2025: Ten Bee News Stories
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 12 About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – 2025: Ten Bee News Stories Links to our ten featured news stories from 2025: 62% Bee Losses Honey Bee Health Washington State study on colony losses USDA pinpoints reason for colony collapse Michigan State USDA study shows virus magnification via mites UBC Pheromone signalling reduced by viruses, leading to supercedure Developmental and Caste Regulation (weak queen resistance to pesticides) California Almond Growers PDF Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems –...
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Bees or Greenhouses?
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 11: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Bees or Greenhouses? Bees or Greenhouses? Which would make more money as a business? Ron chats with his brother Joe of , a Wisconsin greenhouse business. We engage in a race to the bottom. I make the case that beekeeping is definitely the less profitable business. Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in December 2025. Ricky Nelson's Garden Party: Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: About Ron Miksha: Finally: email your questions,...
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A Langstroth Christmas
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 10: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – A Langstroth Christmas Let's look at the inventor of the modern North American beehive. It's Christmas and it's L.L. Langstroth's birthday. Hope you enjoy this! Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in December 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: miksha@gmail.com
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A Candid Chat with Alberta's (former) Agriculture Minister
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 9: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – A Candid Chat with Alberta's (former) Agriculture Minister In this episode, I enjoy a conversation with the Honorable Oneil Carlier, former Agriculture Minister of Alberta. Alberta is cowboys and ranching and enormous forests and wheat fields and wide-open spaces. Alberta, where I live, is also the biggest honey-producer in Canada. All of this is handled through the Agriculture Ministry which was directed by Oneil Carlier. We touch on Oneil’s experiences growing up in the cowboy town of Val Marie, Saskatchewan, working...
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Buzz Pollination in the Greenhouse
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 8: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Buzz Pollination in the Greenhouse I was looking around for something in bloom here in December to talk about on this podcast, but I didn’t feel like stepping outside into the deep snow and arctic temperatures. Then I realized that greenhouses are full of blooming plants – pollinated by bumble bees, mostly. So, that’s what we’re doing on this short episode. We talk about the risks and benefits of bumble bee pollination inside greenhouses. Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in December 2025. Please subscribe,...
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What’s it like to run 6,000 hives of bees?
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 7: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – What’s it like to run 6,000 hives of bees? What is it like being responsible for 6,000 colonies, a couple dozen employees, and 150 apiary locations? And producing and selling over a million pounds of honey each year? Here’s your chance to find out. We visit with Murray Hannigan of Hannigan Honey. The operation is in Saskatchewan, eight hours north of the US border. Honey crops in his area are usually big but depend on keen management. We discuss queen production, disease control, and crew management....
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Is All Manuka Honey Fake?
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 6: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Is All Manuka Honey Fake? Is all manuka honey fake? I used to think that manuka is overrated. Not much there, there – if you know what I mean. Yes, of course I’m a cynic, or at least a skeptic. But follow along with this episode and see why I changed. It’s a path of discovery. We will cover the fraud fights, the discovery of manuka’s antibacterial qualities, how honey kills germs, and my conversion to an appreciation of this amazing honey. How does it work? What does it taste like? You’ll have to listen to...
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Philosopher-Beekeeper Richard Taylor
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 5: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Philosopher-Beekeeper Richard Taylor Dr. Richard Taylor's 106th birthday memorial is this week. That's as good of an excuse as any to open up his best-selling book, The Joys of Beekeeping, and chat about his life as a commercial beekeeper and philosophy professor. We look at his life and explore his thoughts on being a better beekeeper and a better person. Enjoy! Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in November 2025. Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: ...
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Brother Joe: Bees & Greenhouses
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 4: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Brother Joe: Bees & Greenhouses Joe and I talk about neonicotinoids (and other poisons), problems with wax worms, the greenhouse business, our oldest brother, David, and innovations, a BrainPopping drink, politics, economics, and "Why be good?" Hope you enjoy this episode. Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in October 2025. Honeymoon Acres: BrainPop - New Age Drinks: Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation. Podcast website: About Ron Miksha: Finally: email your...
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A Halloween Shorty
About Bees, Culture & Curiosity
Season 6 Episode 3: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – A Halloween Shorty Do you celebrate Halloween? Beekeepers should. Listen to find out why. Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in October 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: miksha@gmail.com
info_outlineSeason 6 Episode 12 About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – 2025: Ten Bee News Stories
Links to our ten featured news stories from 2025:
62% Bee Losses Honey Bee Health https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/survey-reveals-over-1-1-million-honey-bee-colonies-lost-raising-alarm-for-pollination-and-agriculture/
Washington State study on colony losses https://news.wsu.edu/news/2025/03/25/honey-bee-colony-declines-grow-as-wsu-researchers-work-to-fight-losses
USDA pinpoints reason for colony collapse https://www.dvm360.com/view/usda-pinpoints-cause-of-recent-mass-honeybee-collapse
Michigan State https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/reports-of-high-honey-bee-colony-losses-and-how-farmers-and-growers-can-support-honey-bees
USDA study shows virus magnification via mites https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2025/usda-researchers-find-viruses-from-miticide-resistant-parasitic-mites-are-cause-of-recent-honey-bee-colony-collapses/
UBC Pheromone signalling reduced by viruses, leading to supercedure https://www.med.ubc.ca/news/ubc-research-reveals-why-honey-bees-overthrow-their-queen/
Developmental and Caste Regulation (weak queen resistance to pesticides) https://d197for5662m48.cloudfront.net/documents/publicationstatus/241858/preprint_pdf/b569fa5471ba21b61111b60552fd7aa0.pdf
California Almond Growers PDF https://www.almonds.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/Cover%20Crops%20Best%20Management%20Practices%20BMPs_0.pdf
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems – natural mix of pollens leads to better bee success https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1555238/full
Engineered yeast provides rare but essential pollen sterols for honeybees. Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09431-y
First continent-wide bee strategy (Canada and USA) plan to protect bees https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org/NABS/
Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in December 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: miksha@gmail.com