They are educators by day, but when their work is done with students in our schools, they head home to their honey bees.
On this episode of the Supercast, we take you to the backyard of a beekeeper. Find out why Bastian Elementary School Assistant Principal Amber Allen and Kauri Sue Hamilton teacher Alexa Allen have a deep passion for honeybees, overseeing the health of their hive, and honey production.
Audio Transcription
[Music] Anthony Godfrey:Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are educators by day, but when their work is done with students in our schools, they head home to their honeybees.
On this episode of the Supercast, we take you to the backyard of a beekeeper. Find out why Bastion Elementary School Assistant Principal Amber Allen and her daughter, Kauri Sue Hamilton's school teacher Alexa Allen, have a deep passion for honey bees, overseeing the health of the hive and honey production.
We're here with Amber Allen in her home with her family to talk about beekeeping. Amber, you're an assistant principal at Bastion Elementary.
Amber Allen:
I am.
Anthony Godfrey:
How much of your time is spent with beekeeping on the side? That's a busy job already.
Amber Allen:
Well, fun fact, my husband helps me. My daughter, Alexis, she works at Kauri Sue. She's a teacher there. And the rest of our family, we all get together and we will harvest the honey together as a family. Bart and I kind of do the daily, go out and check on them. I talk to my bees. We can talk about that later.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yes.
Amber Allen:
We have to make sure that other pests don't get inside, so we have to protect them. We also have to check on the babies, which is called a brood. That's probably a weekly endeavor that we do.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I'm excited to get into it. Introduce yourselves to the folks listening.
Alexa Allen:
All right, I'm Alexa Allen. I am a teacher at the Kauri Sue Hamilton school, and I teach our secondary and post-high kids.
Bart Allen:
I'm Bart Allen, I just help these two. I'm Amber's husband and Alexa's father.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so tell me what got you started with beekeeping in the first place?
Amber Allen:
I was getting my master's degree at UVU and I read a book about leadership and how a beehive represents leadership. I came home and I said, “Bart, we've got to have bees.”
Anthony Godfrey:
(laughing) - You wanted the analogy to go further than this.
Amber Allen:
I wanted to be a part of it, like entrenched in it. He works at the Salt Palace and at the Salt Palace, they have beehives there by the Japanese Botanical Gardens.
Anthony Godfrey:
I did not realize that.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, we keep them in our Japanese Botanical Garden on the third west and first south.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, wow.
Amber Allen:
So he's familiar. He knew the right connections. He knew how to get us started. So that's really where this all came from.
Anthony Godfrey:
How many bees do you have? Do you know is this quantifiable?
Amber Allen:
In the beginning yes, and I will show you a picture in a few minutes. When a hive comes- there's about 30,000 bees in the hive and it comes in the mail.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.
Amber Allen:
About 30,000, but within a few days-
Anthony Godfrey:
Airmail I assume.
Amber Allen:
No, the mail.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay.
Amber Allen:
Like the mail person.
Bart Allen:
The mailman delivers it.
Anthony Godfrey:
Gotcha.
Amber Allen:
Okay once the queen gets started, the worker bees start having their babies- I can't tell you anymore how many bees are in there. They average about 60,000 is what I've read.
Anthony Godfrey:
But you started with 30,000.
Amber Alen:
30,000.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Tell me what we have here. We have the pollen chart and it looks like we have several different kinds of honey in front of us. So these are the fruits of their labor and yours, right?
Amber Allen:
Yes. So this pollen chart, thought since you know I'm a teacher, I needed the visual.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, lay it out for me.
Amber Allen:
When we go out to the bees, hopefully you'll be able to see the pollen on their back little hind legs. Right now these are the colors that you're gonna see most prevalent is hogweed and dandelion.
Anthony Godfrey:
So the color of the pollen reflects what plant they got the pollen from?
Amber Allen:
Correct.
Anthony Godfrey:
What is hogweed? I don't know that I've had hogweed in my life very much, but maybe I didn't realize it.
Alexa Allen:
That’s what I said! It's like sage, like sagebrush.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, which we got a lot of here.
Anthony Godfrey:
All right.
Amber Allen:
So our different honeys right here. This is from Salt Lake.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay and that's a darker-
Amber Allen:
That’s a darker color.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, all right.
Amber Allen:
So you've got Temple Square down there, the Japanese Botanical Gardens, different rooftop gardens than we do here in South Jordan.
Anthony Godfrey:
So we might see hogweed you said which is more of a kind of a yellow.
Amber Allen:
I would say yeah like a mustard color.
Anthony Godfrey:
A mustard, that's a good description of it. And what was the other one that you said? A dandelion.
Amber Allen:
Dandelion.
Anthony Godfrey:
Dandelion.
Amber Allen:
To me, that's a carnival red.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, that's kind of almost a peach color, I guess.
Alexa Allen:
You wouldn't expect that from a dandelion.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.
Alexa Allen:
That orange, 'cause most dandelions are just yellow.
Bart Allen:
It's really cool, the bees have so much of it on them that the color just pops off their back legs.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.
Bart Allen:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
I feel like I've never seen that in real life, maybe on TV.
Amber Allen:
I hope you can today.
Anthony Godfrey:
So I'm looking forward to that. So tell me, this is, so there are some really- like this is a teal, Rosebay Willowherb. So if they got ahold of that, there would be some pollen that was teal colored or gray.
Amber Allen:
What I've learned from Peter, our bee expert that we call for advice, he said a lot of this green and blues up here is more like plants from back East. We don't have a lot of these in Utah. So we might not see these. We could, absolutely. But he said that down here is more the colors.
Alexa Allen:
So more the oranges and the yellows.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wild bluebell or plantain. I wouldn't think those were, you know, plantains, wild bluebells, same color pollen. That's fascinating. Okay, great. So now, so this, so there are these four different honeys that you have here.
Amber Allen:
Actually three, this one's just for Doug.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay, oh wow.
Bart Allen;
Doug gets his own.
Anthony Godfrey:
Hey, Doug.
Amber Allen:
And this one will be yours.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, that's dynamite. I don't normally get swag from a podcast episode. So this darker one in the middle is more from Salt Lake where you have some other sources of pollen that are going to influence the color and I assume the taste of the honey as well.
Amber Allen:
Yes, so we'll do some taste testing here at the end or we can do it now.
Anthony Godfrey:
Excellent.
Amber Allen:
Actually, I'm not gonna tell you. I'm not gonna tell you the difference.
Anthony Godfrey:
Don't tell me the difference. Let's see if I can detect the different notes in that honey.
Amber Allen:
I'm gonna let you. So this is from the Allen bees. This came last season. This is this season and just a little bit of difference, even though it's the same neighborhood, same.
Anthony Godfrey:
So this season's a little darker than last season. What does that tell you about the honey?
Amber Allen:
That they use different flowers to pollinate.
Anthony Godfrey:
Just different flowers that they pollinated with.
Amber Allen:
Maybe like some neighbors planted something new.
Antony Godfrey:
So if these had been set out, would you be able to spot, oh yeah, that's ours from this year. Oh yeah, that's ours from last year.
Amber Allen:
I think I could.
Anthony Godfrey:
Just by color.
Amber Allen:
I think I could.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, you probably get used to kind of the difference in pollen and the way the bees are behaving and you notice things that other people who haven't been involved wouldn't notice.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, and the flavor is a little bit different. You gotta like really, you know, try to taste the flavor.
Anthony Godfrey:
You gotta really pay attention.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, you can get it. You'll figure it out.
Alexa Allen:
You have to be a honey connoisseur.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, you know how people are like wine connoisseurs you gotta be that honey connoisseur.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay all right.
Bart Allen:
This came from a hogweed field.
Anthony Godfrey:
I'm detecting notes of hogweed. So actually, honey does last forever essentially, right? Doesn't it? I mean--
Amber Allen:
You might need to warm it up, because it will start to--
Bart Allen:
Crystallize.
Alexa Allen:
It gets harder, yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
I think I read that in the Egyptian tombs, they found honey that was perfectly preserved. Does everyone get honey from you for Christmas?
Bart Allen:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's the neighborhood gift, huh?
Bart Allen:
Yep!
Anthony Godfrey:
But I'm sure they look forward to it.
Bart Allen:
They eat it up.
Anthony Godfrey:
They count on it. They count on it.
Alexa Allen:
We have cute little tiny jars that we can hand out to people.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, very nice.
Amber Allen:
All right, so this one is from Salt Lake.
Bart Allen:
See if you can taste what kind of weed in Salt Lake it’s from.
Anthony Godfrey:
This is the Salt Lake. Okay, well, I'm gonna look at the color chart here and kind of compare. Broccoli? Oh, I hope I don't get notes. (laughing) I hope I don't get notes of broccoli in that. I'd rather have dandelion. Okay, let's see. Oh wow, that does have a distinct flavor.
Bart Allen:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
I can't tell what it is.
Amber Allen:
Can I give you an adjective?
Anthony Godfrey:
That tastes fantastic. Is it kind of citrusy almost?
Amber Allen:
I would say floral.
Anthony Godfrey:
Floral, okay.
Amber Allen:
What do you think?
Anthony Godfrey:
Which flower are we talking here? Wild honeysuckle perhaps?
Bart Allen:
That could be it, yeah.
Alexa Allen:
What do you have in the botanical gardens?
Bart Allen:
They're all Japanese. Actually, we don't have a lot of flowers, we have a lot of greenery and shrubs.
Amber Allen:
It's definitely not asparagus.
Anthony Godfrey:
It is not asparagus, it is not broccoli. Thank goodness. That tastes so good. Wow.
Bart Allen:
It certainly tastes different from regular honey you buy in the store.
Anthony Godfrey:
It does. It has a great little zing to it, little zip.
Bart Allen:
Yep, that's exactly a good adjective.
Amber Allen:
So this is from the Allen bees from Miss Kitty's hive.
Bart Allen:
Miss Kitty.
Amber Allen:
That's my queen, Miss Kitty.
Anthony Godfrey:
Let's give it a shot. Oh wow. That does have a distinct flavor. Of course, I'm going to be terrible at picking out what it is. Oh, Knapweed. Oh no, Hairy Willow Herb. That's it. No, do you know what it is?
Amber Allen:
No, because it would be a-
Anthony Godfrey:
A variety, a mixture.
Amber Allen:
Yeah, a mixture of the neighbor's plants.
Anthony Godfrey:
It's almost like a little tart.
Bart Allen:
At the end, there's certainly a flavor on wild honeys that is a little bit different than a pasteurized honey. It kind of has an after-flavor to it that is in there.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you never pasteurize your honey?
Bart Allen:
No, no.
Anthony Godfrey:
And that process probably kills the flavor and kind of - wow.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, it makes it more watery. The harvested honey like this is usually thicker than pasteurized.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, it has a great consistency to it. It tastes fantastic. No wonder you work so hard for this. This is really, really good stuff.
Amber Allen:
So Alexa was gonna show you how- basically once we've taken the honeycomb out- how to harvest it. Do you want her to show you that?
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, let's go check it out.
Alexa Allen:
Okay, so it’s just going to be right over here.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. So what we have is a big bucket here.
Alexa Allen:
A big honey bucket with like a little spout.
Anthony Godfrey:
A little spout at the bottom.
Alexa Allen:
A honey spout, cause it's not a regular spout.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well then you open the spout and then you just sit and you wait forever for the honey to come out of the spout, right?
Alexa Allen:
It's like watching paint dry. Okay. So this is a cheesecloth.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yes. So very tight mesh.
Alexa Allen:
Yes. So last year- -
Anthony Godfrey:
Is it a bag? Is it a bag?
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, it's just a little bag. So we'll put the comb into there and you let the wax will come in here and it just slowly drains.
Anthony Godfrey:
And you just let the wax slowly drain out?
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, and you have to do it in a warm room.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Alexa Allen:
Because you have to make the consistency of the honey to be faster moving, basically.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, sure.
Alexa Allen:
You gotta warm it up ‘cause otherwise you're just gonna sit there.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now how do you pull the honeycomb, how do you harvest the honeycomb out?
Alexa Allen:
We're gonna show you that.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, we're gonna go do that.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, we're gonna do that.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great.
Alexa Allen:
But last year we used a strainer that just went over the bucket, which is way easier, 'cause then you don't have to sit there and hold it.
Anthony Godfrey:
Hold the bag.
Alexa Allen:
And let your arm get tired.
Anthony Godfrey:
You're not left holding the bag at that point.
Bart Allen:
And I ripped it at the end of last season, so I had to order a new one.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, and then yeah, you can also use like tea towels, but we use the cheesecloth or the strainer. And then this--
Anthony Godfrey:
So this is like a Lowe's or a Home Depot size bucket.
Bart Allen:
It has to be food grade.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, food grade, oh yes. And how do you fill this up?
Alexa Allen:
So yeah, we'll fill it up and it holds about 24 jars.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.
Alexa Allen:
So we have two of these. So we get about 50 jars of honey from our hive.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.
Alexa Allen:
And here's a fun fact. That's only about 20% of the honey that they produce.
Anthony Godfrey:
Really? So you leave a lot for them?
Alexa Allen:
We leave a lot for them because in the winter, they still have to survive. They gotta live.
Anthony Godfrey:
Honey for everyone.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, and then the honey will come out of this big spout. And obviously, for those who are listening, they can't see the spout. And it's a big, it's probably like two half dollar sizes. That the honey will come out of and then you can fill it up.
Anthony Godfrey:
You harvest the honeycomb, put it in the cheesecloth, wait there for it to ooze out in warm room, and then you can distribute it into the jars.
Alexa Allen:
Yep, and then--
Anthony Godfrey:
Nothing else in between.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.
Alexa Allen:
What's left in the cheesecloth is either like comb or wax that we can utilize in other areas. 'Cause you can harvest- it's like with the bison, like the Native Americans used to do, we use every part of the honey.
Anthony Godfrey:
So what do you do with the honeycomb and with the wax?
Alexa Allen:
The honeycomb you can eat and it's delicious.
Bart Allen:
Yep, you can.
Alexa Allen:
Wax, I've wanted to start doing this. You can make candles from it. I know that you guys at the Salt Palace do stuff with the wax.
Bart Allen:
Lip balm.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, lip balm, lotion. You can use it for a lot of things.
Anthony Godfrey:
The Honeycomb I've had has 13 minerals and vitamins and you put it in milk. It goes into a bowl and you pour milk over it and it's big, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not small, no, no, no. (laughing)
Stay with us. Up next, we suit up and get our hands in the hive. You don't want to miss it.
Break:
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Anthony Godfrey:
So onto the bees.
Bart Allen:
Okay, let's put on your suit though.
Amber Allen:
Do you have on long pants? I just gave you a topper.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, you'll be right.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Bart Allen:
So bees will attack mammals in the face and in the head.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Bart Allen:
So when you're out there, it's probably likely that they'll be bashing into your head and face.
Anthony Godfrey:
I'm used to a level of conflict in my workplace. Probably not direct attacks to the head.
Bart Allen:
Yeah. But they'll come right for your eyes and they'll come for your head.
Amber Allen:
Just don't swat at them.
Bart Allen:
Do not swat.
Anthony Godfrey:
Do not swat and don’t take it personally.
Bart Allen:
Do not swat.
Anthony Godfrey:
I'm suiting up here. You said my long pants are good enough. I've got a top.
Amber Allen:
Oh, I got gloves for you too.
Anthony Godfrey:
It's gathered at the wrists and the mesh I was hoping for and the wide brim to the hat.
Bart Allen:
Yep.
Anthony Godfrey:
And wow, I feel like the real deal.
Bart Allen:
You are.
Anthony Godfrey:
Talk to me about this. This looks like a picture.
Amber Allen:
So the smoker, it reminds me a little bit of Wizard of Oz when the Tin Man, the oil can.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, yeah.
Amber Allen:
Reminds me a little bit of that.
Anthony Godfrey:
That's right.
Amber Allen:
We put the smoker pellets inside. We also add newspaper just to--
Bart Allen:
Help it burn.
Amber Allen:
Help it burn faster and longer.
Anthony Godfrey:
And it looks like those pellets are specifically for-- Yeah.
Amber Allen:
Yeah, they look like rabbit food.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. It calms the bees, or what exactly happens?
Bart Allen:
Yeah, they communicate through pheromones, like we were talking earlier. And it actually confuses them a little bit, which is good. So they'll retract back into the hive and not-- because the guard bees will see those. There's guards. They're going to come out after us in the beginning.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, they're just doing their job.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, they're doing their job. They're guarding the hive.
Anthony Godfrey:
All right.
Bart Allen:
And they'll send out pheromones if they feel like they're getting attacked. So we just want to kind of disrupt that communication a little bit.
Anthony Godfrey:
This looks like a large wooden crate with a little slot at the bottom that some of the bees were coming out of.
Amber Allen:
Yeah, and there’s two levels.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh my heavens, look at all those bees.
Amber Allen:
And they're not upset at all, they are very calm right now.
Anthony Godfrey:
They're very calm. So am I.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, this is a docile hive. I've had aggressive hives in the past.
Anthony Godfrey:
So the hive will have a personality, kind of like an eighth-grade class in the middle school.
Bart Allen:
Exactly. Yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
How often during the year do you harvest?
Bart Allen:
We will do a small one in the fall. But like Amber said, we like to leave a lot of the honey for the bees. In the spring we'll take a little bit more.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.
Amber Allen:
So in these two houses, the babies are down here, the brood is down here.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Amber Allen:
We can try to separate and show you. It's just that there's so much honey. I don't know if we'll be able to separate them right now.
Anthony Godfrey:
Sure.
Amber Allen:
But the brood's down here, the queen lives down here. So when we check for her we do have to separate them and then up here is where all of the worker bees are at making the honey.
Anthony Godfrey:
And you have taken- so there are these slats in there, these sheets of honeycomb and you're taking a hook to kind of pull it out and gently pull it out of the box. Then you use the clamp to pull it straight up.
Amber Allen:
Yes. Bart, do you want the tray?
Anthony Godfrey:
You can already see that it's a little bit gooey.
Bart Allen:
Yeah, we're gonna make these guys a little bit angry because we're gonna kick them out.
Anthony Godfrey:
So how do you kick out the bees? You’re just scraping them off?
Bart Allen:
You just touch them, yeah.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, you’re just scraping them off.
Bart Allen:
You want to do it?
Anthony Godfrey:
Can I scrape some bees off?
Amber Allen:
Absolutely. You just say “sorry, we're sorry guys.”
Bart Allen:
Just be gentle. Say “Sorry, we're taking all your food.”
Anthony Godfrey:
If they stick on me then do I just brush them off of me?
Bart Allen:
Yeah, they’ll go away too.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Bart Allen:
You can actually let them off and go on your hand if you want.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, a few of them are flying around a little bit.
Bart Allen:
And if the guards come, like I said, they'll start banging against your head.
Amber Allen:
Do you want to do that out here?
Bart Allen:
Well, we can take that in the house. I just wanted to take the suits off so we can check for any bees.
Alexa Allen:
Before we had the beehive I was the stereotypical person of see a bee and run away, but now I look at them and I'm like, ‘oh my goodness. Look at that little guy, he's just working hard.’
Amber Allen:
You move all of this layer and then that's where your honey’s at. That’s the process Alexa was explaining to you.
Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, so the honeycomb is the top layer and then underneath is where you can harvest the honey. Amber Allen:
In the middle and that's the part that we're separating when we put it in the hot space.
Anthony Godfrey:
I see. Oh wow. Yeah, that's perfectly formed. That's amazing. I've not seen it like this.
Alexa Allen:
Okay, dare? I double dog dare you.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, sure.
Bart Allen:
Oh, yeah, it’s fresh. Let’s do it.
Anthony Godfrey:
So do I just put my finger right in there? All right.
Amber Allen:
Okay, we're tasting the honey right off the comb.
Anthony Godfrey:
Right off the comb. Oh, that is so sweet.
Bart Allen:
Right?
Amber Alen:
Isn’t that delicious?
Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.
Bart Allen:
That's crazy it never goes bad. Right? How does that happen? So that means there's bacteria that can't handle it.
Anthony Godfrey:
I mean, I've had a lot of honey in my life, but it's never tasted this good.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, this is the real deal.
Bart Allen:
No pasteurization.
Amber Allen:
And because of Miss Kitty. Don’t forget about her.
Anthony Godfrey:
Miss Kitty, I thank her for her hard work. Alright well, thank you so much for taking the time and for giving me a little window into what it's like to have bees. I think it's fascinating and they're in good hands. You're taking great care of your bees, so thank you for letting us be part of that.
Amber Allen:
Thank you.
Bart Allen:
You're welcome anytime.
Alexa Allen:
Yeah, thank you. It's been really fun.
Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.