Judging your Honey
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 7: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Judging your Honey Today we judge your honey. Not by flavour, but by the tiniest nuances of bottle fill and floating specks of bee smoker ash. Our guide is the accomplished Calgary honey judge, Linda Symmes. If you have ever considered participating in the fine art of preparing for a honey competition, we spill some secrets from the hidden, anonymized world of the judge: what do judges actually look for when they consider your jar for the top prize? Does it pay to bribe the judge? These and other hints and...
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Spring Honey Bees
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 6: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Spring Honey Bees Bidzina and Ron talk about the status of their hives, leading to a discussion about dandelion honey, which Ron’s colonies produced in abundance this year. An intense early flow can lead to swarming, which happened to some of Bidzina’s hives. Two migratory beekeeping mishaps are mentioned – one in Oregon, the other in Washington state. Pretty messy. Finally, should you register your bees with the government? And related - do people every level shotguns at bee inspectors? This episode was...
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Alberta Native Bees in Trouble
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 5: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Alberta Native Bees in Trouble We chat about the troubles facing native bees with (ANBC) Executive Director Megan Evans. Pollinators of all sorts are essential to the health and success of our environment. Understanding the habitats and lifecycles of the 371 known species of bees in Alberta is the first step towards ensuring the prosperity of these pollinators. This is part of ANBC's work. Learning about the issues that hinder bee success is necessary before remedies can be found. Megan discusses climate change...
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Thousands and Thousands and Thousands of Queens
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 4: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Thousands and Thousands and Thousands of Queens Dedicated to the memory of Florida queen breeder David Miksa This episode was recorded two days before David Miksa passed away. His son Ted and I chat about this remarkable beekeeping family and about queen breeding in general. We jump right into our conversation, catching up with Ted at the end of a long day of his work on the farm. Among the topics covered are running mating nucs through the hot Florida summer; banking queens in Florida (and how that...
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Bee Thievery
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 3: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Bee Thievery Pay close attention and you may pick up a few clues to reduce honey bee hive thefts. Listen even more closely and you may pick up tips on how to steal colonies. But please don't. It's not worth time in the big house. We also chat about the apiary in a box (), Apimondia's upcoming , Ron's queen-rearing presentation for , a scheme to raise queens from one single colony (Ron is a skeptic), and ideas around swapping Canadian bees for southern hemisphere bees once a year. But mostly we talk about a that...
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A Rose among the Bees
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 2: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – A Rose among the Bees With Rose, our conversation starts with a bee walking on Ron's neck, progresses to a stash of wax, some bee work, civilization, parasites, and beeswax, beeswax church candles, bees coming to America, mead, monks, America's first pauper (who was a beekeeper), tomato pollination, Rose's training of dogs to find foulbrood, and so much more. This episode was recorded in April, 2025. Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: About Ron...
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Philosophy of Bee Happiness
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Episode 1: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Philosophy of Bee Happiness With Daniel Miksha, we try to unravel the philosophy of happiness. We barely touch on our intended theme (Can bees be happy?), but we lay some of the essential groundwork. This episode was recorded in April, 2025. Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: About Ron Miksha: Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: [email protected]
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Season 4 Trailer
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 4 Trailer: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Season 4 Trailer A quick preview of Season 4! How will we treat for mites? Is spring honey any good in the north? (Ron doesn't think so.) And Bidzina muses about building a cabin where paying customers can enjoy the air exhausted by honey bee colonies. This episode was recorded in March, 2025. Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: About Ron Miksha: Finally: email your questions, comments, and existential angst: [email protected]
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Arizona's Monica King
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 3 Episode 11: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Arizona's Monica King Our best podcast so far. We chat with Monica King, who rescues Africanized Honey Bees and teaches beekeepers in Tucson, Arizona. Monica's bee rescue web page: This episode was recorded in March, 2025. Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: About Ron Miksha: Finally: email your questions, comments, and existential angst: [email protected]
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Spring feeding
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 3 Episode 10: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Spring feeding Before we look at spring feeding strategies in the northern part of the northern hemisphere, we take a detour through a few important news stories, including the effect tariffs might have on honey sent from Canada to the USA, Apimondia in Denmark, the death of Gene Hackman, and a trial chemical treatment that might help bees withstand pesticide poisoning. In our main theme, we critique a half dozen popular spring feeding methods. How does your favourite feeding technique stack up? Bonus link: ...
info_outlineSeason 3 Episode 0: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Season 3 Trailer
The start of a new year and a new podcast season! We take a quick look at the episodes lined up for the year ahead - and we learn what some older beekeepers think of some newer beekeepers.
This episode was recorded in January, 2025.
Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.
Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/
Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: [email protected]