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Join us in the podcast studio as we dive into the fascinating world of bees with apiary expert Justin Maness from Buddha Bee Apiary. Discover how Buddha Bee Apiary installs and maintains honeybee colonies across the Triangle's homes, schools, and businesses. Listen to Justin's journey into beekeeping, starting from his time at NC State and leading to professional research on the effects of pesticides on bees. Explore the vital role of bees in pollination and food production, and learn about the innovative Host a Hive program that brings beekeeping to your backyard. Justin also shares insights on bee population challenges, tips for aspiring beekeepers, and the importance of sustainable practices. All this and more, rounded off with a fun series of bee-related questions!
00:00 Introduction to the Buzzing Podcast
01:14 Meet the Apiary Expert: Justin Maness
01:41 Justin's Journey into Beekeeping
03:04 The Importance of Bees
03:58 Understanding Bee Pollination
05:34 Inside the Hive: Roles and Responsibilities
09:32 The Host a Hive Program
11:39 The Benefits of Local Honey
13:28 Advice for Beginner Beekeepers
15:41 Challenges Facing Bee Populations
19:29 Community and Sustainability Initiatives
22:04 How You Can Help the Bees
23:18 Fun and Personal Insights with Justin
26:01 Conclusion and Contact Information
Creators and Guests
What is What’s Up, Wake?
What’s Up, Wake covers the people, places, restaurants, and events of Wake County, North Carolina. Through conversations with local personalities from business owners to town staff and influencers to volunteers, we’ll take a closer look at what makes Wake County an outstanding place to live. Presented by Cherokee Media Group, the publishers of local lifestyle magazines Cary Magazine, Wake Living, and Main & Broad, What’s Up, Wake covers news and happenings in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and Wake Forest.
21 Buddha Bee
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Mellisa: [00:00:00] The podcast studio is buzzing with a swarm of excitement today. We are going to get a lesson on a creature that most of us tend to be afraid of, but I think all of us are fascinated by, let's just say it's the bee's knees.
We chatted briefly about bees with Keith from Garden Supply, but we are here to do a deeper dive, or should I say hive with an actual [00:01:00] apiary expert. Buddha Bee Apiary installs and maintains honeybee colonies and homes, schools, and businesses throughout the triangle, allowing people with no beekeeping knowledge to experience the fine art of hives. Now let's get down to business with Justin Manus from Buddha b Apiary. Welcome Justin.
Justin Manus: Hey, thanks for having me.
Mellisa: I did warn him coming in that I do love my puns and. I mean, the bee puns are endless, right? Yeah. I'm not gonna
Justin Manus: lie. You did a great job. Okay, good. I mean, you baked in a lot too. In a short period of time. I've got
Mellisa: more to come. Trust me. I have, I have sprinkled them in with my questions. I wanna start out with how.
When Y Bees, when did you become interested in bees?
Justin Manus: Yeah, that's a good question. So I went to NC State and at the time I was going for my horticulture degree. And, you know, they had a lot of really cool electives that we could take while going for that degree. One of which was beekeeping with Dr.
Taree. And they had a [00:02:00] sort of like an intro beekeeping 1 0 1 type course that I took with him. And at the time I had no idea that I would actually fall. I. Head over heels for bees. But it was a fascinating class and so that's where it started. And from there when I graduated, I was probably like a lot of people, I still had no idea what I wanted to do.
But there was an opportunity my friend told me about to join a research team looking at the links of pesticide use and how that impacted honeybees. And so I joined on that team. This was during a time when, colony collapse disorder was a big thing. And there were a lot of questions swirling around about why these bees are dying.
And so it was really interesting to me to be a part of a team that was looking at one particular aspect of how they impacted bees. And I. Through that experience, I not only learned actually how to take care of bees, but for me, I think the key moment in that for me was I finally found something that like lit my fire where I saw some of the challenges that bees were facing and I wanted to do something about it.
And so it [00:03:00] really kind of spawned from there the beekeeping journey that I took. Yeah.
Mellisa: Ed, we're gonna get into it a little bit later about the declining population of bees and why that matters. But now I want to talk first about why bees are even important to begin with, because. Really, when I think about it, bees are the most important creature on earth, right?
Justin Manus: Yeah. You could say that. You know, obviously there's a lot of really, really important creatures, mammals, insects, plants, beyond. But, you know, pollinators play a key role in what goes on in our environment through pollination, obviously, and. Yeah, via pollination, they contribute to food production, seed production, nut production.
They are a big part of our agricultural industry and how we create enough food to feed our communities. And so for that reason, they play a really important role in, you know, just everyday life. Let's dive a little bit more [00:04:00] into the pollinating part of bees and why that. Is so important to our ag supply.
Mellisa: I read that let's see, a third or two thirds of our food supply is, is. Because of bees and the, the pollination that bees bring. Is that, does that sound right or am I way off?
Justin Manus: Yeah, no, that's about right. It was a big number anyway, guys. Yeah, and you're correct. It is a very, very large number. And you know, it's interesting, a lot of people don't know that, you know, the commercial beekeeping industry is responsible for moving hives around across the country to facilitate this pollination during crop production.
So some examples might be, say citrus down in Florida. They need to bring bees in to pollinate so that they can increase their yields. Same with maybe blueberries up north on the east coast, or especially almonds in California on the west coast in February. So I. You know, these hives are moved around to facilitate that pollination so that farmers can [00:05:00] generate the yields that they need to, to sell to the communities.
Mellisa: I did not realize that actually. Yeah. That hives are literally brought into the farms. I. Mm. That is very interesting.
Justin Manus: Yeah. Normally the way it's set up as a farmer will pay like a per hive fee to the beekeeper, and the beekeeper will pack them up and move them around the country for strictly for pollination, and so that is worth millions, if not billions, during the, for the agricultural industry.
Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Mellisa: That's big, big business. Yeah.
Justin Manus: Yeah, for sure. And extremely important again, for this food production.
Mellisa: Let's talk about the hive itself. I, I was watching some of your videos and, and looking about looking at the actual hive, and I absolutely find fascinating. I'm sure everybody does. There's about the queen.
Mm-hmm. There's one queen per hive. The hive itself is the actual box, not the individual sheets in the box. Is that right? Correct. So one queen. Mm-hmm. [00:06:00] Everybody's doing everything for her. Love that. Love that for her. What is her job and what is everybody else's job?
Justin Manus: Yeah. So, great question. So yes, when you see in a field or wherever there may be a stack of boxes, normally that is one colony colony can be anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 bees roughly inside.
They usually have one queen. That's what they say in the books. There's an asterisk on almost every bee fact because if you beekeep long enough, you see the bees don't follow the rules. They don't read the books that we do. So there are caveats to that. I've seen like multiple queens in a hive at one point.
But generally just one
Mellisa: Sister. Queens. Yes. Sister
Justin Manus: Queens for sure. But the Queen's role primarily is, to lay eggs to generate their population. That's gonna be her primary role. You know, some facts estimate her laying up to 2000 eggs a day in the spring. Dang. Oh, she's working hard. She is, she is.
And she's phy, physi, physiologically quite different. [00:07:00] Comparatively, a worker bee during the season is about four to six weeks. They'll live while a queen bee can be three to five years she can survive. So, yeah.
Mellisa: Okay. So she becomes an old lady. Lot of new guys come in over those years.
Justin Manus: Oh, well, yes.
So she, she, she'll obviously lay male or female bees primarily female bees. They, they make up about 95% of the hive, roughly bees. Okay.
Mellisa: I also didn't realize that.
Justin Manus: Oh yeah. The colony is majority women. For sure. And about five, some people say up to 10% male bees. The male bees, they're, they, they actually don't do any work in the hive.
Their only job is to make Yeah, it's a funny fact. And yeah, the female workers, they're responsible for everything from cleaning to nursing to, mm-hmm. Being the bodyguards. The undertaker piece.
Mellisa: Okay.
Justin Manus: It's quite an interesting setup for sure.
Mellisa: I I, I actually have never heard that. I, I guess you just assumed that the word [00:08:00] worker bee is like a bunch of dudes running out and doing all the hunting throughout the day, getting all the polling coming back.
Justin Manus: They actually do none of that. Okay. None of that. And it's interesting too, you know, and you know, for the males, they are responsible for flying out and flying queens from other colonies to meet with. And if they do, they will mate and they'll immediately die afterwards. And then if they don't find a queen to mate with in the fall, the female workers will actually like even cut their wings and kick them out because they don't wanna support them through the winter and they know they can just make more in the spring.
Mellisa: There, there's just so much that I could get into right now. I know. One thing that I did read was that bees can fly up to three miles a day. So I'm wondering how do they know how to get back to their hive? Is there a certain scent or a look about the hive that they know how to get back?
Justin Manus: Yeah, so their GPS, if you will, is, is pretty amazing.
They see in a different light spectrum than we do. It's ultraviolet and so they can navigate. Be the [00:09:00] sun, even on a cloudy day. And so that navigation capability is quite amazing. You know, even when we relocate a colony and place it in a new spot I. Even if it's, you know, I mean if it's beyond three miles, what they'll do is when we release them, they'll come out and they'll actually reorient immediately to their hive.
So they'll fly around the hive looking at the location of the sun in the sky, looking at different landmarks and different colors around their hive before they go out on their forging flight so that they can return to the right location.
Mellisa: Tell us about the Buddha B host, a Hive program.
Justin Manus: Yeah, we we started this program must be about five, six years ago. And at the time I was, I. I was going to a lot of the local club association meetings, Durham County Beekeepers, wake County, beekeepers, and I was talking with a lot of people in the community who were interested in bees and beekeeping.
They wanted to learn, they wanted to support, but they were a little bit [00:10:00] wary about taking on the responsibility of managing a hive on their own. You know, it takes a lot of knowledge and experience to be able to keep a hive alive these days. And so. Essentially the idea was to place these hives in folks' backyards.
We would be responsible for managing them. But we could also use that hive as like a living laboratory in their backyard. A way to show people, to teach people. And over time, if they wanted to take on beekeeping and they wanted to practice and they wanted a mentor, we could be that for them. Or if they just wanted us to do the management, we could do that as well.
But it would be an opportunity for them to bring their neighbors, their friends, their grandkids out. And every time we show up, we bring extra suits and extra gear. We do an inspection like we normally would, but it's a time to teach. And for us, I think it just tied in so well, like with what our mission is, which is education and advocacy.
We want to be able to [00:11:00] take care of bees with regenerative practices, but also plant this seed of appreciation for folks who are interested in bees and also give them an avenue to be an advocate as well.
Mellisa: So if I have a hive with the host, a hive program, am I also keeping the honey or what do you do with all the honey that you collect?
Justin Manus: Yeah, so within the program it's set up so that the honey that we harvest, we will extract bottle and return to the host as well. And it's strictly from the hives in their yard or at their business or at their school. We don't mix it together, so that's one of the perks of the program.
Mellisa: Yeah, because I've heard that local honey is, has more health benefits overall than, you know, buying honey at, at Harris Teeter that came from California.
Do you know why that is?
Justin Manus: Yeah, for sure. Well, first off, you know, a lot of people will talk about how it will help with seasonal allergies. Mm-hmm. And I know even for me it has [00:12:00] 100%. And a lot of people attribute that to these microscopic pollen grains that are like inside the honey. Through consuming it small amounts of what you may be allergic to.
It can help with your allergies seasonally. So kind of like building up immunity type of thing. Exactly. Right. Okay. I think the other piece of it too is just we've had this really big influx of adulterated honey into the market here in the us and so when purchasing from a source. Like a big chain supermarket it is highly likely that you'll run into that.
And so when you're buying from the source here locally, it's not only benefits you and your health, but you can ensure that it's been produced in a way that is not adulterated and is more responsible.
Mellisa: So essentially it's more what we would call organic type of, of situation not processed,
Justin Manus: correct.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And not adulterated is the key thing. Okay. Yeah. [00:13:00]
Mellisa: So a few years ago I bought my husband a beginner hive. Yeah. And it essentially sat in the the garage for a while until I resold it. It just, it seemed like an overwhelming type of project to take on and a new hobby to learn. So what kind of advice would you give to a beginner beekeeper?
Somebody that just wants to have it in their backyard as a hobby?
Justin Manus: Yeah. Yeah. I, I. I've come across, met a few folks who've had [00:14:00] something similar where they've had the equipment sitting in the garage for a while and you know, it's been awesome 'cause we've been able to get that equipment out, put bees in it and, you know, take that process on.
But suggestions I would give is, you're right, it is, it's a big undertaking because I compare it to, you know, taking up a hobby of. Skateboarding or mountain biking or knitting, whatever it may be, if you put it down for a little while, you don't have time, nobody's gonna die. But with beekeeping, you know, you not only need to know what to do, but you need to be consistent with it.
Otherwise these creatures will die. And so suggestions would be to first off, try and take some type of educational course. You know, the local county associations have these really great B schools that they do during the winter. Normally in January, February, I believe, maybe in December as well. So signing up for a B school is really helpful.
You can get that base knowledge started, but beyond that too, you can also create, you can get a network of other beekeepers who also might be willing to mentor you as well, so it feels [00:15:00] more comfortable getting started when you have base education and people to support you. I think those are the key things because inevitably you're gonna get to a point where you have to get started and even been beekeeping over a decade now, and even today, I'm learning things.
We're pushing the limits and like bees will be bees. Things happen, you know, we still lose hives today, so it's inevitable. You will come across difficulties and challenges. So you just, you've gotta reach a point to where you just start and go and learn. That's really the biggest selling point that you can make for your business because it really is a lot to take on and a lot to learn, and it's high stakes if you want to keep your colony.
Mellisa: Speaking of losing colonies, let's talk about the decline in population of bees in recent decades. I wanna know the reason behind it and what people can do to help. Increase the population and do you even see that the [00:16:00] population can start going up at some point?
Justin Manus: Well over the years, going back to when we were struggling with the colony collapse disorder bees dying, bees disappearing we were fortunate to have a, a lot of people jump in and help on that issue to dig into why, and what we found is it wasn't one contributing factor, but it was a series of factors.
These things included stuff like lack of forage pesticide and chemical use. Primarily the varroa mite, so pest virus and disease. That would probably be number one. But it was really this like. All of these factors playing together that put pressure on bees to survive. And so through that, we have lost a considerable number of bees year after year.
Now, from the recent articles that I've read, you know, populations are stable from my understanding. I don't think that we're gonna be looking at an age where we don't have bees. But the problem is, is just this past year, one of the, one of the reports [00:17:00] showed that commercial beekeepers lost. Just this past winter, 60% of their hives.
And so those types of numbers are still unsustainable and we're still, we still have questions that we need to ask as to why and how do we improve this. The best comparison I heard many years ago was if you were to consider like a cattle farmer and they went through a season and lost 60% of their cattle, I mean, that would be, I mean, think of it, not only is it terrible, but as a farmer it's very difficult to.
Maintain a business like that. And so, despite the fact I wouldn't go so doom and gloom to say we're gonna lose bees forever, but we still have big issues that we're facing. Yeah.
Mellisa: You, we can't keep up at that rate of loss. Yeah,
Justin Manus: exactly. So it's, it's really, really tough. And I think we still need to find sustainable regenerative solutions to the issues that we're facing today.
Pest virus disease creating more forage limiting our use of chemicals things of that nature.
Mellisa: [00:18:00] So let's say you go to a hive at somebody's house and you open it up and the colony is, is dead. What would be the main reason? Would that be because some sort of mite or parasite has gotten into the colony?
Justin Manus: Yeah. If I'm being honest, for all
Mellisa: the ladies killed all the guys and
Justin Manus: No. Ripped
Mellisa: their wings off and kicked 'em out.
Justin Manus: Yeah, no, nope. The guys, they can go in the winter. Poor guests. Oh, no. No. Honestly, really, I would say. Probably six or seven times outta 10. It's due to RO mites virus and disease. These RO mites traveled here in the eighties and we've been battling with them ever since.
And so, you know, that's a core focus of our program is to try to keep their populations in check. But in terms of losses, yes that would be the primary reason. And it doesn't matter how many years you've been doing it or how many hives you have, every loss, it hurts, you know? Fortunately you know, in the early years of Buda, be I, it was really, really tough.
I felt I. Really terrible with these [00:19:00] hosts. And if I were to lose a hive at their property, but then, you know, I kind of realized that this teaching moment is just in as important as a teaching moment when the hive is thriving. So we really take that opportunity to teach people the full cycle because the reality is beekeeping, you know, there's gonna be the thriving moments, there's gonna be the losses.
So we try to teach along the way.
Mellisa: Yeah. I mean, if you're only showing the good side, then more people would attempt it and therefore more people would be losing hives because it's not easy. It's not. I first learned about budha be because you guys are featured in a story in our August issues with the hives that you put at Fenton and Carrie.
Why Fenton? Did they reach out to you and want hives? Is that how the process started over there?
Justin Manus: Yeah. I forget who reached out first, but what I love, we connected with one of the team members who's since I believe, moved to Atlanta, Giovanni and I. Through conversations, you know, the, what we were offering at the time really lined up with what they were interested in [00:20:00] doing to contribute back to their environment.
And so this idea of bringing the hives to the property as a sustainability initiative to them was really attractive. And we were also very excited about it as well, because, you know, since we've been there, we've been able to do so many cool projects. Not only like. The custom artwork that's on the hive.
But even taking this, yeah, they're
Mellisa: beautiful. The boxes itself are beautiful.
Justin Manus: They're amazing. Mm-hmm. But beyond that, even deeper is, you know, we've taken honey sample and sent it off for a DNA analysis where they'll analyze the pollen grains inside of the honey. And it gives you back all these different species of trees and plants and bushes in a three, that three mile radius of what the bees have been forging on.
Mellisa: Oh, that is neat.
Justin Manus: And you know, I think we're gonna be working this summer on a hands-on hive tour for some of the Fenton residents as well. We've done tabling events there, so it's a really good opportunity for. Fenton to highlight their interest in sustainability.
Mellisa: Exactly. Yeah.
Justin Manus: And also for us to be [00:21:00] able to touch a certain part of the community with what we do too.
Mellisa: Yeah. Community building is, is definitely a, a great idea. So hopefully more people will, you know, I even heard about, retirement homes. Yeah. That like to put beehives there because it is such a great thing for, for people to come and, and learn. Everybody's, no one's too old to, to continue to learn about something.
I just, I love that idea too. Keep putting them in, in populated areas like that. Yeah. We've got this one community we've been working with for years now called Carolina Me Meadows, which is very similar out in Chapel Hill. We will host a Meet Your Bees Day where a large portion of the retired community will come out and we'll do a hive inspection right there and bring frames over, let them taste some honey.
Justin Manus: And it's just, it's amazing, you know, these guys have really rallied behind their bees and the health of the bees. They, we get emails from some of the residents and they're just like, Hey, just wanted to check in. I saw the bees were buzzing today. You know, is everything okay Uhhuh? So it's, yeah, it's a great way to connect [00:22:00] with the community.
Community and then also again, educate too.
Mellisa: I've heard of no moay where people let their lawns go wild for a month in order for bees and other pollinators to be able to have access to, you know, the good stuff, the weeds and everything that grow. But is there anything else that normal quote, normal people can do to help encourage the B population and help them be more productive?
Justin Manus: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question as well. So. We, we always advocate for planting more forage. A lot of folks that like to garden, this is a fairly easy one. There are a variety of species that you can plant that are pollinator friendly, that bloom in the spring in your yard. A lot of them are also easy to grow as well.
And so the more forage we can plant, it not only helps. Are honeybees, but the thousands of species of solitary bees that we have around as well. So a lot of times at tabling events, we'll give away pollinator seed for people to [00:23:00] plant. And yeah, I think that's one big thing that people can do, even, you know, finding a local source of honey supporting your local beekeeper.
Again, too, just being mindful of the chemicals that you apply in your yard and when you apply them. Those are just a few small things that people can do to contribute to pollinators overall. Well, this has been un reliably interesting, but now it's time for our What's up, Roundup, where I ask a Buzzworthy series of questions before we go.
Mellisa: Told you I was gonna squeeze in some more puns. Well done. Well done. Your business is bees, but if you had to choose another animal or creature to study, which one would you choose? Oh my gosh, that's difficult. Um. Well, I'm deathly afraid of snakes for, for a ridiculous reason, but so we'll do, well, a lot of people
are afraid of bees, so it's understandable.
You've gotta have something.
Justin Manus: We have our thing. Maybe monkeys. Okay. That they seem really cool. They
Mellisa: do seem very cool. You could be the, the male Jane Goodall and study [00:24:00] monkeys. Sure. I guess she was chimps, so, yeah. I read that you took your family on a cross country trip a few years ago in a school bus that you renovated into a mobile home.
Mm-hmm. Where was your favorite stop along the way?
Justin Manus: Oh my gosh.
Mellisa: And do you still have this bus? I.
Justin Manus: So yes, we, we do still have the bus. We took it out not too long ago. Yeah, what a fun project and what an amazing experience. When we traveled across, I think our daughter was about three years old. So to have her, to be able to show her all those amazing places, you know, we, we saw the sand dunes in Colorado.
We saw music in California Carlsbad ca Caverns new Orleans. There's no way I could put one at the top. There was just so many. I think the highlight was really just the experience and then what we learned and how we grew as a family during that experience. That was huge. And yeah, I don't know.
Hopefully one day we can, we can do that again.
Mellisa: How many kids do you have?
Justin Manus: Just one.
Mellisa: [00:25:00] Okay. So you can, you can fit in a school bus easily with just one Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's not bad for sure. One of my kids' favorite movies growing up was the B movie, but I've always wondered how much of that is really accurate.
Justin Manus: Yeah, I get that question a lot. I just got it yesterday actually, from a, a high school student. We were doing a speaking event at, you know, I think. I probably, if I were to estimate, maybe 60% of it is correct. Oh, that's it. Yeah. I was
Mellisa: thinking it was like a textbook.
Justin Manus: Yeah, I mean that's, yeah. No, it's roughly.
But yeah, I think the B movie's a great movie. And obviously memorable for a lot of people. But as a beekeeper, I think if you, there's any movie that's in your wheelhouse, you're probably you know, just always thinking in the background like, oh, did they do that right? Mm-hmm. I dunno about that.
That's not quite true, you know? But it was still an awesome movie. My daughter loves it as well. Yeah.
Mellisa: And I would think that any movie that gets kids more interested in such a unique subject, like bees, you're exactly right. Yeah. Just take [00:26:00] it.
Justin Manus: Yep, absolutely.
Mellisa: Where can we find more about you and about Budha b apiary?
Justin Manus: I would say the easiest thing is to go on our website budha b apiary.com. And, you know, sometimes folks have a hard time spelling out what Buddha or Bee apiary in general. So just Google it. We'll come up at the top and yeah, check out our website and yeah, if you're interested in learning more about bees even if you just wanna send us a message about plants that are great for pollinators that you can plant or you want to host a hive.
We've got contact forms on our website. You can learn all about us and, we just love meeting people in the community who are interested in bees and if there's a way we can facilitate that via our program or otherwise, like give us a shout.
Mellisa: Thank you so much for being here. Yeah. For being here.
Justin Manus: Again. Well played. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
[00:27:00]