researchers haven't seen anywhere else in Ireland. So there might be that there are even very little micro pockets of locally adapted bees as well. That's awesome, yeah, so I'm hoping to get word back from that. So the minute I get it, yes, it'll definitely be out there.

Andy:

Yeah, that's really cool. I've recently been reading about using lactobacillus to treat your bees or spraying your bees inside the hive to inoculate the hive with additional lactobacillus. Some research suggests that this would help give more mite resistance, so I'm super curious to hear about what you guys are seeing.

Michiel Verspuij:

How does a natural cavity occur? A natural cavity occurs when you get damage on a tree. A branch breaks off by the wind, and then the fungus moves in, and this is a polypore. So the polypore moves. into the wood, and it eats the hardwood out of it, so that whole tree then is already completely surrounded with the fungus itself, and it's then when the bees move in, the fungus is already there, so they're present. The bees make the tree sweat inside as well because obviously you have the food source, like off the tree that runs up creating a heat source and say it's obviously going to draw moisture in from the trees. So they're constantly in contact with fungus. So that's why, when you have those situations where everything is there, it's present already. The galaxy is going to work very well for them.

Andy:

That's awesome. So, Mick, this was super informative. I feel like I learned a ton. I thought I knew what I was talking about before we got into this. So, thanks so much for coming on. I feel, like beekeeping, you can go down these rabbit holes of like super niche, specific content around beekeeping that you can spend hours and months and years researching and then there's like, oh, there's this totally other area that you haven't even thought about and that's really cool and interesting. So I'm glad you're doing the work you're doing.

Michiel Verspuij:

Thanks very much for having me.

To listen to this interview, tune into episode 148 of the Poor Prole’s Almanac.