Honey Bee Veterinarians with Tracy Farone, DVM (296)

296 - Honey Bee Veterinarians with Tracy Farone, DVM

Jeff: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast, presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Hey, Becky, did you notice it's just a little quiet at the beginning of this episode?

Becky: It's just the two of us. It's quiet and lonely.

Jeff: Where was that listener opener? Hey, folks, we could really use your help in starting the show. You can hear how bad it sounds when it's just Becky and me.

Becky: Do you think they're just shy?

Jeff: I think it's the time of year. Everyone's busy, they're out with their heads in the boxes because that's where I'd like to be. Am I projecting? Maybe I'm projecting. [chuckles]

Becky: It only takes a few seconds to share your name and where you're from, and we have a whole map we need to complete. Wait, should we call out a specific state, maybe?

Jeff: Sure. Let's call out the state of Wyoming.

Becky: Wait, is that the least populated state-

Jeff: Yes, it's the least populated state.

Becky: -in the US, the one of them?

Jeff: Yes.

Becky: I know of some Wyoming beekeepers, and they're great people. Wyoming, please step up. We're ready for you. There's a place.

Jeff: We've got a map for you. Folks, it's easy to do. Just take your memo app on your phone of choice, record a quick openings, and send it in to us at questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com and you can hear yourself open to show, or even better, get your beekeeping club to open it for us. You can find and hear many different examples of that in prior episodes.

Becky, I know in the past we've talked about keeping bees and have a mentality of they're more like livestock than anything else, and you're taking care of a herd, for lack of a better term. Just as a side note, when I was President of Medina County Beekeepers back in Ohio, I was the newsletter editor, and they just called it the newsletter or something way back then. I said, "This needs to have a funny term, or this has to have a catchy," and I called it the Bee Herder. I was ahead of my times, even back then.

Becky: You saw the need for better animal care for beekeepers, and a different context as far as how to manage them.

Jeff: Absolutely. The way we maintain them, I know everyone likes to talk about keeping bees in their natural state, and there's all the discussion about that. I think that's a great discussion, no doubt. The fact of the matter is we keep them in the square boxes for the most part, whether it be wood or plastic or they're long or square or whatever, and we keep them multiple colonies to a yard within inches of each other in some cases or side to side if they're on a pallet. We are managing much like livestock.

Becky: I would just like to point out, if we want them in their natural state, we're going to have to ship them back to Europe [unintelligible 00:04:22]

Jeff: Don't start that argument.

Becky: I'm just saying. You can only have that argument go so far because technically, we're all visitors. A lot of us are visitors here, including our bees.

Jeff: That's right. When you start thinking about the honey bees as livestock and you're thinking, "I'm not treating an individual bee. I'm treating thousands of bees as a herd," it calls to mind veterinarians.

Becky: It calls to mind, specifically, large animal veterinarians. I love it that our guest today has said that the best vet for our little tiny honey bee is a large animal vet.

Jeff: Now, who would have thunk that?

Becky: Right? It's a little bee, but it gets a big vet.

Jeff: I like the PBS show and the books, All Creatures Great and Small, but little did they know.

Becky: Exactly.

Jeff: James Herriot. Folks, today's guest, Tracy Farone, is a large animal vet who is also a beekeeper. She's recently written a book called Honey Bee Vet, surprisingly. She's a regular contributor to Bee Culture Magazine. She will be up in just a few seconds to talk to us about her book, her practice. She's been with us before, and I know that you'll enjoy listening to her.

Becky: I can't wait.

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Jeff: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Sitting across the virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast interview table is Dr. Tracy Farone, direct from her large animal and very small insect practice. Tracy, welcome to the show.

Tracy Farone: Thanks, Jeff. It's a pleasure to be here.

Becky: Welcome, Tracy. We're so happy to have you here.

Tracy Farone: Thanks, Becky.

Jeff: I stumbled over your intro Tracy, because I couldn't remember, and I was panicking at the moment. Where are you located?

Tracy Farone: Western Pennsylvania. I teach at a college called Grove City College, which is in Northwest Pennsylvania. It's maybe about an hour and a half South of Erie. That's where I work, mainly. That's my main job that I do.

Jeff: Is that near Lake Pymatuning?

Tracy Farone: Pymatuning's in the area. We got a lot of lakes, Lake Wilhelm. I live near Moraine State Park, which is a beautiful lake there too.

Jeff: Tracy, we've invited you to the show because you have-- You've been on the show before. You have a regular column in Bee Culture, and you're a large animal vet, but you're also veterinarian to the bees. We want to talk to you about your book, Honey Bee Vet.

First, for our listeners who don't know you, can you give us a little bit about your background?

Tracy Farone: I'm not a large animal veterinarian anymore, per se. I want to make sure I correct that for you. I don't have a shingle out or anything. No one's going to call me at two o'clock in the morning anymore. I used to do that, but not anymore. [laughs] First three years when I was young and energetic. Now that I'm getting older, I don't do those late night calls. I'm working as an academic veterinarian at Grove City College. Certainly, my background was with cattle and horses and things, and I did some small animal practice and such for several years. I looked and treated about anything that would fit in the door at that point in time.

Bees came up in 2017, that mandate that everybody knows about, that brought veterinarians into the fray, if you will, which it became a fray, right?

Jeff: Can you restate what that is for those beekeepers?

Tracy Farone: In 2017, the FDA put out a mandate, and that was a mandate that antibiotics were no longer available over the counter for agricultural animals. That included bees for the first time. It was largely meant for cattle and chickens and things, which they used to be able to get antibiotics at Tractor Supply or any feed store or whatever, and beekeepers were doing the same thing.

The issue though, was really a public health issue, because antibiotic resistance is the number one public health issue in the world that affects humans, as well as animals, because we have a lot of antibiotic resistance. A lot of our medically important antibiotics like tetracyclines like oxytetracycline or doxycycline or tylosin is included in that, which beekeepers use, lincomycin. Those are considered to be medically important antibiotics that they use in humans and other animals as well.

Unfortunately, they were being overused in agriculture and sometimes inappropriately used. My animals are sick, so I give them antibiotics without a lot of diagnosis and things. The FDA came out and said, "Hey, now we're taking these off the market. They need to be given by a licensed veterinarian as a prescription or what's called a VFD or a veterinary feed directive."

That mandated that veterinarians needed to go out and see bees as an exam, which is what we call a veterinary client-patient relationship. It created a problem, a very interesting problem I thought. Not everybody thinks it's interesting, but as an academic veterinarian, you see these things you're like, "Oh, that's interesting." Other people are like, "This is a pain in the butt."

Being in the position I was in, I was like, "Well, beekeepers have never had to deal with this with veterinarians, and veterinarians have never had to deal with bees and beekeepers." It was a good idea, but it really created this problem and clashing between these two industries.

Jeff: When they made that directive, they had everything worked out and how everyone would work together, didn't they?

Tracy Farone: Right. The government was right on it.

Jeff: They had everything set.

Tracy Farone: Yes, kudos. No, actually not at all. It was a very good idea, but zero plan and zero ways to implement it. Now the FDA is going to do that for me. It's one of those things that at that point I saw this coming, and I was in an interesting position where I was set up to take a sabbatical and I thought, "Wouldn't this be an interesting problem to study?"

I made a proposal actually in 2018, and ended up going on a sabbatical in 2019, thanks to my college. I ended up going all over the world. I went to France, I went to Scotland, I went out to Montana. I hung around locally, which for me locally is Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. I hung out with beekeepers in the industry. I hung out with entomologists and academic bee people.

I also went over to Europe where they've been doing veterinarians with bees for decades over there in France. Their veterinarians were typically trained in bee medicine. I learned from the veterinary side a little bit, and I learned from just observing beekeepers in the field anywhere from a backyard beekeeper to hung out with a 10,000-hive operation out in Montana just to see how they do things, and migratory beekeepers and took all that in.

Jeff: Was it all related to the veterinary feed directive?

Tracy Farone: I wanted to learn beekeeping. You can't do bees if you don't know anything about beekeeping.

Jeff: Yes, you can.

Tracy Farone: You can't just walk in the door and be like, "Hey, okay." It's funny because I get all these weird questions from people sometimes that say, "Well, how do you medicate bees?" They have these pictures of little pills. How do you individually treat 10,000 or 60,000 bees? It's funny some of the images that people have in their minds, but I needed to learn first.

It was an immersion for myself educationally to learn from both sides of the industry and people that knew. If you don't know something, find people that do. That's what I was able to do in that time. I spent eight months just really immersing myself in the industry.

Jeff: What was, I don't know, your top two big surprises that you didn't expect, or maybe there wasn't a situation like that?

Tracy Farone: Yes, there was some of that. I think a lot of people get that migratory beekeeping and how many bees that we have in this country, some of the myths, the save the bee myths that all the honeybees are dying and everybody's got to get bees in their backyard to save the bees. Thank you for laughing, Becky. That's completely appropriate.

Becky: [laughs] It's just that I feel like I yell at people sometimes, "They don't need to be saved." I think your book says the same thing very clearly. They need help.

Tracy Farone: I don't think a lot of people realize we have 2-point something million up to 3 million, if you look at the USDA reports, honeybee colonies that are agriculturally managed animals in this country, which is the vast majority are commercial and migratory hives.

I think when I first got into it, that was a little bit of a surprise for me but you know what, that made me like it a lot more because the agricultural connection. It's like a herd of cattle or chicken. A lot of the management techniques while they're technically different, the overall basic rationale for it is the same, and understanding how it's farming. You're a herdsman. You're a beekeeper. Those are all very similar.

Jeff: Thank you for saying that because you just validated what Becky and I were talking before you came on. You're really managing a herd, H-E-R-D.

Tracy Farone: In that way, I can then take that back and talk to veterinarians because veterinarians know how to handle herd management. Maybe they don't know how to inspect a beehive, but they know how to talk about biosecurity and herd management. Those are all things that beekeepers could use help with. It was one of those things where it's like the things were so far apart and then it's like, "What are the commonalities here that we can bring people back together and actually help each other?" I was looking for those things.

You asked me some of the surprises, and some of the surprises were how many different aspects there were in the industry. 2019, I went up to Apimondia in Montreal because it was close. I don't know if you guys have ever been to an Apimondia. They have all these different aspects of beekeeping and things. It's just most people think of beekeeping as this little hive in Grandpa's backyard or something. It's just such an in-depth industry of what's going on, and then all the pollination and honey producing and there's a lot of controversy in honey. The deeper I got down, I found it was quite the rabbit hole to fall into.

Becky: I think what you said without actually saying it is so dramatic because you just described there's a whole livestock industry without actual veterinarians caring for it. I remember when I was at the University of Minnesota, they appointed me as an extension educator in apiculture, and they put me in the horticulture team. I was just like, "Ah, this isn't a fit." I'm like, "Can I just go over to the livestock team?" They're like, "Is that a fit?" I'm like, "Are you kidding me? This is a perfect fit."

That's the thing is that if you don't take bees and put them where they need to be, then we're never going to benefit from the framework that exists that is there to support animals.

Tracy Farone: You are right on Becky. I can't agree more. I've said this and not to fight about it, but I've brought up the obvious in meetings before. It was when I was first young and new and naive to this industry, where I was talking to some state people. In most states, bees are under the plant bureau of the Department of Agriculture. I was in a meeting once and I said, "But bees are animals." You would've thought I said something horrific and I didn't realize. I was like, "I'm a biologist and I think I checked. I'm pretty sure I'm right on that one."

You have these departments of agriculture and you have animal health size and you have plant size. They all live in the same building. I'm not trying to take anything away from the state apiarists. I think they're wonderful and they work really hard, and they should be brought up or in, or somehow be connected with the animal health people in a better, more recognized way. Bees are not plants, but there's a lot of efforts right now going on to incorporate in some states bees as plants literally in the same sentence. I think it's not the best road, not the best way to represent them, but that's a controversial statement.

Jeff: You went on sabbatical, you saw how the reality of the beekeeping industry that there was more than grandpa's square box in the backyard. It was really an industry built around the honeybee and the honeybee colonies. Not the individual bee, but colonies. Let's leave it there. We're going to hear from our sponsors real quick, and we'll come back and we'll talk about your book and how you're trying to help other veterinarians.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Tracy, I have two words for you that really changed my life when I read your book, Strategic Deworming.

[laughter]

Becky: I'm not kidding.

Tracy Farone: Why did you like those two words or how did they change your life?

Becky: I will tell you. Strategic deworming which is something that I, okay, I'm now talking to every beekeeper, I know about it, and if they grew up at a farm they're like, "Of course." I spent a lot of my life when I was at the University of Minnesota working for the Bee Squad trying to convince beekeepers how important it was to control varroa before they took over the hive, because otherwise it was too late. We did not have the tools or the framework, and there were all of the veterinarians out there practicing strategic deworming. Had we known that we could have maybe been ahead a little bit faster, and now you have to tell everybody what it is.

[laughter]

Jeff: Yes, my hand- [crosstalk]

Tracy Farone: What is strategic deworming?

Jeff: -is raised like, "Ooo, O oo, what's--"

Becky: It was a certain point where I'm not a veterinarian, I'm going to have to pass this over and Tracy you--

Tracy Farone: This might give people the heebie-jeebies,-

[laughter]

Jeff: Or worse, so forewarned, yes.

Tracy Farone: -but it is what it is. There are parasites everywhere, okay? I tell my students, I teach an infectious disease class and when we cover parasites, I say, "Worms and parasites are everywhere," and they're like, "Where are they at?" I'm like, "They're in the dirt." This is because all dirt was of poop at one point in time or some mix of it. That might make you think twice about going barefoot in the yard, but it's something we do and we've done. It's a very common concept in veterinary medicine, strategic deworming where we don't wait for the patient to be taken over by parasites.

When we say deworming, we're largely talking about intestinal worms, but these could also be worms that penetrate into the skin or into the lungs and things. There are medications that we can give on a periodic basis because we know certain animals are just going to be exposed if they live on Earth. There are cattle out in the pasture or horses or whatever they are, they're going to get exposed and they're going to have a certain parasite load. Yes, by the way, all of them have a certain parasite load, usually it's pretty low. We don't want it to be high that it becomes clinical or affecting then their health.

We will periodically, maybe every month or every three months, or depending on what the cycle is, the season is, we will just give a medication. We certainly can do different exams, fecal exams looking for parasites or whatever, but we can just periodically give a dewormer. We do that as well with your dogs, by the way, and cats, we recommend that as well. If you've ever had a cat or dog, what's the thing you always bring to the vet, right, is the bag of poo.

Becky: The bag of poo, yes.

Tracy Farone: Right. I'm going to do a public service announcement right now for veterinarians if you don't mind, because I worked in small animal clinics for years. People will bring in poop and they'll bring in the entire pile.

[laughter]

Tracy Farone: We just need maybe the size of your thumbnail is the sample size we need. If you bring these huge, please, please, you don't have to do that. That's my public service announcement for veterinarians. They'll check that but they may even still say, "Well, periodically you need to deworm your dog or deworm your cat." We're not doing that just to try to take all your money. We're doing that because we know that if your dog, your cat is outside in the world, that they're going to get exposed to parasites.

Many of those parasites, by the way, are what we call zoonotic. There's another word for the day. Those are diseases that can be transmitted from humans to animals or animals to humans, so either way. We try to in protecting our pets and protecting our animals is to protect people. Now, the good thing with bees is we don't have any zoonotic issues, but with varroa which is a parasite, an ectoparasite, we know that they're going to get exposed to them, right?

There's no hive pretty much on earth now we can say, Australia included, that isn't going to be exposed to varroa. You just know you're going to have them. Yes, you can certainly do your mite counts, and I would highly suggest that so you know what your parasite load is. Again, we talk about with all our animals, and then there's a point that you treat. We certainly know that varroa goes through a cycle, right? We know that they exponentially grow and become increased in number.

There are times where we can target, and most beekeepers will have target treatments as when they're going to do that, and strategically plan that around honey extraction and things of that nature. It's really the same kind of plan that we use for many animals, it's just specifically tailored to bees.

Becky: You don't mean also that we shouldn't take many methods to try to control a pest or a disease because integrated pest management in your book is really important?

Tracy Farone: Yes, integrated pest management is not just a bee thing. We do that with other animals too. We'll use some environmental management if we can as well, and hygiene and a variety of different things that again, you can almost find in different management styles the thing that is synonymous in cattle or chickens to bees. It's different and specific to that species, but it's really the same type of IPM, yes.

Jeff: I think that's really important. To many people, honey bee vet doesn't sound like a very logical or a very likely thing. The fact of the matter is that many of the frameworks that is used in veterinarian medicine is there, and it just needs to be adopted to the honey bee. It's not as cumbersome as someone might originally think.

Tracy Farone: Right. This is something that I learned in this whole deep dive that I did into both industries together. That's where a lot of my articles come from. I think if you've read any of my articles, I'm just looking at beekeeping using my veterinary training, and putting it through that lens, and trying to make it make sense to people because they might understand it from a different experience and then, "Oh, it's not as different as I thought it was, or it's just the same thing applied to this species."

Jeff, we're trying to on the veterinary side help out veterinarians and help out beekeepers by providing education really on both sides. Right now, I believe there are eight veterinary schools, and there's only about 30 vet schools, by the way, total in the United States, so actually, eight's a big chunk. There's eight vet schools that have bee vet clubs, or some type of curriculum now in their school. We are starting to teach our veterinary students about honey bees, as well as Honey Bee Veterinary Consortium which I'm on the board for. That's a group of veterinarians that are trying to put out a lot of veterinary education and connect beekeepers with veterinarians.

Jeff: We've had representatives Allie and Britteny on the show a couple of years ago from the consortium.

Tracy Farone: We're trying to do a certification actually right now for honey bee veterinarians, so veterinarians that are already out and go through additional training and hours to provide a certification for them so that beekeepers would know that that veterinarian at least has some level of expertise in honey bees beyond just the typical veterinary degree. That's something that we're hoping to get going here pretty soon.

Jeff: As a beekeeper I say, "I want to participate and I want to be a good corporate beekeeper," for lack of a better term, a good beekeeper. When is the right time to call a honey bee vet?

Tracy Farone: I actually love that question because-- That's universal all the time because it's [chuckles] better to call before you have a problem.

[laughter]

Tracy Farone: I used to see this clinical practice all the time where people would get this puppy that started out as three pounds, and then it turned into 100 pounds and then they realized maybe this wasn't the puppy for them. It's one of those things, and it's unfortunate too because a lot of people end up putting animals in shelters that they don't realize what they got into. If they researched it before, or had a conversation with a veterinarian before, a lot of times we can do consults prior to the situation happening, before the problem actually happens.

What I would suggest beekeepers do, and I suggest the same thing to veterinarians because again, one of the other things that we're trying to do is current veterinarians that are in practice, we're developing a lot of continuing education for veterinarians. You can barely go to a major veterinarian continuing education conference anymore without there being some type of honey bee CE there, continuing education. I do a lot of speaking, a lot of people from the Honeybee Veterinary Consortium do a lot of speaking as well. There's that.

What I tell beekeepers as well as what I tell veterinarians is, if you have, I tell veterinarians this, I say, "If you have clients, poll them. If you're a veterinarian that's interested in seeing bees, poll your clients and see how many of them are beekeepers, you might be surprised and see if they need help."

The same thing goes, you could go the other way for beekeepers. Most beekeepers might have a dog, or a cat, or a cow or whatever. Ask your current vet, "Hey, would you be interested in seeing my bees? If not, would you be interested in coming over and looking at my bees and learning a little bit about them?" If I do get into trouble, and I do think I've got American foulbrood or European foulbrood, heaven forbid, you could be on call for-- and certainly you should bring your state apiarist in on this if you think you got EFB or AFB, but they'd already have somebody to call that could help them out.

I think it really starts at this local level. You shouldn't wait until a crisis occurs and, "Oh my gosh, I need antibiotics. What do I do now on a Saturday at six o'clock?" [laughs] There's no bee vets. Well, yes, it's going to be tough at that point in time. We're working on trying to increase that bee vet number, but that's something that's going to take a little bit of time. I think locally, vets and the beekeepers can establish these relationships.

Becky: We just started a beekeeping club for the College of Veterinary Medicine students at the University of Minnesota, started by a donation from the Minnesota Honey Producers. I'm teaching them, but talk about teaching myself out of a job. Because of the approach that veterinarians take to animal health, they pick it up and after a couple of a few sessions, I had them just talking it through and teaching each other. I'm there for higher level things, but it's literally taking the most qualified people out there to help with animal health, and just giving them the tools and the opportunity.

I throw that out there because you mentioned potentially health checks in your book. Do you see beekeepers calling their vet for that first visit and maybe even getting help sampling for mites?

Tracy Farone: I think if you have a veterinarian that's familiar with bees, certainly that would be one thing. I think vets could teach beekeepers things, and I think beekeepers can teach vets a lot of things. I think it has to be a two-way street. I tell my veterinarians, I find it ridiculous that we've been called in to treat two diseases with three drugs. Can you imagine going to your doctor and your doctor saying, "You know what, I can only diagnose two diseases and treat you with three drugs." That's not how it works, and certainly that person wouldn't understand your anatomy, your physiology, your nutritional needs and all of the potential diseases, the literally hundreds of diseases that could be differential diagnoses for honeybees whenever we open up a hive.

The veterinarian themselves needs to be able to be familiar with some of the common veterinary, excuse me, honeybee diseases beyond American foulbrood and European foulbrood. We know that a very small percentage of our hives are actually affected with AFB. It's a very scary, scary, scary disease, but it affects into the-- I think it's like a thousandth place percentage of all hives in the country. We also know that almost 100% of our hives are affected by varroa. It's very important that veterinarians understand that a lot of times, well maybe this is EFB, but maybe it's also PMS. Which is, should I define PMS? [laughter]

Jeff: Yes. Better head. Better head. [laughter]

Tracy Farone: Yes. It's not pre-menstrual syndrome, right? It's going to be the mite syndrome that goes along with varroa. Yes, when we have all the viruses associated with it as well. The process that veterinarians go through, whether they're looking at a cat, or a cow, or a bee, is the same. It is what is the history on the patient? What's been going on with this hive? When was it established? Is it queen right? What's its nutritional value? What's been going on with this hive in its past history? Why are you calling me? Why do you think there's an issue or a problem?

Then the next thing is the examination or what beekeepers would call hive inspection, and then knowing how to do that. Then if you see something, knowing what normal is first. I tell this to veterinarians, you must, must, must know normal. That's what we spend a lot of vet school learning by the way. I was very frustrated with that as a student. I wanted to like solve the world, right? Tell me how to treat it and solve it right now. Most of vet school was like, "This is normal, this is what normal looks. Normal, normal, normal." Okay, great. What?

See, you have to know what normal anatomy, normal physiology is. I tell people, "Open up beehives and look, keep looking, look, look, look, look." Look at a lot of normal, and then when you see abnormal, you might not know what it is, but you know it's not right. That's when you can take samples and you learn how to take diagnostic samples, or you do your mite counts. Then you can develop, and this is where veterinarians would do a differential diagnosis list. That's when you have to be familiar with the diseases that are possible that could look like that and present with those clinical signs, run your tests, rule things in, rule things out.

That's the same thing that happens whether you're a human being or a dog or whatever. You work through that. Then once we narrow things down and we believe we come up with the diagnosis, which by the way, a lot of times there isn't just the diagnosis. Sometimes there's more than one thing. That was very frustrating to learn as a physician is that yes, you might be right and find the one thing, but there might be six other things wrong too. That can happen with honeybees hives as well, where they have varroa and six different viruses and a nutritional issue.

Then you have to think of all of those things, identify as many as you can, and then develop a treatment plan. We do that with every animal.

Jeff: A beekeeper, when they have a vet come out to their bees, I would think that they should not expect necessarily a master beekeeper in terms of helping them with their management approach. Should I go with, "I'm using Langstroth, should I go to AZ hive?" They're not going to answer those kind of questions. That's not their expertise. That's not who you want. Then having the history of good management records, which is something we've talked about in the past, is important for the veterinarian.

Tracy Farone: Records help. It's nice if you don't just have a brick on the top of the hive that's pointing to the west that means something.

Becky: Come on. [laughter]

Jeff: I never remember what it meant.

Tracy Farone: Then they're like, "Wait, what does that mean?" [laughter]

Becky: Depends on the day.

Jeff: [laughter] Did it fall over? I thought I put it on end. [laughter] Everything the beekeeper can do to help the veterinarian would be very useful. It's much like taking your cat into the vet. You want to be able to give them as much information going into it. When did this start? How often have you seen this? Has it been like this ever since you've brought it home or whatever the history is?

Becky: I just want to say I have a sample size of two, but my sample size is two veterinarians who are beekeepers and you are one of them. Both of you have more of a problem with having too many bees than not enough bees. Can you tell us a little bit about your operation and your actual beekeeping journey?

Tracy Farone: I don't know how exactly this happened, but I must be doing something right. Everybody says beekeepers have a lifespan of three years, and I was worried about that when I first started out. Again, this is one thing I think I would emphasize is, again, the whole save the bees thing is that people go out and they buy one nuc or something. They have no beekeeping experience at all, they set it up in the backyard and think nature will take care of it. I would highly recommend not doing that.

What I did though is before I even had bees, I researched bees from about the end of 2016, all the way through to really the spring of 2019. I don't know, like two years that I hung out with beekeepers and I read everything under the sun that I could think about, find on honeybees and honeybee management. I paid it forward with that trying to find that knowledge first before I just jumped in and did it. I would suggest that people really know what they're getting into before they get into it. That would be one thing I would recommend.

Then I actually was given a swarm by a group of beekeepers that I was working with as my first hive. I can literally tell you that I've spent $0 on the actual honeybees [laughs] that I have. I had that one hive and I grew it up from a swarm, put the sugar water one to one in there and it got huge and added box, add box, ended up getting fall honey that year. Then the next spring I split that thing. Being the swarmy hive that it was, it provided me with lots of swarm cells. I split that thing and made eight nucs.

Becky: Nice.

Tracy Farone: At that time we were starting the program at the college, and four of them stayed with me and four of them went up to the college. We fed them up a little bit and they became full-fledged hives, and they all survived the winter. What was I doing? Well, I was taking mite counts and I was treating them for mites two or three times a year. I use different things, if you want to get into that I can later. Making sure they had good nutrition. I was paying attention to where they were.

I live in the forests up here in Western PA. We have pretty good forage, pretty good water access. I also did something that I know a lot of beekeepers don't do or maybe can't do because it's their business. I leave a little bit of honey on them. I take the honey off but I leave a lot of it on them. One, because I'm kind of lazy, and it's a lot of work to take it all off and then go back and feed them. Two, it's really their best nutrition, right? It's the honey that they make on their own. I was always careful not to take too much honey off.

Then the next year happened and guess what? They all wanted to swarm again or split again and 4 becomes 8, and 8 becomes 16, and 16 becomes oh my God, what am I going to do? That's where I'm at now, where I have a list of people at this point that are on call for if I open up a hive and I've got a swarmy hive or I've got a swarm-- I get to a point where I have a limit of 20 hives. I want to keep things below 20. That's between my two yards.

I have a home yard which is usually smaller. I usually have just four or five hives at my house. Then in the college, we have anywhere from I don't know, 12 to 15 hives there at any given time. That's where I like to keep it. Then I have this list of people that I'll call if I get any extra swarm cells, or nucs, or anything that I want to give away.

Jeff: How many of the veterinarian students that you have taking the courses that you run across, how many of them are also keeping bees? Would you say it's 50%, 75%, 25%?

Tracy Farone: Of my students that have graduated? That's a good question. I don't know that I'd know answer. I know at least one. She's actually a biology teacher out in Illinois. She got sucked into bees as soon as she went out there. She graduated and she's a teacher in high school and teaches biology and ended up getting into the bees. I don't know. A lot of them went into medical school, so right now because the program, I've just had students since 2019. What are we in '24 now? That's what, four or five years? A lot of those-- I call them kids, I shouldn't do that, but students are now in medical school, went on to medical school or vet school.

Jeff: Oh, they're pretty busy.

Tracy Farone: I don't know how many of them have hives. I know one went down to I think NC State and maybe got involved a little bit but. The Ohio State University now has a bee club which is where I came from so I'm excited.

Jeff: That's right. You're from the Ohio State. Very good.

Tracy Farone: Yes I am an Ohio person-ish once in a while.

Jeff: Any last thoughts about what a beekeeper can do to one, either promote beekeeping to their veterinarians? We discussed just reaching out. Is there anything else that might help the beekeeper and the veterinarian connect that you can think of?

Tracy Farone: I think those local connections are probably one of the best ways because pretty much everybody that has bees probably has other pets, I'm thinking. That means they probably have a direct connection with a veterinarian. That veterinarian might say, "You know what, no way." It's very possible. They'll be like, "No, I'm never doing bees or whatever." It's on the beekeeper to look around a little bit.

I do understand that there isn't a lot of bee vets out there yet, but we're working on it. We're doing them as fast as we possibly can. The FDA didn't give us any forewarning either. From the veterinary side, it's not very lucrative because the veterinarian can sit in a clinic and see patients every 15 minutes, and be making money off of each of one of those appointments. If you go out to a bee yard and spend half a day there, they're losing money. There's not a whole lot of initiative, incentive I should say for finances.

There are veterinarians that are if they are beekeepers that are interested in bees, there'll probably be a few of them around. You don't need every veterinarian to know about bees. It's just like every veterinarian doesn't come out and see cows, or horses or whatever, or lizards. You can oftentimes find those people if you need help, but you got to look around. I would recommend again looking around first before you end up in a crisis.

Jeff: A beekeeper should not be surprised or astounded to receive a yard call charge.

Tracy Farone: Yes. That's something that we've always-- again if you try to find a friend, and I've seen this happen where am at where local beekeeping associations and local veterinary associations which happens. There's beekeeping associations, there's also veterinary associations. Those people could reach out to each other and have friends and learn.

I think veterinarians if they're still learning about bees, they may not charge you as much. If they're going to come out and spend an afternoon, and they have some bee knowledge and they have you out, yes, you're going to get a farm call. Sure. If there's any medications or diagnostic tests use or whatever, there'll be charges for that. You can also get medications [unintelligible 00:45:56] that.

Becky: Well, I think that's the price we pay to take care of all of our animals, right? It's just foreign people because it hasn't existed previously, but it just makes sense. I just need to step in and say, your book is titled Honey Bee Vet. It could also be titled Learn About Honey Bees from a Honey Bee Vet or something like that because it is structured very differently than any book I've read about honey bees, because it is you bringing the reader through a framework with a very clear narrative in teaching about their bees in a way that they probably have not learned about their bees before.

I enjoyed the journey. Then when I got towards the middle to the end, that's where it just got crazy for me because that's where that framework shifting was just so critical to keeping our honey bees healthy. I just want to say we've talked about a little bit of it, but there's more in there that I don't want you to give away but [unintelligible 00:47:03] and varroa, oh my gosh, that was just such a great way to talk about what is going on, and to explain it, and to give us perspective.

It's not a book that I see that it might be helpful for veterinarians, but oh my gosh, it's really helpful for beekeepers to learn more about their animal in a very clear, easy way. You didn't pay me to say that did you? I just--

Tracy Farone: No, I didn't. Talk to me later and I'll--

Becky: [unintelligible 00:47:32]

Tracy Farone: I'm going to buy you dinner later or something.

Becky: We don't live in the same state, I'm not going to get a free house call.

Tracy Farone: [laughs]

Becky: I think it's important because I think I am eternally grateful for veterinarians for stepping in. You used a word earlier, it is initiative. They're taking such initiative and becoming experts in honey bees in order to fill a need that is clearly there, so thank you.

Tracy Farone: We're trying, and I thank you for that endorsement there. We are trying. I know that it's for many beekeepers that are trying to do the right thing, it's frustrating when they can't find a bee-knowledgeable veterinarian, or one that's willing to come out. We are trying to fortify veterinarians in bee knowledge as much as we can. It's going to take some time but it's growing pains with everything else.

There's a veterinary shortage right now overall in the country, not just for honey bees but for pets in general. They're actually building several new vet schools right now. That's helpful for everybody whether you have a dog or a cat or whatever. I guess we're in demand, but I'm glad to hear you say that you like that perspective. For me, that's just, that's how I was trained to think through that medical biological lens for things, and also then try to relate it back to people. I guess I could thank my students for that because that's my job now, is teaching other people and teaching students.

Many of my students go on to health fields. Some of them are veterinarian, some of it's human health, or physical therapy, or dentistry, or whatever. The basics are that basic understanding of biology, and physiology, and design is universal and it's something that if you learn those basic principles, you can apply them really across the board.

Jeff: Really good. Well, Tracy, it's been a great time talking with you and getting caught up. Is there anything that we haven't asked you about that you are prepared to talk about?

Tracy Farone: Yes. For my hives, the first several years I didn't have any winter losses. Becky had asked me about that earlier. I have had a few since, but it hasn't been a lot. Again, those techniques I talked to you about I think do help. I would encourage beekeepers-- and this certainly isn't my phrase. Somebody else coined this about taking your losses in the fall, and just if you have a weak colony going into the winter and that's really a management thing. A lot of times combining colonies or maybe knowing when to call a colony if you have one that didn't re-queen, or something like that or just shaking bees off into another hive is something that's more of a management decision, and it may not necessarily be a loss. You want to make sure that your colonies are strong going into winter.

Jeff: Well, Tracy, it's been wonderful having you on the show. We look forward to having you back and hearing more about your trials and tribulations. We didn't hear any tribulations. We look forward to hearing more of those. Everyone likes a good war story.

Tracy Farone: There's probably a few of those in the book.

Becky: There are some things I did not bring up that are hard to talk about, so--

[music]

Jeff: Get the book and read about it.

Becky: --I think at this point, get the book. [laughs]

Jeff: Yes. Thanks, Tracy. We look forward to having you back.

Tracy Farone: Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Becky.

Becky: Thank you.

Jeff: I really do like the idea of getting honey bee veterinarians involved as a resource for me as a beekeeper.

Becky: Jeff, I bet in 10 years, we're going to look back and we're going to be recording the podcast. We're going to say--

Jeff: Oh, Becky, remember way back when--

Becky: I bet in the next 10 years. Don't make me laugh. I bet in the next 10 years, we're going to see so much of a change and a positive one in the support that veterinarians are going to bring to our industry. It's interesting because we're in the infancy still, but I will tell you, I think there are over 20 different veterinarian students in the One Health Honeybee club at the University of Minnesota, led by Haley and Olivia, and they are all amazing.

They're all going to be veterinarians, and they're all going to step out into that world. They're not going to be afraid of colonies, and they're going to probably know more about disease and diagnosis than the average beekeeper. I think we're-- and that's happening all over the country, and I just think we're going to see a big shift, and it's going to be good, and we're still going to be recording this podcast. [laughter]

Jeff: Come hell or high water. The more resources a beekeeper has to maintain the health of their colonies, their herd, their bee herd, if you will, to overuse that is to the beekeeper's benefit and the bees. That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review, and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any web page.

We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Betterbee, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their generous support. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you the Beekeeping Today Podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments at the Leave a Comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:53:34] [END OF AUDIO]