{"id":943,"date":"2026-04-22T09:37:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/?p=943"},"modified":"2026-04-22T09:37:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:37:04","slug":"queens-order-honey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/interviews\/queens-order-honey\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens Order Honey"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Justin Orders was 32 years old at the time of the interview, which took place at Queen\u2019s Orders Honey Apiary in Huntersville, North Carolina. A student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, he later honed his beekeeping skills at the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association. Justin delved into his experiences as a certified beekeeper in Charlotte, touching on both fundamental and intricate aspects of the industry. Reflecting on his time at UNCC, he revealed the motivations behind his foray into beekeeping. He elaborated on managing his online presence as a beekeeper through his website and social media platforms. Justin Orders was interviewed October 24, 2024.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/uncc-foodways\/interviews\/JustinOrdersInterview.mp3\" controls=\"controls\"><\/audio><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"responsive-tabs\">\n<h2 class=\"tabtitle\">Tape Log<\/h2>\n<div class=\"tabcontent\">\n\n\r\n<p>0:05:55 His experience with extracting honey<\/p>\r\n<table class=\"wp-block-table is-style-stripes\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:00:03<\/td>\r\n<td>Beginning<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:00:45<\/td>\r\n<td>Justin history of beekeeping and his passion<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:03:40<\/td>\r\n<td>How big is the operation?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:09:09<\/td>\r\n<td>The difference between Males and females in the bee world<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:11:02<\/td>\r\n<td>How Jusin raises a Queen<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:13:35<\/td>\r\n<td>His experience with selling honey<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:17:27<\/td>\r\n<td>Why few younger people are in beekeeping, compared to older people<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:19:44<\/td>\r\n<td>How age impacted his work with bees?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:21:24<\/td>\r\n<td>hallenges that Justin faces in beekeeping<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:27:30<\/td>\r\n<td>His experience with extracting hives from people\u2019s property<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:28:03<\/td>\r\n<td>Beekeepers and organizations in Charlotte<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:32:15<\/td>\r\n<td>His Website, blogs, and social media<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:36:22<\/td>\r\n<td>His views on environment and sustainability within beekeeping<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:38:42<\/td>\r\n<td>Other Pollinators besides bees<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:41:01<\/td>\r\n<td>One piece of advice to give to your past self<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:41:55<\/td>\r\n<td>One piece of warning to give to your past self<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:42:35<\/td>\r\n<td>Hope and dreams for his farm in the future<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:45:05<\/td>\r\n<td>His focus on all pollinators not just honeybees<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td>0:45:25<\/td>\r\n<td>Closing<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\n<\/div><h2 class=\"tabtitle\">Transcript<\/h2>\n<div class=\"tabcontent\">\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0 00:12<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, this is Hosami Ghanaini interviewing Justin Orders on 24th of October 2024 at Queen&#8217;s Order&#8217;s Ani Pierry.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today we&#8217;ll explore Justin&#8217;s experience as a certified beekeeper in Charlotte.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi Justin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, how&#8217;s it going?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How you doing?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Good.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0 00:21<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So could you tell me more about how long you have been beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ve been keeping bees for six years now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I started in 2018.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, but I&#8217;ve always loved bugs, insects, general bees, a special place in my heart.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you mind telling me your age?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How old are you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">32.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 00:49<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what are you initially good at and interested in beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so I actually went to UNCC for a biology program.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn&#8217;t graduate and I eventually wanted to go to grad school at NC State for entomology.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the whole being in school scene kind of just not really, for me, you know, research and whatnot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I still wanted to help insects and help save bees and they were dealing with a lot at that time too.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I just bought a hive wanting to help out, help contribute to a pollinator, populations, biodiversity, so on and so forth.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the things that I learned in school conservation, whatever.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, just love for insects, but also wanted to help them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 01:30<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how did you learn about beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some on my own.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also went to the bee school.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mecklenburg County has a beekeepers association, which I&#8217;m a part of now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they have a bee school where they train new beekeepers that are very new to beekeeping.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And after a couple weeks, months presentations, you take the test for the Becoming North Carolina Certified Beekeeper.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Passed that and now I&#8217;m a certified beekeeper.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;m actually also a journeyman beekeeper.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just haven&#8217;t set in all the paperwork for it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I&#8217;ve done the next stage of that as well.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But just to answer your question, there&#8217;s a lot of education opportunities not only Mecklenburg County, but also in the state of North Carolina.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 02:24<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when did you start at the school 2019?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was winter of 2019.Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How long did you stay there?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s only a, the curriculum is only like three months.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it&#8217;s like January to March.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 02:45<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How is beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was tough.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had a lot of fun with my friend.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I still keep in contact with he&#8217;s a very good beekeeper in Charlotte.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he helped me out again.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when I had some really difficult questions, but I made it through that first year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I had one hive and actually turned to two.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So then by the next year, I had two hives.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was very fortunate in that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then it just kind of grown and grown.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It got a lot easier every year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s been some hard years, but that first year was the hardest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 03:16<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how many hives do you have right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here in my AP area, I have, I counted it yesterday, there&#8217;s 38.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I have dozen dozen and a half in other places where I keep bees for the people, people&#8217;s backyards.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So all across Charlotte and greater Charlotte, I have another maybe 15, 20 bees hives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 03:40<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how many bees are like in one hive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The peak season, it&#8217;s anywhere from 10 to 20,000.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right now, it&#8217;s getting to, I would say maybe there&#8217;s 5000 bees per hive.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do the math, 50 hives, you know, 25,000 or 25,000 bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rough, very, very rough.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t count them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 04:04<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so could you tell me how your day as a beekeeper goes?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, when I&#8217;m, when I&#8217;m doing, you know, now this time of year, it&#8217;s not as busy, but in peak season, I&#8217;m coming out here and checking on these hives, making sure everything looks good as far as them putting on a lot of honey.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also, again, will go to my other clients hives, people that I take care of the bees for them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll go there and see if their hives need anything.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do I need to split them up?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do I need to add on another box, give them a little bit more room?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How are they with pests and viruses and all that stuff?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;m just checking on them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, it varies every day.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s very different from the previous day for a lot of the things that I do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 04:50<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are they far away from you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These hives, sometimes, yeah, sometimes they can be 50 minutes away from me sometimes.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They&#8217;re right up the road from me.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have one client that&#8217;s just down the road from us.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I could walk there if I wanted to, but yeah, they&#8217;re all over.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of driving.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 05:05<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So like, how often are you with bees in hives like daily?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On average, I&#8217;d say I&#8217;m in an individual hive twice a month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twice a month?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 05:24<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do you get stung, oftenly?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I get stung almost every single day.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that&#8217;s not to say I get stung every day, because there&#8217;s definitely days I don&#8217;t get on my hives.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But on the days that I do, I get stung so many times that it kind of equates to, again, like once a day, or once every other day or something like that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s often.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 05:45<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So speaking of hives, what do you do when you are with hives to people who are unfamiliar with beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was it, for sure?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you do with hives?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, how do you extract as a honey?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, extracting the honey is pretty easy.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what I&#8217;ll do is I just showed you one of those frames.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll cut it open. If it does honey in it, typically the bees will seal it with wax.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they&#8217;ll put all the honey in the frames and the cells and those geometric hexagons.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll take a hot knife or even just a cold knife, kind of like this tool here, and I&#8217;ll cut open the wax.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll put it into a centrifuge like that fire pit, a giant cylinder, and it&#8217;ll eventually start to, once I turn the machine on, it&#8217;ll spin the honey out.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It falls to the bottom of the cylinder and then I&#8217;ll put it into bottles and jars and all that stuff.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 06:38<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do you reuse the hives again?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The comb and the wax that the honey was in can be reused for years.So long as it&#8217;s not contaminated with stuff and it usually isn&#8217;t.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 06:56<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what are the uses of honey in your beekeeping?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you, besides extracting honey, do you have any other uses for honey?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uses for honey?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, I eat the honey.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We make a couple of different products.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have skin care products, lotions, and chapsticks sometimes utilize honey or beeswax.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll use the beeswax too.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s applicable to those things.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, no, we don&#8217;t use a whole lot of it here.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of it we sell.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We sell from this friend&#8217;s, like just from our porch or people buy it and take it out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 07:37<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You also sell the honey comb itself?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We do.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We sell it sometimes.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We sell the comb.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s really hard to get sometimes and typically I stray away from doing that because there&#8217;s a lot of nutritional benefits to eating raw honey, but there&#8217;s not a whole lot eating the comb.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The wax is not really good for us, but people still like it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 07:56<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there a difference in taste between honey and honey comb?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to say it&#8217;s difference in taste.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it&#8217;s just the more, it feels more real when you&#8217;re eating it, when you&#8217;re actually biting into the honey.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s like an aesthetic value to that, that I guess is worth the extra price and effort, extra effort in doing that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, it&#8217;s not like it&#8217;s, you know, better.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It just feels better, I guess.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 08:22<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so dealing with the honey comb is like some kind of process not to break it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so again, I&#8217;ll take the comb and I&#8217;ll cut it with the knife and then that&#8217;s not damaging the actual cells of the comb.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s just damaging essentially the covering of it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s just opening the door to it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And once all the honey comes out of that, I&#8217;ll put it back on the hive and they can reuse it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The comb is basically the same as it was before.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It just had an opening, you know.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s not a big deal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 08:22<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I read in your website articles about like the differences between males, aka drones and females in the world.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Could you tell us more about this?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is the difference between males and females?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so females in the hives typically are the ones doing most of the work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Their names are actually workers compared to that of the drones, as males are called.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, worker bees throughout their lifetime, several different jobs starting from a nurse bee to guard bee to eventually forager bees, the bee that you typically see.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you&#8217;re anywhere that you see honeybees, drones have really just one job and that&#8217;s to mate with queens in the beginning season of the year, the spring season of the year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don&#8217;t do a whole lot other than that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s a very important job, mind you, but it&#8217;s one that, again, it&#8217;s not very useful this time of year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s not a whole lot of queens for them to mate with right now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For instance, the worker bees, the female bees will actually drag them out of the hive because they&#8217;re almost seen as a parasite to the hive compared to, again, with all the work that the worker bees do.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The drone bees don&#8217;t do any of that work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don&#8217;t even have stingers, so they can&#8217;t even defend the hive if they were to need to.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, yeah, drones are important but also expendable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 10:26<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like after mating, they get like, they die immediately?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They die almost immediately, yeah, well after mating, yeah, that kind of shows you their purpose in life is really just that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that, they&#8217;re really, you know, no good.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Important job as it is, it&#8217;s not like nature was expecting them to do more than that.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 10:48<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, what&#8217;s the process of raising a queen?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you like get a queen or how do you get a queen like at the first stage and how do you raise it?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you know them?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, it&#8217;s a process for sure.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, what I&#8217;ll do is every year the hives will want to make a copy of themselves.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s why I started with one hive in my first year and then I had two by the end of the year because that one hive turned into two.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, what will happen is every spring usually, the hive will get so big that they&#8217;ll want to split or swarm fly somewhere else, take one of those queens with them, take the queen that they have with them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What I&#8217;ll basically do is I&#8217;ll take maybe, I&#8217;ll trick them into thinking they&#8217;ve swarmed.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll take a couple frames of bees from that hive box that&#8217;s going to swarm, put it in another box, a smaller box, and I&#8217;ll raise a queen from that box and do so.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll just give them plenty of food.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bees will take one of the eggs that the queen will eat from that other box.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Those are feedings, stuff known as royal jelly.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they&#8217;ll do this to maybe half a dozen, a dozen eggs.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All those queens will develop and once they hatch out at once, they will fight the death to see who is the strongest queen.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll do a couple different things to not have that happen.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, I can raise those, I can raise that queen and take her and sell her or sell the hive that she&#8217;s now in.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I make pretty good money from that, selling the hives.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, it&#8217;s a process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 12:38<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so what kind of food do you get for bees?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You told me if you want to transfer the queen, you give them food.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What kind of food?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just sugar syrup, sugar syrup that I make.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that&#8217;s something I also use to feed them during this time of year when there&#8217;s not a whole lot of flowers in bloom.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll feed them sugar syrup and then I&#8217;ll give them a little bit extra stuff to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 13:03<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, you could sell as a queen itself only?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I can do that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can put her in a cage and sell them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t have a whole lot of people asking for that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, I can sell those.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 13:03<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you could also sell it with a hive.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how much is it alone and how much is it with a hive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s 180 for the hive, maybe 35 for the queen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 13:38<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, for saying I saw on your website that there are, yeah, you&#8217;re selling honey on your website.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any other ways that you sell honey like in supermarkets or in markets?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s a couple stores or there&#8217;s a couple places I&#8217;m at where I have honey for sale.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sell at farmers markets when I have an opportunity to do that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, that&#8217;s really it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sell it from here, sell it on my website, farmers markets, a store through here and there, but it gets sold every year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;m always out, you know, from March, April, when the season starts to take off again.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it works out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 14:06<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how do you get into this farmer market?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you contact with someone or do you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the people that run it, I&#8217;ll reach up to them and see if they need anyone to fill a spot or they&#8217;ll reach up to me and say, &#8220;Hey, we need a spot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you fill it?&#8221;<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s what I do.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t have any stay in a new market right now. I dont have anywhere that i am there every weekend but just when they need someone to come fill a spot. I am usually able to do it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 14:29<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you collaborate with any local businesses?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not yet.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t have that much honey to sell.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If I had gallons and gallons, I would sell to, businesses that want the honey barbecue or something like that, but right now, no, just enough to sell it to other people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 14:54<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do you like to consider the area, the area medium or large?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say it&#8217;s medium, it&#8217;s definitely not large.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Typically, large AP areas have hundreds of hives, 200, 300 hives.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is very small.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn&#8217;t have much more hives than this right now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s a lot for me to manage and obviously, I don&#8217;t have that much more land.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I kind of want this number and don&#8217;t want many more.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, it&#8217;s a medium AP area, but I may eventually expand and find somewhere else to put the hives and maybe put 100 out there if that seems to be calling.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But right now, I&#8217;m good with this amount.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 15:37<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is it connected with having a big land or having a small land?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You definitely want a lot of land.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You definitely want a lot of pasture land or an area that&#8217;s a little bit rural.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like here&#8217;s maybe hard to have 100 hives here because everything&#8217;s a lot of residential places that I don&#8217;t want my bees swarming in people&#8217;s trees in yards and homes and whatnot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I&#8217;d much prefer if I was somewhere in the more rural parts of the state, I would have 100, 150 hives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 16:12<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so what about your neighbors?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are they good with you having bees?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I don&#8217;t get any complaints.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I need to review it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s stung every once in a while, but it&#8217;s pretty rare.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so far so good, but I&#8217;m still wary of that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And again, if I had more hives, I&#8217;d probably get more complaints, but this is a pretty small number compared to some other operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 16:42<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So tell now it&#8217;s like a one-man job.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Don&#8217;t you have anyone also working with you here?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not right now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have some helpers every once in a while come out.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The spring months are very, very difficult.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot to do then.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s usually what I need, a hand or two to help me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">From March to May?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pretty much, yeah, March to May.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yep, that&#8217;s the prime time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 17:06<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so I know you&#8217;re so young and what do you think of not only beekeeping, but also in farming?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few are younger people are working in this industry than the older people.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there a major reason behind this?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Could you tell us about it more?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My theory on why more younger people aren&#8217;t doing those jobs?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s for me.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can see people wanting to get out of generational farming because their dad did it, their grandfather did it, their so-and-so did it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe they want to break from that, especially with how the economy is shifting and things are getting bought out and whatnot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I&#8217;m not, this is my first generational beekeeper.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ve had family members do farming, but I&#8217;m not really tied to that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would say, while it is difficult, I hear a lot more people complaining about their jobs and the financial sector or the education sector.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just hear a lot of my friends not very happy with their jobs.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While this isn&#8217;t like, I&#8217;m not making six-figure doing this, it&#8217;s also very, very rewarding.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s the huge trade-off that I find with this kind of work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It may not be for everyone, but I feel like people should at least consider it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It works out.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you&#8217;ve got the right setup and everything, you can make this work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t know.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess they don&#8217;t know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 18:55<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Younger people walking here in Charlotte, can beekeeping or in farming in general?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not a lot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know everyone always looks to me as the young person in beekeeping right now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They think that im some kind of unicorn.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Normally people become hobbyist beekeepers when they are retired.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They work their whole lives and then they want to wind down and do beekeeping.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s very calming, relaxing, or at least a it can be.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s how that usually evolves.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s not this way where it&#8217;s like, I just one day wanted to become a beekeeper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 19:34<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In what way do you think your age and that your approach for challenges and opportunities in beekeeping and dusting, does your age help you?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s very challenging.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is very visibly demanding work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can get injured very easily doing this stuff.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If I was 60, 70 years old, I&#8217;m sure I would be having a lot more limitations to doing this kind of work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being young and having the strength and energy to do some of this stuff, lifting heavy bee equipment, heavy boxes, moving pines, all that stuff, I have huge advantages by being young and also being young and understanding how to advertise myself on social media and use technology to my advantage is huge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I really like your art because you know, writing on the website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I need to do more of that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I should really focus on that this off season.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it&#8217;s hard.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have to prioritize other things sometimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 20:41<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You told me it&#8217;s very hard to drag one of those boxes.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How heavy are those?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They can be, depending on the box, sometimes they can be 80 pounds.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Generally, the smaller boxes, the ones that I&#8217;ve honey in them are 20, 30, 40 pounds.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But sometimes I&#8217;ve got to take them, sometimes I&#8217;ll remove them from buildings and whatnot and they&#8217;ll be on roofs and I have to take them down ladders and that&#8217;s not only is that difficult, but it&#8217;s also very dangerous.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, it can get very, very heavy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 21:18<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what challenges do you have in Charlottes with beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would say I have a whole lot of challenges in Charlottes.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s a very nice city for people that are into this kind of thing that are wanting to support this.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have a pretty good network of other beekeepers in the area.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I wouldn&#8217;t say I have, if anything, I have advantages.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, I wouldn&#8217;t want to keep bees out and name the rural town and carry or somewhere like that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s kind of a little bit more distant from cities and whatnot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems that it lends well to my business and whatnot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 21:18<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So is weather Charlottes when you were side?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sorry, say that again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Weather in Charlottes is on your side?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was it one time?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Weather, the Weather.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, is it on my side?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The climate here is really nice.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have warm winters too.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s not too brutal.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s really a very difficult time for bees as it is most insects and so far they&#8217;ve done pretty well with them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I wouldn&#8217;t really want to go any further north if I was beekeeping.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Charlottes is a pretty good place for the climate we have.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s not too hot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s cool in the winter.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not too cool.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 22:46<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you do when winter was a busy?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not a whole lot.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They kind of go into a state of dormancy where they&#8217;re still doing things, trying to keep the hive warm.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They&#8217;re interested in using the honey in order to keep the hive warm, using it as an energy source for making heat.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, most of the work I&#8217;ve already done by that time, I&#8217;m not feeding them that much.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;m just kind of making sure that they&#8217;re fat and happy and hoping they&#8217;re going to make it to next year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 23:20<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But also do you keep them in an open place like this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, they stay just as the way they are.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t need to put them in storage or anything.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s again pretty mild here.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll put some insulation on them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right now it&#8217;s not necessary for that, but later in the season I&#8217;ll add some insulation.I&#8217;ll do well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 23:37<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you get like many losses in this winter period?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I haven&#8217;t had a whole lot of losses.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I did a couple years ago.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think I wrote about that too.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2022 we had a bunch of snow, very cold winter.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I lost maybe half of my colonies, but I also am still pretty new to the thing.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think a lot of that was due to starvation, not necessarily from the cold.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, I don&#8217;t have a whole lot of losses.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I lose maybe 10% of my colonies every winter.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s not bad.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 24:31<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also saw a very interesting article with the name &#8220;Pollinators and the bestsibs&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Could you tell us more about the issue of bees extension?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there an issue of bees extension really happening right now?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, honey bees, but native bees are being lost.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The numbers are shrinking just because pesticide use, that&#8217;s one of the things.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Broad-spectrum pesticides, mainly people are spraying things in their yard and wanting to get rid of one insect, but in turn getting rid of several species of insects.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Climate change is definitely linked to that habitat loss is a major way that bees are declining if they don&#8217;t have a certain habitat made or porridge on them, they&#8217;re just gonna die.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, pesticides for sure, but it&#8217;s a lot of different factors.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But honey bees surprisingly are doing really well, they&#8217;re doing much better than they were a decade ago and that&#8217;s a large part in due to beekeeping becoming more of a hobby and people seeing this as a way to help bees in their populations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 25:31<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So is it like a worldwide issue or is it like just in the States?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it&#8217;s worldwide.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of honey bees specifically, the issue that they had the most was peromites, this mite that is indigenous to Southeast Asia.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It got carried over from that area and now it&#8217;s spread pretty much all across the world.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it&#8217;s the only place that they don&#8217;t have it still is Australia and there&#8217;s been a large lot of involvement in trying to keep that happening because it&#8217;s an island, but at any rate, yeah, that&#8217;s a global thing.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everywhere you have peromites now and everywhere beekeepers are having to understand how to better suit their hives to keep them happening.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 26:24<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it&#8217;s not an easy job?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You have to always be ahead of the curve, you have to always be aware of that risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s 20, 30 years ago, there wasn&#8217;t as big of a threat of peromites and so beekeepers didn&#8217;t have to worry about losing their hives in a season or whatever. It was just kind of like, yeah, beekeeping is easy.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s not that case anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 26:51<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of pollinators, do also you work in some farming?You give them bees to pollinate as\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t do a whole lot of that right now.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We&#8217;re in Charlotte, so I don&#8217;t have a whole lot of, not as many farms and not as many farms that need that are growing things that need specifically honeybees that pollinate them, but I definitely open to that if someone wants to hire me for something like that, I&#8217;d be open to that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But right now, no, it&#8217;s just, again, keeping bees for myself and keeping bees for people that want bees in their backyards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 27:24<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you help also if someone has like a hive in his backyard, you go to and extract this hive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, people have bees up in a tree or maybe it&#8217;s even nested in their wall somewhere in a cavity and somewhere in their house.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can remove that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 27:41<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you could easily put them in a box, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pretty easily, yeah.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just take the comb out piece by piece very gently and put it into a high box and the bees would do just fine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 27:55<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So in Charlotte also that any organization or person here help you like overcome or help you with your challenges in beekeeping?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you have any challenge or problem, do you go to anyone in Charlotte?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Mecklenburg Beekeeping Association, again, is a great organization for new beekeepers or people that just have questions about beekeeping.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe it&#8217;s just you have a swarm in your yard, you want to call someone, you call them, they have a list of people you can contact and help you with that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also Tommy Helms was a very, it still is a very good resource.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&#8217;s the other beekeeper in Charlotte.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&#8217;s been keeping bees here for\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What&#8217;s his name?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tommy Helms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&#8217;s been keeping bees for a couple of decades and he&#8217;s a really good resource.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He holds one Charlotte.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Where is his place?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&#8217;s over kind of northwest.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, where we&#8217;re at north, he&#8217;s just a little bit further west.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&#8217;s maybe 15 minutes down over off like, I think it&#8217;s supposed to like Freedom Drive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 28:58<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyone else?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He&#8217;s like the main guy.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s a couple other people, but for me at least he&#8217;s been, he&#8217;s been really helpful.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He builds a lot, a lot of the equipment you see here he built.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I bought a purchase from him.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, but yeah, he did a lot of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 29:16<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So lately do you build those equipment by yourself?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, God, no, he does all that work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, I&#8217;m just, I just purchased, he sells it very cheap and I&#8217;m very happy to have him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 29:26<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, is there any vet for bees specialized here in Charlotte?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Veterinarian for bees?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To my knowledge, no.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there&#8217;s more like sometimes beekeepers can or veterinarians can take a class like an ingenuity and case class on beekeeping and some of the, medicine that&#8217;s used for them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, but I would say the closest thing to what you&#8217;re describing would be a, there&#8217;s a state inspector that can come by and visit hives.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had, I had the state inspector come out to my, my ABR this spring, basically just say I could sell hives.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I need, in order to sell 10 or more hives, I need a certification that allows me to do that in the state of North Carolina.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So he came out and verified that my hive was hives were doing well and enough to sell.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that&#8217;s like the closest thing we have to that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 30:28<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So also this state inspector has to come if you want to like sell just honey or is it like connected to a hive?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, you can get, um, sometimes it&#8217;s not allowed or it&#8217;s not required that you get someone to verify that your honey is, for instance, like NC certified, but it is something you can do.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can get, like, you can get a little sticker you can put on your bottle as it says, it says NC certified honey, but you don&#8217;t, you&#8217;re not allowed to do that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does it, you&#8217;re selling 10 or more hives?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 31:01<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also regarding Charlotte, you&#8217;re like, is it possible if you have like a small house to have like a couple of boxes or a couple of hives in your house or speaking the flow is like, is it permissible to have this kind of?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is, um, there&#8217;s no land ordinance or anything that tells people how many hives they can have or can&#8217;t have.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Davidson, I know there is a limitation.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They say you can only have four hives in your, in your, on your property.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But here in Charlotte and the town of Charlotte and or technically in Huntersville too, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s nothing that says you can&#8217;t, you know, limit on how many hives you have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 31:41<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you collaborate with any other beekeeping like work together, beekeeper, any other farmers?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, not really.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I, again, I may do something where I reach out to a farm.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s a farm right at the road from here, not half a mile down the road.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if it came to it, I would maybe put the bees on there.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, I&#8217;m just solo for right now.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 32:18\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of your website, what motivated you to start writing your blogs and being in the website writing articles?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, I mean, I like writing.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also understand that having blogs and having a presence on my website is pretty important to, you know, SEO, search engine optimization and just like making my website seem more active than it is.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s difficult because I&#8217;m the only person doing it, doing the work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I, again, I struggle to have time to do such, but I do enjoy doing it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do get really usually good response from what I share.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that&#8217;s always nice too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 32:48\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You also teach people, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I teach people how to become beekeepers, people, you know, for instance, if they want to have a hive, but also take care of it, I&#8217;ll coach them on how to take care of the hive and maybe do that for a year, maybe just for a season and then eventually they can do it themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 33:04<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do you make like some kind of courses like workshops, maybe?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s a very good idea.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, most of what I do is I just kind of run them through what it&#8217;s, you know, what each season yields and kind of just go through the everything, all the things that you should expect.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Occasionally I&#8217;ll have like a, if I have maybe, you know, a handful of people that want to come out and see some hives for the first time, I&#8217;ll do an apiary tour and give them a little, kind of like what I just showed you there, I&#8217;ll give them a little bit of a show and show them, you know, what I do in a day with as a beekeeper and see if that interests them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 33:40<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you have any other work on social media, like other platforms or any website?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely, I&#8217;m on all the social media, not all of them, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you know, I share, I do a lot of educational videos more for advocacy as far as like here, you know, kind of like what I would show people if I was teaching them how to keep bees, I would show them, hey, this is what this looks like, hey, this is what this looks like, you know, things that interest me and I feel like other people will be interested in too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 34:13<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So does this platform help you like sharing your experience and sharing your like work with other people?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you get like other people contacting you like a lot from these platforms?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wouldn&#8217;t say that, but it is nice every once in a while, you know, people will say, oh, I saw this video and reference me or whatever, and that&#8217;s just nice to know that my, my, my bandwidth is getting that far, is reaching that far.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, you know, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s nice for connections, but most of the time it&#8217;s just nice to get a response or a comment or something like that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know one of my, one of my videos that got on Facebook got like millions of views.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Really?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And yeah, I now have like 5000 followers on Facebook.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s really, it&#8217;s kind of unsustainable.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, you hit viral.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s just, you just post and then every once in a while you&#8217;ll have a post that just like takes off like wildfire and that&#8217;s exactly what happened.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now I get an app, I call these followers on Facebook who I have no idea who they are or whatever and why they&#8217;re still following me, but yeah, pretty cool.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 35:27<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was this video about?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;ll show you.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s a wasp.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s very short and honestly it kind of, it&#8217;s weird because I put a lot of work into a lot of the videos that I do and this, this one was not a lot of work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was just a video.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 35:43<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you also on TikTok?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I don&#8217;t post as much on TikTok, but I guess I should do more because I know that the potential for virality is a lot higher with that social media program.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 36:09<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So speaking also of sustainability and getting to people, how has like beekeeping impacted your perspective on the environment and sustainability?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like speaking of the big picture of fun?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, we&#8217;re all responsible for what happens in our environment.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, some more than others, of course, corporations and businesses that are polluting environments intentionally and dealing with the fines or whatever.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s one thing.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But also, what we put in our yards, what we grow in our yards, what we do to our yards, cutting grass, how sustainable is all that if we&#8217;re all doing it at the same time and throughout the year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can be very tricky, but just understanding, again, we all are responsible and I&#8217;ll play a role in whether that&#8217;s buying hive or planting some native flowers or whatever.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe we can all do something.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 37:09<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Those companies are big like figures in the industry? They play a key role in beekeeping and farming in general?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to say they play a key role in it.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every once in a while, there&#8217;ll be some beekeepers will say, &#8220;Oh, my bees died and they had some pesticide exposure.&#8221;<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And maybe that&#8217;s because the wherever area that the bees were around were being treated by pesticides.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I wouldn&#8217;t say that&#8217;s happening all the time.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would just say I&#8217;d say that&#8217;s more ecological, environmental disasters and stuff like that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s a lot of stuff that&#8217;s really completely out of our hands.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it&#8217;s more complicated than only one factory.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here&#8217;s the video.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s a wasp on top of a frame of bees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow.It has like many likes and many bees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think it got 2.5 million bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It just was crazy.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn&#8217;t even realize too because I have notifications turned off on Facebook.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They just get a ton of stuff there and then all of a sudden with them just erupted one day like what is going on?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 38:31<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So also speaking of companies and bees, is there other pollinators than bees?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or voting only bees as pollinators?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or we have many other pollinators than bees?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, there&#8217;s a ton more pollinators than bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There&#8217;s bees pollinate, wasp, yellow jackets pollinate, flies, moths, butterflies, bats, even mosquitoes I&#8217;m told pollinate some things.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, there&#8217;s a ton more pollinators and what I want people to understand is like it&#8217;s not just about saving honey bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s definitely not just about saving honey bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s about saving all pollinators and helping, you know, like all the things they plant around here.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They have flowers that are forged on for days and days and days by a host of different species of insects and you know, just buying hive isn&#8217;t going to save the planet.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s while that may help and else it may not help.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Really the more focus should be on you know what can we do to provide for native pollinators or just pollinators in general by giving them food, not just planting a bunch of grass and grass to eat.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s like what you know what can actually help them out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 39:41<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do you work with other pollinators than bees?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not really no, I only keep honey bees but I do some, I wouldn&#8217;t say I would work with them but I do some work with the landscaper out in East Charlotte.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He does some work with planting native species of plants that are good for pollinators.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, I definitely know of ways to help them out but I don&#8217;t work with them specifically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 20:09<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think your background as a student at UNCC has backed it also your work in beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely, 100%.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How is that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean I learned a lot from just like I took a insect biology class, I took a zoology class, it took a lot of my focus was on conservation and to get a kind of understanding like the delicate balance that a lot of ecologies environments have.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, I think at least I learned a lot from that, at least I sparked an interest in me to want to learn more and understand more.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, I know I definitely, I think I&#8217;ve very much aligned with what I do now at least.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 41:00<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that&#8217;s very interesting.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if you could give your past self one piece of advice, what would it be?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t know.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we all say relax because we you know hindsight is 2020 everything but even then it seems like some of the my reactions were worthy of being anxious or at least excited about.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don&#8217;t know it&#8217;s maybe I haven&#8217;t seen everything come down.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would probably say make more of a social media for evidence but at the same time like it doesn&#8217;t mean that much to me.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I still have a pretty good business things are working out pretty good so yeah I don&#8217;t know it&#8217;s a good question.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t think about that a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 41:49<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So also if you could give yourself one piece of warning what could it be?<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You made like a mistake in your first tears as a beekeeper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You gotta feed your bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Best if you take the honey off.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you take the honey off the bees, they&#8217;re that&#8217;s their honey for the ear you know and that&#8217;s their food source for the year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So like that what I was talking about in 2022 where a lot of bees died that was because of starvation because they didn&#8217;t feed them enough after I took off a lot of honey from them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just thought they&#8217;d be okay and they were not because that was a very anxious very anxious year.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah definitely that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 42:30<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So also if you have like hopes or dreams of for your farm when your hive is in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah I definitely hope to expand this maybe to another place.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah I just want to I really want to do more in advocacy and teaching people about bees and kind of disarming their beliefs that bees are like aggressive and wanting to sting them.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know anything I can do to kind of educate and again calm people about pollinators and bees I think would be great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 43:08<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah this is also connected to my next question.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is an aspect of beekeeping that people often misunderstood?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s hard work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don&#8217;t know if people understand that.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s just the amount of work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s very difficult very strenuous very yeah sometimes it could be up to Austin wearing a bee suit in the middle of August and lifting boxes and moving bees around.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah it&#8217;s heavy lifting a lot of work.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But also perhaps the people that understand how rewarding this is it&#8217;s very very nice to be around bees.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&#8217;s a very calming aspect to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 43:54<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also in Charlotte what do you envision for the future of farming and beekeeping in Charlotte in general?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like to see a lot more micro farms urban farms.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;d like to see more people getting into that perhaps getting away from careers that don&#8217;t really suit them and maybe opening up farms especially areas for their maybe food deserts where there&#8217;s not a whole lot of organic homegrown foods you know like things from all over the place things from all over the country the world.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I&#8217;d like to see more of that where we reveal the on farms and places away from here but really because it&#8217;s a great place to grow to grow not just again not just that bees but also have farms and gardens it&#8217;s a very good state an area for that so I&#8217;d like to see much more of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 44:45<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay so are there any other questions I should have asked you about beekeeping or I didn&#8217;t ask for the beekeeping?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That&#8217;s a good question.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um no honestly I think he really hit a lot of the the nails on the head with with everything and I just want to emphasize again while again beekeeping is great and it&#8217;s great to keep honeybees the the focus towards pollinators should not just be on honeybees it should be all pollinators all the matter like it&#8217;s not just specifically honeybees so however you can get that word out and that I said that I think that would do everyone much the better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE: 45:30<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much Justin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JO:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, thank you for the opportunity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">HE:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\n<\/div><h2 class=\"tabtitle\">Captioned Audio<\/h2>\n<div class=\"tabcontent\">\n\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>excerpt&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbeiID-fd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1265,"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943\/revisions\/1265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.charlotte.edu\/food-oral-history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}