 Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmers Series. I'm your co-host Matthew Johnson here today with my special co-host, Jasmine Slovak. And as always, we are here to talk to Hawaii farmers and foodies and restaurateurs and all types of people who are interested in Hawaii's food security. As always, you can find us on Thursday afternoons here at four o'clock and you can also find us later on YouTube at ThinkTechHI. And please, please, please join the conversation. You can either tweet us at ThinkTechHI and you can actually even call in and talk to us in person at the number listed below. So with that, we're going to go ahead and introduce our guest. This is crazy. I never thought it would actually happen, but we have two Jasmine's on set today. So with us today is Jasmine Joy with Bee Leave Hawaii. Did I say that right? You said that totally right. Yeah, I feel like you have to just hold it out as long as possible. You might even hold it longer. Exactly. So yeah, thank you so much for joining us. And actually, you are a veteran of ThinkTech Hawaii. You've been on a show before. What was the show you were on before? Likeable Science with Ethan Allen. Likeable Science with Ethan Allen. Well, thank you again for showing up joining us today. Well, thank you for inviting me and having me. Yeah. So why don't we start off with just give us a little bit of background. So I know you're in the honey business and actually the beehive business. And so you brought some samples here. To get started, why don't you just give us a little background on who you are and how you got into hanging out with bees? With bees, I believe it's truly in my DNA. My grandfather on my Nicaraguan side was a beekeeper. And I started beekeeping when I was living on the North Shore. And I was working for a company called Honey Girl Organics. So I used to manage their creamery department. And I learned how to beekeep from the founder who is now the president of Hawaii Beekeepers Association. And his name is Anthony Maxfield. Awesome. So you're working with Beehive Hawaii and so you're helping them get started. But then you started getting involved with relocating actual beehives themselves. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. That's one of the services that my company provides. So I'm an alternative source to extermination or pest control as you would call it. And instead of the bees being killed when they have hives inside people's houses, I will humanely remove them. Cut open dry walls from the inside of a house, even the outside. I catch swarms. So I got a bee hotline going and people call me and I just go and save the bees. And this is a huge deal because I mean, as we all know and it's seeing a lot of reports lately that we're actually having a decimation of bee hive colonies around the world, which is actually hugely detrimental just to the health of the world itself. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. It seems like you're referring to colony collapse disorder. Yes. So it's this phenomenon that's been considered a crisis for about a decade now. And for me, the way that I take care of my bees, my bees are doing great. I check on both of my apiaries every 10 days to two weeks. And so the colony collapse disorder, they've been trying, the research that they've been doing all these years, they've been trying to pinpoint exactly what the issue is. But it's a conglomeration of many things. So you have the three P's. You have pesticides, you have pathogens, and then you have pests. So the pathogens are being carried by the pests like the Varroa destructor mite. And one of them would be the deformed wing virus. And then you have another pest called the African small hive beetle. And what these little buggas do, I think they're like little Darth Vader's. But they are. They look like black ladybugs. And what they do is they poop, they defecate in all the honey cells, and they rot the honey. I do believe that Darth Vader's like biggest superpower too. Defecating all over the place. I think that's in the next episode. That's when he really true power comes. So is this a disorder specifically? Like how do they categorize this? Is this for honey farms specifically? Or is this just like in general in terms of bee population? Like what are they looking at when they're measuring, when they're researching this type of problem? Well, I know that for the Varroa mites, what they do is the Varroa mites they favor drones, which are the male bees. And if you look at a honeycomb, well, the honeycomb is in a frame beekeeping terminology. And there's a distinction between there's honeycomb where they're storing honey, even pollen. And then there's honeycomb where they're storing brood, B-R-O-O-D. And those are bee babies. So you can even tell the difference between female worker bees and drones. Because the drone brood will significantly stick out more and they're larger. And that's why the Varroa mites favor them because they are larger bees. And what they do is they go inside the cell before the worker bees seal it. When a worker bee seals the cell, that means it's ready to pupate and turn into an adult bee, right? So the Varroa mites, and it's considered an arachnid, it's in the arachnid family. So it's got eight legs. It's like the size of a mole, like, you know, Cindy Crawford, maybe smaller than Cindy Crawford's mole. We all now know exactly what you're talking about. So they're like a reddish brown color. And what they do is they latch on to the honey bees before the worker bees seal the cell. And they're already sucking blood out of them and also giving them these pathogens. Oh, geez. Yeah, it's very unfortunate and sad. So you're talking about the, I guess, the hives that you're managing and maintaining. How is it that yours are doing so much better than maybe some other ones? What is it that you're doing that's working? I'm a holistic beekeeper. So everything I do is to benefit the bees. I don't use chemicals and I just tune in with them. Every hive has a different personality and every queen has a different way of being active. And so you could see the pattern in her brood and you could see how much honey they're pulling in. And so one way to maintain the pests that go inside my hives is I put weed mat down below my apiary. And then one thing I learned this year from beekeeping with my boyfriend who's a beekeeper and another one of our friends, he learned that if you plant oregano below the hives the beetles don't seem to like it at all. So this recent honey harvest we had in spring and we're about to do one in August when we opened up the hives we didn't see any beetles and we were so stoked. Yeah. So those are two ways and then another thing is because for me I haven't noticed any mites in my hives and if there are any they're not overwhelming my hives but I have more of a problem of beetles and this season I've done such a great job compared to last year. I keep a log also of every time I check on my apiaries and so I totally got it. I know yeah the beetles so you're talking about the you know the work you've been doing with your apiaries. Well so it looks like you really look at the problem and find kind of almost like biohacking ways to come up like with this oregano and seeing that it's a real natural deterrent. So you're not really you're really conscious of how you're structuring this and managing these different problems. I remember now. So another way to control the beetles is I use two different on the bottom they're called bottom boards and there's these trays where you can store oil and I just use mineral oil. You can use different types of oil but at least even using mineral oil the bees are getting minerals from it you know. So and then on top in between the frames I use something called beetle blasters and they're also oil traps with all these little pukas holes in them and what the bees do is they chase them into these into those areas. The same thing with the bottom board is there's like a mesh cover between the hive and the bottom board and so the bees are able to also because what they do is they corral the beetles because they are like ladybugs they have the hard shell so the bees when they sing them it doesn't really affect them and so what they do is they corral them and in corraling them they'll corner them and then the bees fall into all these little pukas and they drown in the oil. No that's all the beetles did I say bees excuse me yeah that's super fascinating and and I want to hear more about that but also want to get into the the business that you're in and actually talking about some of the honey that we have here. So fortunately we have to go to a break but we'll be right back after a short commercial break. Coach here so viva health coach viva la comida saludable. We'll host Hawaii Farmers Series with Matthew Johnson of Oahu Fresh. We talk about Hawaii's local farmers and their supporters in order to have a vibrant and sustainable local food system. Farmers are always the foundation but there's so many other people and involved in the community that help support those farmers so we bring those folks onto our show every Thursday at 4 p.m. we get their backstory their history find out a little more about them and we find out why they love what they do and their perspective and their advice on how we can continue to have a dynamic and vibrant and sustainable local food system. So we again we broadcast live every Thursday at 4 p.m. and you can also catch us on ThinkTech's YouTube channel as well as Alelo 54 so we hope you tune in and join us thank you. Aloha and welcome back to White Food and Farmers Series I'm your co-host Matt Johnson here with Jasmine Slovak as my co-host and we are talking today to Jasmine Joy with B Leaf Hawaii. As always you can join the conversation by tweeting in at at ThinkTech HI or you can also call in at the number shown below nailed it. So cool so we're kind of talking about just bees in general talking about beehives and some of the pest problems that are out there and some of the challenges that colonies have and some of the practices that you're doing that are kind of a holistic approach like you said. What I want to get into now is talking about the the business so you kind of have a few different I guess revenue streams if you will what you're doing where you have the business of actually relocating the beehives and then you actually have the business of the honey that you're collecting which you brought here today and we can't wait to crack into it. So yeah can you talk a little bit about you know how that came about and how that works? Sure let's start with my partnership so I have a partnership with Hoa Aina o Makaha which is based out of Makaha it's right next door to Makaha Elementary and they are a non-profit so I umbrella under them and I was awarded with a mini grant from Kokua Foundation this year to thank you so much to remodel we have a apiary house for the keiki there and Gigi Kokyo who is the he is the executive director of Hoa Aina o Makaha and about 37 years ago I believe he this land there it's owned by the Catholic diocese okay and it was barren it was like tumbleweeds and Gigi got there and he had a dream and he made it into this beautiful oasis and so there's a partnership also with Makaha Elementary and pretty much every grade there has a project or a garden there and I teach the third graders from Makaha Elementary because their focus is animal caretaking so this beginning of this year I totally redeveloped their whole they had a beekeeping program the program is focused on the keiki oka Aina is what the program is called and so with the third graders since their their focus is animal caretaking they do the apiary house is in the animal section and so but what I did this year it wasn't just about beekeeping is I redeveloped this whole program for them and I based it not just about bees but pollination altogether and pollinators so we planted pollinator friendly habitats and gardens for the bees and the butterflies and even the birds and I was donated I want to say like 400 packets of seeds from botanical interest so that was really that was great on the last day of school the kids were so happy everybody we all planted seeds everybody went home with a pot of their own and they were just and even a little bit of honey and the kids were freaking out I was like just promise me you eat it after school because the teacher would be like that beekeeper girl yeah so that's I love having that partnership Gigi is the best he supports everything and anything I do I also offer workshops there too so if anybody's ever interested I'll be doing one in September I have a big group of it's like most of those kids I think are homeschooled now is the workshop specifically for children or can adults adults will be there too yeah it's great yeah um and then you also sell honey from your apiaries apiaries the very new apiary apiaries I'm an apiarist so apiarist is the scientific name for beekeeper and apiary is a bee farmer a bee yard place where you keep the bees so yeah the honey that I distribute is from the north shore of kawaii my boyfriend is also an apiarist holistic and his honey our honey was tested by the Sierra club and we learned that 80 percent of the honey in Hawaii has glyphosate in it which is the harmful roundup yeah exactly and so our honey does not have any glyphosate in it it's part of the 20 percent 20 percentile wow and this is probably and this is because you guys are separated away from other farming or yard activities where they're spraying well he chose to put his apiaries in places that practice organic farming okay and I think we talked about this earlier before the show but the bees will forage in a five mile proximity of course they will forage if there's a nectar flow and there's an abundance of flowers and trees to forage from in a closer area but they will go that far of a distance to get food wow so furthermore to talk more about the business so that's the partnership and then the service we did briefly speak about it already is the whole beehive removal yeah and then let's see there's so so you have someone like let's say I have a beehive in my yard or it's in the drywall in my house so a typical reaction maybe someone calls up and exterminator says hey I need to get this beehive out of there but instead they can get in touch with you yeah and you said you're kind of becoming known as the the bee lady or the beehive lady well I am in touch with a few exterminators they have my contact and they refer me all the time cool so people call them they say we have a bee problem and they say well I'm sorry but we don't kill bees but here's our bee lady she'll take care of you awesome that's a great way to to brand yourself and your your business as the bee lady and as a way to I guess more peacefully come in and remove something that was considered a pest but actually so you're you're creating an opportunity to remove a problem and then move that somewhere where it's wanted where it's going to be beneficial I'm so glad you mentioned that yeah I was going to ask like what does what does happen to the bees when you remove them most of them are relocated because most of the work I do do is windward side and town I do get calls on the west side but the apri I have in Waimanalo it's at honest greens farm my friend Elko he he does he helps me do work because he's a carpenter also so he helps me could open the walls and seal him up and he does a great job and it's great because then we just go to his farm and introduce new hives and so the hives that I have they're doing well but it's almost like a quarantine there so if for instance there's one hive we removed and I realized there were Varroa mites in it and I just kind of I didn't freak out but I was like we gotta get this because if they're in one hive they'll possibly go in the other hive so I had to remove that right away but that's the awareness of being a beekeeper attention to detail so actually I have to interrupt real quick because I'm just hearing my ear that we actually have a phone call our first one ever hello and welcome to white food and farmers Aloha I have a question I'm wondering if there's any kind of bee rescue service kind of like how you rescue animals is there anything believe Hawaii does to rescue bees did you hear the question yeah you're gonna have to share with us oh okay wow okay so I thought everybody was hearing the question so the question uh color could you repeat the question so I'm actually wondering if there's some kind of bee rescue service oh okay so the question is is there like a bee rescue service yeah that's what the beehive removal service is yeah okay it is a rescue service great to the rescue yeah to the rescue so beehive rescue okay yeah great thanks caller all right fantastic out of curiosity now because from what I've learned um from some of the notes that we were given is that obviously there are many different types of bees and there are native bees to Hawaii and there are bees that were introduced like do you have when you typically go and rescue bees is there like a way that you integrate or do they all just kind of live together or do you kind of colonize how does that work exactly with the different types of bees I basically domesticate them so I don't know why but that just sounds funny it's like you're putting them in their place no more going out and no I mean they're free they're totally free they can go do whatever they want but I basically I basically give them real estate and I say here's your condo if you like it I hope you stay for a while and you build great furniture and yeah but you know there are some cases where they will swarm and there's nothing that I can do about that I can I like I said I stay on it and I check on my hives and everything regularly but sometimes like recently I did a removal and they swarmed but I they were there for like 10 days and I tuned in I was like I think I gotta check on my bees today and just that day I get there and Elko goes I was gonna call you so there they are and we saw them in a high tree okay you know swarming is what exactly so swarming is total natural thing that bees do and right now it's bee season where we got a couple more months to go in Hawaii I mean we have dry and wet season but in spring and the summertime that's when the bees are buzzing heavily and there's nectar flowing they're from all the flowers and so that they're collecting all that bringing it back to the hive but then at the same time the queen is producing more babies and in the summertime a worker bee will only live up to six weeks so their lifetime is pretty short and in that lifetime it takes or in let's see I want to say a 12th of a teaspoon in honey bees lifetime it they can they it takes them in those six weeks they could produce a 12th of a teaspoon of honey that's all they produce yeah and so it takes about to to make one pound of honey two million flowers need to be visited yeah there's a lot of worker bees lives that were sacrificed for this jar of honey wow that makes it that much more special but what's even more fascinating is the queen bee could live up to five years huh I mean she's living the life right I guess so um so um one thing I wanted to talk about too is so we have the honey and now we understand all the lives all those worker bees are given up for this honey yeah wow um where are you guys so you guys are selling the honey you have it available on market where where can people find it it's top to your honey exactly talk to your honey girl so it's just it's just direct selling like the number one steakhouse in Honolulu which is Wolfgang's steakhouse they purchase our honey and they put it in their cocktails and some of the food and sometimes we do seasonal festivals like we just did I mean it was a few months ago but we did the Kahumana Farm Festival that was really successful that's great do you guys can someone purchase it online at all no we're we're working up to that okay but we're very we call ourselves boutique beekeepers so we're not commercial beekeepers and we don't ever plan to be because the type of work and that it's just that's just it's just too much and a lot of those commercial beekeepers are using pesticides and everything like that because there's so many bees bee hives they have it's hard to take care of them so we only have probably a couple minutes left can you talk a little bit about kind of the future of bee leave Hawaii but also just the bee industry in general are we going to have bees in Hawaii in the next 10 20 50 years I think so I hope so because I believe because of you gotta believe so right now I'm trying to pump up my farm tours at honest greens farm I'm offering those and there's they're small groups like the biggest group would be like four people I could probably do six but I would prefer to keep it intimate like that and my goal is also to do some outreach so right now I'm doing all the research and I'm working on writing a grant a few grants and then another thing too I'm a writer so one of my big dreams and goals and I just found my illustrator is to produce my first children's book about honey bees yeah close so tell us more about the book though I mean I don't want to give it away exclusive here I can just tell you that it's about the life cycle of a honey bee okay I'm not going to give you away the best part okay well after you publish the book and it's out we'll have you back and you can talk all about it wonderful thank you awesome well thank you so much for being on the show unfortunately that's all the time we have today thanks again for joining us white food and farmer series with my co-host jasmine slovak and our guest jasmine joy from bee leave Hawaii we'll see you again next week Wednesday Thursday at 4 p.m aloha