Season 8 Episode 6: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Tupelo Honey: Swamps, Bees, and Southern Taste

In this episode of About Bees, Culture, and Curiosity, we travel into the flooded river forests of Florida and Georgia to explore the remarkable story of tupelo honey - one of the rarest and most celebrated honeys in North America.

Produced mainly from the blossoms of the Ogeechee tupelo tree, Nyssa ogeche, tupelo honey has fascinated beekeepers, scientists, musicians, and food lovers for generations. We examine the ecology of the tupelo swamps along the Apalachicola River, the brief spring nectar flow, and the unusual chemistry that gives tupelo honey its legendary sweetness and resistance to crystallization.

The episode explores the early history of tupelo beekeeping, including the era when bees and honey were moved through flooded forests by boats and barges. We also examine modern pressures on the tupelo industry, including environmental change, river management, overcrowding of bee yards, and authenticity concerns in premium honey markets.

Along the way, we connect the science and folklore of tupelo honey to Van Morrison's classic song "Tupelo Honey" and the film Ulee's Gold, starring Peter Fonda.

From native pollinators that visited tupelo trees long before honey bees arrived in North America, to the modern commercial honey harvest, this is the story of a landscape, a tree, and one of the most distinctive honeys ever produced.

Recorded in Calgary, May 2026

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com

Season 8 Episode 5: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Wild Bee Care in the Spring

Recorded in Calgary, May 2026

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com

Season 8 Episode 4: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Can Magnets Help Honey Bees Survive Winter?

In this episode, we examine the unusual controversial question of whether electromagnetic fields affect honey bees. We begin with the broader idea that the bees' world is surrounded by weak natural and artificial electromagnetic signals.

The discussion includes Schumann resonance (the low-frequency electromagnetic background of the Earth) and considers why some beekeepers insist that bees may are sensitive to such energy, and why I think they are badly misstaken. From there, the episode moves into bee orientation, magnetoreception, and the possibility that honey bees respond to magnetic fields in ways that are still poorly understood.

A central focus is a 2026 publication about a magnetic-disc overwintering experiment, which claimed improved colony survival and resilience when hives were fitted with magnetic devices. The episode looks at that claim and what the study suggests, what it does not prove, and what weaknesses in design or statistics would need to be addressed before strong conclusions could be made. In other words, I think that magnets under hives may be a good idea, but I don't think this paper's results are not based on a good experimental design.

Overall, I try to give my typical skeptical exploration of bees, electromagnetic environments, winter survival, and the difficulty of separating promising biological effects from experimental noise.

Recorded in Calgary, May 2026

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com

Season 8 Episode 3: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – More than Packages

Bees can arrive in packages. Putting them into snow-covered hive boxes is exciting. We'll install packages and chat bees and more on this episode.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com

Season 8 Episode 2: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Dandelion: The Bee Plant That Doesn't Need Bees

Dandelions show up early. In many places, they're the first thing people notice in spring. Bright yellow, everywhere at once, and full of bees. It's easy to assume they are the first and best food source for honey bees.

They aren't.

Before dandelions bloom, bees are already working. Alders, maples, willows, elms, and even skunk cabbage come first. These plants provide much of the early pollen that gets colonies moving again after winter. Dandelions arrive a bit later, and by then, the colony is already expanding.

Even then, dandelion pollen is not ideal food. It is abundant and easy to collect, but it lacks a complete balance of essential amino acids. Bees can use it, but they do better when it's mixed with pollen from other plants. In a diverse landscape, that happens naturally. In a simple landscape, it matters more.

There's another twist. Dandelions don't need bees at all.

Recorded in Calgary during April 2026

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com

Season 8 Episode 1: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Apitherapy and the Joy of Bee Stings

Happy World Apitherapy Day, March 30, marked on the birthday of the founder of apitherapy, Filip Terč.

Oh, and I heard that it's also Ron Miksha's birthday.

Recorded in Calgary during March 2026

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com

Season 7 Episode 12: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – March is Orange Blossom Month

Orange Groves, Honey Bees, and a Vanishing Industry

Orange blossom honey begins in the groves—but those groves are disappearing.

In this episode, beekeeper and writer Ron Miksha explores the history, biology, and quiet decline of North America's citrus landscape. From Florida's once-million acres of orange trees to today's shrinking groves, this is the story of bees, nectar, and a changing agricultural world.

We begin with a simple question: why do oranges grow in groves, not orchards? From there, the episode moves into the ecology of citrus flowers—how they produce nectar, how bees detect scent compounds like linalool and geraniol, and how entire colonies mobilize during bloom.

Along the way, we examine the numbers behind orange blossom honey production, including how a single acre can produce enormous nectar potential—but rarely does. We also look at the realities facing modern citrus: urban expansion, climate pressures, and the devastating effects of citrus greening disease spread by the Asian citrus psyllid.

This episode blends personal experience, ecology, and history—from 1970s Florida bee yards to today's fragmented groves.

It's a story about honey, yes—but also about landscape change, risk, and the uncertain future of beekeeping in citrus country.

Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in March 2026.

• orange blossom honey
• citrus groves Florida
• honey bees citrus pollination
• how orange blossom honey is made
• citrus bloom beekeeping

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: miksha@gmail.com