Episode 24: “That's just the Gees Bees!”

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: You are listening to Raising Curious Learners, a podcast from Britannica for Parents where we talk to experts and discuss issues and trends in child development, education, and parenting.

Welcome back to Raising Curious Learners. I'm Elizabeth Romanski and my co-host is Ann Gadzikowski. At Britannica, we're all curious learners. And one of the important topics that seems to come up a lot in our work and our conversations is the environment, how to protect it, and how to sustain it.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: That's true. And you know lately, I've been hearing a lot specifically about the importance of bees and how crucial bees are to our planet. But I admit I don't know a lot about bees.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: I don't either. I try to, but I am by far not a bee expert. So we're very lucky that we not only know someone who is but we have her on our show. We met Marianne Gee because she is one of our Britannica Parent advisors. And she happens to be a beekeeper and the founder of Gees Bees Honey Company. So we're very excited to talk to her today about bees, honey, and parenting. So welcome, Marianne, to our podcast.

MARIANNE GEE: Hi. Thanks, Elizabeth. Thanks, Ann. I'm happy to be here.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: So tell us a story. How did you become a beekeeper?

MARIANNE GEE: Well actually, I became a beekeeper by accident. In 2009, my husband and I, we bought a house in the country. And we bought it in the winter. And when we moved in the springtime, we discovered that there was a colony of honeybees actually living in the wall of our house.

So they were living in the floor joists of our kitchen ceiling in between the first and second story. We watched them coming and going. And we weren't bee experts at the time at all. Kind of looked at them and said, "I think they're honeybees." and so even at that time in 2009, there was lots of news reports about things happening with the honeybees and the different problems that they were experiencing. And so we really knew that certainly we didn't want to exterminate them.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Right.

MARIANNE GEE: But we didn't know how to get them out of our house. And we called around and tried to find people who could help us and couldn't. And then so one day that summer-- that would be July of 2009-- my husband put on a rubber rain suit, wrapped a towel around his head, climbed a ladder, took the siding off the side of the house. He was wearing big winter gloves.

And he started taking out row after row of honeycomb and these bees. And we had like a vague sense that smoke helped keep them calm. So we had like a little fire going. And I would run back and forth with like a smoldering stick to try and help do something.

But to make a long story short, we rehomed those bees into a cabinet that we had, and we put that cabinet in the woods. And we kind of figured that that would be the end of our honeybee adventure. And then about two weeks after that, we were sitting in the backyard and a swarm of honeybees which is a big cloud of bees-- it's how honeybees reproduce-- flew over our garage and started going right back into the house where we just remove the bees from.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Oh my goodness.

MARIANNE GEE: So at that point, we called the beekeeper. She came and she helped us find the queen, moved the swarm into a proper bee hive, gave us some beekeeping equipment, and we kind of just started as a hobby from there with two beehives and not a lot of beekeeping experience.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: Wow. That's such a great story because you tried to do it yourself first and learned so much from doing that, and then a professional helped you. And I think that that's really cool actually that you got in and did it yourself. And maybe that has something to do with how you got interested in being beekeepers?

MARIANNE GEE: Oh, absolutely. We were hooked after that. And so we kind of just started learning as much as we could. We watched a lot of YouTube. We read a lot of books. We kind of just started learning by doing. And not long after that, I guess in 2015, we started Gees Bees Honey Company as a business. And so yeah, we fell in love with them, absolutely.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: So you've certainly learned a lot and it seems like very quickly. And you mentioned at the beginning before you were part of this that you thought they were honeybees. And I reference that because I believe that there are what? Over 20,000 species of bees, am I correct?

MARIANNE GEE: Yes, there are 20,000 different species, 8,000 different species in North America.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Yes, so honeybees are a small section of that. The topic of bees is so wide. But could you give a quick synopsis about bees and kind of about how honeybees specifically, are different from some of the other species.

MARIANNE GEE: Sure. So most species of bees they live in either small colonies or they're solitary. So like you mentioned, there's around 20,000 different species of bees. There's 8,000 different species in North America. Most native bees they're bumblebees or solitary bees like mason bees. They live a little bit differently. They're all important pollinators, they visit flowers, they're important keystone species. But there's only a few species that actually produce honey.

The European honeybee-- Apis mellifera that's the one that beekeepers care for, and it's the one really the main ones that produce honey and are considered like domesticated, although they're really quite wild. But I think human beings and honeybees Apis mellifera have had an incredibly long relationship. There's evidence of people keeping honey bees. It's been probably 9,000 years. And so we've kind of been living symbiotically with them and using them for pollination and different things for a very, very long time. A lot of wild pollinators-- they're excellent pollinators but they don't produce honey. So if you think of the bumble bee, they live in very small colonies with about maybe 20 different bees. And they often live underground in a mouse nest or in a very small kind of softball-shaped colony. Whereas honeybees they live in colonies of about 50,000. So they're very, very social insect.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Yeah, and I'm thinking a lot of folks with kids probably know this, but the big thing nowadays is getting a little bee hotel. So you see one and it has like little almost like reeds within this cute little frame. And naively when I first heard about it I thought, oh, if I get a bee hotel I can take care of honeybees and like not have my own colony or anything but just take care of them. Well, quickly I realized as part of the fact that there are so many species of bees that the bee hotels are specific for those solitary bees. And I think you said mason, and I think is there another one-- the carpenter bee where they are so solitary but they like that kind of reed nest.

MARIANNE GEE: Yes. The carpenter bees the Mason bees they really like those little bee hotels. And so most bees they do nest in like wild spaces. They like the reeds of plants where they might live in a cane raspberry, or like they'll make a little hole and they just basically lay an egg and raise a new bee. Unlike honeybees that live in big colonies and I guess they would live in a hollow tree, but when they're being cared for by a beekeeper they live in a beehive.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: So why do people say that bees are in danger? What's going on with bees in the environment?

MARIANNE GEE: So for honeybees and for wild bees and more on the wild bee side as well, there's a whole bunch of pressures on their populations. And it's a combination of different things. So you have pesticide exposure. So there's certain pesticides that have been heavily linked to pollinator decline. One in particular is called a neonicotinoid, a neonic pesticide.

And so that's one thing. We use land in different ways. So that there's less wild spaces, maybe fewer meadows and flower fields for native pollinators and honeybees to visit. And in particular for honeybees one thing that is hard on them is that the way we grow our food. So we've moved into a food system that's heavily based on monocultures. So this is large expanses of single crops. And areas like that-- if you were to take the almond orchards in California as an example. It's like hectares upon hectare of nothing but almonds. And those almonds bloom for two weeks in February. And the rest of the time there aren't a lot of wildflowers there to support the native pollinators.

And so to compensate for that lack of native pollinators, honeybees are put on transport trucks and moved into orchards to pollinate the fruit. I don't think that honey bees have been designed to be moved around on transports either. And so that's really hard on their population.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: They're not commuters.

MARIANNE GEE: They're not commuters. And so, I think just the food system in general is problematic for honeybees and wild bees.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: So what do children and families need to know about bees? Some children are afraid of bees and some are actually allergic to bees. So what do they need to know to help the environment and to protect bees?

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Well, also not feeling so scared too. Because I do think that there is sometimes a fear of bees from child and adults. So I think it's how do we show that they're important for us and encourage folks to help them while also maybe lessening their fear.

MARIANNE GEE: Yeah, I think some of that too comes from wasps giving bees a bad name.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Wasps are mean to bees. They are not bees' friends.

MARIANNE GEE: Most of the time when you're having a picnic or a barbecue, it's the wasps and hornets that are buzzing around and making a thing. And the bees are off visiting flowers. But you're right, honey bees and many species of wild bees have a stinger. They can sting. Most of the time but I try and tell kids-- we do tours and we do educational things in schools and things-- is that most of the time when a bee stings us it's by accident.

So it's when we're actually in a bee hive and we've accidentally pinched one. And you get stung on your finger. But for the most part they're really quite gentle. And I think that's one of the things that I really enjoy doing, is demystifying bees. And we have people come to our farm and see us going through a beehive. Maybe even in a T-shirt. I think people are surprised at just how gentle honeybees are. And so you kind of say the same thing, like if you leave them alone, they're going to leave you alone. And you try and explain all of the important things that they actually do for us.

So one of those things is-- well, the most important thing, we often think about the honey is the gift that bees give us, but the true gift is really about pollination. And so it's pollinating all of, like I said the fruits and vegetables but also the seeds and fruit and nuts that all the other animals eat. They're really a cornerstone species. And so very, very important.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: We're going to take a quick break. So stay with us and we'll be right back.

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ANN GADZIKOWSKI: So you founded Gees Bees and that's a family business. Tell us about your company and how it's run?

MARIANNE GEE: So yeah, we're a family business, we're located in Canada. My husband and I founded it. We started it in 2015 which was the same year that my son was born. He's been sort of like part of our business since the very, very beginning. And I think if I compare it to when I was working a nine-to-five sort of desk type of job. I think the difference really is that there's not a lot of boundary between work life and home life-- like a family business it's a lifestyle. It's like work and play is all kind of intermingled. And I'm sure different family businesses are a little bit different, but in our case my business partner is my husband and my son's father, and so it's all just kind of a big wonderful messy business life.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: What is it like for your son, is he interested in bees?

MARIANNE GEE: He is interested in bees, but I think he takes bees for granted in that, they've always been around and it's just sort of normal for him. He's actually more interested in business in general. Like the idea of selling things to customers. And we have honey customers that come and he likes to set up a little store and make things to sell in the store, and that sort of thing. And one thing that he has on his list for this summer is he's planted a whole bunch of pumpkins and he made a big day of selling them. And so I think that's one thing that my husband and I really notice as parents and entrepreneurs, is that he's really in the mix of it, and it's almost like it's just normal to him to want to start a business and kind of figure out how to sell things. And he's using pumpkins and vegetables to do that.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: So how do you do it all? How do you balance everything that you've got going on?

MARIANNE GEE: Well, balance is a funny word. Like I kind of described, we have a very fluid approach to business and family. And we're making business decisions at breakfast and lunchtime and dinner. And our son is very much a part of that. I'm a big believer in partnerships for a business and my partner happens to be my husband. And I think we both bring very different skills to the business, and those two things kind of really help us both balance all the other demands. We can kind of pinch-hit for each other when we have to. And divide the work to make it just kind of work. I don't know if it would be called balance, but it's just life.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: And has the pandemic affected your business and your family schedule?

MARIANNE GEE: In some ways it definitely has. And in some ways it hasn't. So pre-pandemic we were already working from home spending a lot of time together. And so the change to a work-from-home environment didn't really change anything for us. It did change aspects of our business. I mean, the bees don't know there's COVID. So they continue doing what they need to do. And we have to continue caring for them in the same way. We pivoted to a lot of online honey sales, especially at the beginning of the pandemic and that's kind of held through.

And then one thing we've really had to change was we had been working-- and I kind of alluded to it-- on agritourism. So tours through our farm for people to come and learn about bees and kind of see them up-close. And that kind of got derailed a little bit with COVID, of course. At least in Ontario we had limits on what kind of social gatherings could happen. And so what we've been working on with Ottawa tourism is a virtual tour, where people whether it's a school or a family or a community group, or even we've been getting requests from businesses like adults who kind of want to learn about bees. And doing that virtually-- And so we haven't launched it yet, but it's something that we're working on and hoping to launch this summer. And we'll have on our website, which is geesbees.ca

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: I think that virtual tour is a great way also for parents and their children to kind of get familiar with bees, but also help them out. What are other activities that could be tangible or could be virtual like that for parents to encourage learning about bees for their kids, but also to help them? I know wildflower planting is one of them and if you have a garden. But I'm thinking other ideas for parents and their kids.

MARIANNE GEE: Yeah, well, like you said, I love the idea of planting flowers and the little bee hotels where you can actually go, especially in the spring and see if there's any hatching. But even just going out into a park and seeing like what bees you might see on the flowers. Just trying to get comfortable with them that way. Because I think the food system is the issue. And I think there's so many benefits to gardening. I say like plant a vegetable garden. Learn about where our food comes from. Go into the farmer's market. Anything that's kind of that local food system can be really educational and valuable. And if you're like my son you can teach your kids about business at the same time if they want to set up a veggie stand at the street level or something.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: What is a day in the life of a beekeeper like. What kinds of work do you have to do to maintain the hive?

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: And I'll caveat that with saying could you give us one where the bees are at their busiest, but then also one in the winter. Because I think that when the bees disappear there may not be a lot of obvious work that you do. So maybe two days in the life of a beekeeper.

MARIANNE GEE: Sure. Let's say a typical day in the busy season. For us in our climate and geography that would be around the middle of June. During that time we're checking beehives regularly, we're going in them. We're looking for that the queen is doing her job that she's laying eggs. That the colony has enough room for the queen to lay eggs but also to store honey. In June in our region is kind of what's called the honey flow and that's a period of time when lots of wildflowers are in bloom and the bees can produce a lot of honey in a very short window.

So that can be a very busy time, and we're lifting heavy boxes and we're taking boxes off. And we're looking through colonies and just kind of managing them to make sure that they have everything they need. I wouldn't say that there's really a typical day. The season kind of progresses in a typical fashion. So like at the beginning of the season that's about managing the colonies and making sure they have enough space. By August we're thinking about taking off the honey supers. So that's actually taking off the boxes of honey that they've made. The excess, the extra that they don't need for winter, and we're harvesting it.

So we've got different tools to actually take the thin layer of wax off the top of the honeycomb, and we put the frames in a honey extractor, which spins them and using centrifugal force it pushes all of the honey out of the honeycomb and then it drips down to the bottom of the tank and we can bottle it. In. The fall we're starting to worry about winter. We're treating for a parasite called Varroa destructor which is a parasite that can affect honey bees.

We're making sure that they have lots of honey stores so that they can eat that through the winter because it's their food source. And then in November we insulate them and then we leave them from November until about middle to end of March. At least in our region when there's lots of snow. And they stay in the hive-- they don't go dormant like other insects they actually cluster together in a ball and they shiver their flight muscles to generate heat. And they move around the beehive all winter eating honey, and they just wait for spring. During that time we're doing other business jobs like bookkeeping and online sales, and all the other different parts of the business that happen.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: So do you have advice for families who may be thinking about maybe not going into business as beekeepers. But maybe are thinking about establishing their own hive or maybe they want to have chickens and they want to get their own eggs, or all the different kinds of really cool projects that families might be considering right now. Do you have any advice for them?

MARIANNE GEE: I mean, I would say go for it. I know many, many people who keep bees just as a hobby. I mean, the nice thing about honeybees is that unlike other livestock, if you have one or two beehives you can check on them about every 10 days, every two weeks, it's not like a daily thing like milking cows or feeding the chickens every day. And so they are very nice kind of agricultural activity. And I would say start slowly, learn a lot, read a lot, and then just learn by doing because that's really, I think, where most of the learning kind of happens. It's just a great way to get outside and whether it's planting a garden or keeping honeybees it's all fun.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: I think we've had a wonderful conversation with you all. And I really hope that this season goes well for you guys and that your honeybees fare well, and we really appreciated you joining the podcast and talking to us and sharing some really good information.

MARIANNE GEE: Thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure. I really appreciate it. Have a great day.

ANN GADZIKOWSKI: Thank you.

ELIZABETH ROMANSKI: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Raising Curious Learners. Special Thanks to our guest this week Marianne Gee, founder of Gees Bees Honey Company for talking to us about her experience running a family business and giving us some tips on how we can help save the bees. I'm Elizabeth Romanski and my co-host as usual is Ann Gadzikowski, our audio engineer and editor for this program is Emily Goldstein. If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, leave us a review, and share with your friends.

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