E44: Homestead Beekeeping the Natural and Organic Way | Adam Martin of Bee Kept

As a homesteader who values organic and sustainable farming practices, Adam looked around and wondered why he couldn’t find these same principles applied to the production of honey. He made it his mission to learn everything he could about raising honeybees with the most natural methods possible. Today, he writes and teaches homesteaders how to start their own honeybee farms. In this conversation, we chat about selecting and building a hive, keeping bees through the winter, the adaptability of naturally-raised bees, and more. We hope this episode leaves you feeling empowered to start on your own beekeeping endeavor!

In this episode, we cover:

What makes Adam’s natural and organic beekeeping methods different from conventional practices
Tips for maintaining healthy bees through the cold winter months
Making an argument for why horizontal hives are better than vertical hives for the backyard beekeeper
A few options for those who want to create their own DIY horizontal bee hive
Adam’s encouragement for those who dream of starting or growing their homestead

Thank you to our sponsors!

McMurrayHatchery.com | A wide selection of poultry breeds and supplies to assist you with raising your flock

Nutrimill.com | High-quality small kitchen appliance products that function well, are easy to use, and promote healthy eating

About Adam

Bee Kept is located in Middle Tennessee and is founded by Adam and Leslie Martin. Their bee adventure started using all of the traditional methods taught and promoted by beekeepers and bee clubs all over the western world. After failing miserably in their first season of beekeeping, they used these failures as opportunities to learn outside-of-the-bee-box thinking with their beekeeping methods. They learned God’s Creative Intelligent Design for honey bees and more natural and sustainable beekeeping practices. The rest is history!

Since then their bees have enjoyed great success in overwintering without feeding sugar water or treating for pests, and they have naturally begun to share what they have learned with others. Adam loves teaching others about bees almost as much as he loves the bees.

If you have tried keeping bees and failed, or if you are just learning and wanting to get into it, Adam will inspire you to get going! Adam teaches that anyone can learn how to trap feral bees, keep them in a low to no maintenance system, and manage the colonies in horizontal hives that are better for the bees and the beekeeper!

Resources Mentioned

Check out Adam’s new book, Bee Kept With Wild And Free Honey Bees by Adam Martin

Free plans to build the Langstroth Long Hive

Come see Adam in May at our Learn to Homestead in a Weekend event

Connect

Adam Martin of Bee Kept | Website | Instagram | Facebook

Homestead Beekeeping the Natural and Organic Way Transcript

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America Podcast, where we encourage simple living, hard work, natural healthcare, real food, and building an agrarian society. If you’re pioneering your way through modern noise and conveniences, and you’re an advocate for living a more sustainable and quiet life, this podcast is for you. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell, and I’m the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization and annual events. If you’re not familiar with us, we are a resource for homesteading education and online support. And we even host a couple of in-person events each year with our biggest annual event happening right outside the nation’s capital here in Virginia every October. Check us out online at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. Follow us on all of our social media platforms and subscribe to our newsletter so that you can be the first to know about all things HOA (that’s short for Homesteaders of America). Don’t forget that we have an online membership that gives you access to thousands—yes, literally thousands—of hours worth of information and videos. It also gets you discount codes, an HOA decal sticker when you sign up, and access to event tickets before anyone else. All right. Let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Amy Fewell Welcome back to the Homesteaders of America podcast. I’m excited to have today’s guest with me. Welcome to the podcast, Adam Martin.

Adam Martin Well thank you very much for having me today, Amy. I’m super excited to get to be on your podcast and chat with you about bees and life and whatever it is you want to talk about. I’m here for it.

Amy Fewell I know you’re an open book, right?

Adam Martin I am.

Amy Fewell All right, so I met Adam—let’s give a little history first—totally off the whim. We had our… I guess it was our first Tennessee homestead event that we did. And of course we don’t do this anymore, but I got some gems. I got some diamonds in the rough from doing those events and Adam’s one of them. And so he was walking around and he had this tie-dye shirt on and his big straw hat. And he was like, “Hey, I do bees a totally different way than anyone else.” And I’m like, okay, we need to listen to this guy because that’s the kind of stuff I like. And so I think from that moment on, we brought you on to do workshops and to be a speaker, and you’ve been stuck with us ever since. That’s basically the story, right?

Adam Martin That’s pretty much it. Yeah, it’s so funny you bring it up because I kind of wanted to touch on this and we really haven’t talked about how this all started, but Leslie, you know, we started homesteading in the beginning of 2019 and yeah, just one day she just said, “Hey, yeah, they’re having a homestead event out here, you know, right in our backyard and they’re looking for…” You know, first, she told me the ticket prices. She said it was going to be a smaller event and started listing all the people that were going to be there. And of course, Joel Salatin, I knew who he was because we had already been following him. And you know, there was some other YouTubers that we had stumbled upon. But long story short, we ended up volunteering at that first event. That’s how we got in there. And I’m very fiscally responsible, I’ll say. So to pay for tickets, I probably would have really drugged my feet. She probably would have drugged me anyways, but as soon as she said, “Hey, we can volunteer and we get in for free and we can spend the whole, I mean, we basically volunteer for half a day.” And so that’s what we did. And we were actually on the security team with your husband, Mark. And yeah, so that’s exactly how it started. I walked up to you. I actually went to the bee talk. Kaylee Richardson did it and it was awesome. And then afterwards, I just had that thought. I found out through my beekeeping experience that sharing the information that I’ve learned and teaching, I never knew that this was what God was leading me to. And so that was really kind of the door that… I mean, I just walked up to you and just said, “Hey, if you ever need a natural, sustainable beekeeper to teach, I’m doing things very different and I would love to teach it.” And you’re like, “OK!” And then I think I sent you an email and I really didn’t know how, you know, because I’m sure you have lots of people come up and say, “Hey, I’d love to teach this. I’d love to teach that.” And so I shot you an email, I want to say in January or something and said, “Hey, if you guys are doing a Tennessee event again this year, I would love to do it. And let me know, you know?” And you immediately came back and said, “Yes, I’ve been looking for your information and we’d like to have you in the spring and in the fall in Front Royal.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?” And so my very first event was so much fun. And, you know, I was just totally hooked right then and there. And we just had a really positive response from everybody that came to the talk. And since then, it’s been quite the ride. And it’s not, you know, what we were expecting or anticipating or anything like that. And so we’re basically trying to play catch up. But it’s been so much fun and so good. And we’re just sharing, you know, we have classes that are apiary. And I just shared at the local bee club this weekend, we had a beginner beekeeping class. And again and you know, because you have bees, when you go to the local bee club, you pretty much are only going to hear kind of the commercial, conventional way of of beekeeping that’s popular in the Western world and you’re really not going to hear the other side of the story. And it’s really cool because obviously, I’m not the only voice on the natural, sustainable side of beekeeping, but I have become a spokesperson. And obviously, you and Homesteaders of America have given me that platform to really start getting people thinking about this and moving in this direction and it makes total sense. We’ve got people like the Dohertys that, you know, are teaching how to feed your cows clean off your farm and be sustainable. And, you know, Homesteaders, by and large, we’re all wanting to eat clean, get out of the grocery store. And so when it comes to honeybees, like why would we do all those other things and have an organic farm and then not have basically organic bees and organic honey and do that sort of thing? So all that to say, that’s why I’m here today.

Amy Fewell Yeah. Now, let’s plug your book a little bit, because you wrote a book recently, right? Tell us a little bit about that.

Adam Martin I did. So Sawdust Publishing who, obviously, Janet Garman is intimately involved and I believe one of the founders of Homesteaders of America, if I’m not mistaken.

Amy Fewell Yeah, she’s been with us from the beginning, at least working with us.

Adam Martin Yeah, so founding member. And then another friend, actually before that, Anne Scott was the one that she talked to me one day (and she really has been a mentor through this whole process, just getting our getting the word out) she told me, “You need to talk to Janet. I don’t think she’s got anybody that’s written about bees. And, you know, you should talk to her. You talk to her.” So finally, at a HOA event that would have been a year and a half ago, I just kind of walked right up to her and said, “Hey, Janet, I want to write a book about beekeeping—natural and sustainable.” And she said, “OK, let’s do it.” And so we got to it and we sat down over winter. It was a great time to do it and just dug in. And, you know, that’s another thing that I found out through this entire process is that I not only love to teach, I love to write. And I like to sit down and write. Now, my thoughts, when I put them on paper, it’s crazy. It’s kind of like when I talk, you know, and so to organize it and get into a way where a reader is going to be able to pick it up and read it, that’s a whole nother, you know, situation. So what I had to do was I wrote the book. I literally locked myself in an RV and just shotgun blasted a book out, basically. 12 chapters and just started adding to it and adding to it and adding to it in the middle of winter. And finally, I brought it in and handed it to my wife, Leslie. And she’s a reader, she’s very well educated, and so I said, “Here you go. You’re my first editor.” And so she went through it and she spent, I’m telling you, she spent as much time on it editing it as I did writing it. And then once we got that done, I took it again, edited it again, and then we kicked it to Sawdust Publishing and Janet and her team, Michelle, they were able to get through the editing really quick because Leslie did such a good job. And so we cranked out this book, started selling it last summer, right in time for bee season. It’s called Bee Kept with Wild and Free Honeybees. And so just basically, I teach everything from A to Z on what I do and how I do it, and then I also share just tons of experience as far as stories with other beekeepers and with homeowners and homesteaders and just kind of all the experiences that have led up to right now. And then the information also… I share a lot about Dr. Seeley, who’s very prominent in the bee world. He’s probably the foremost expert on honeybees in the wild. Not probably. He is. And he’s just got a ton of really good information. So that’s in the book. I also refer to Dr. Leo and Horizontal Hives. I teach about that. But basically, you know, what I do and what I teach, the cornerstone of it is the bees themselves. And more and more every day, it really is coming out, people are discovering. And Dr. Seeley did a study here a few years ago, and he was able to really narrow it down that honeybees are extremely adaptable. And he calls his—you’re going to love this—he calls his beekeeping now, this new study that he did, and what he’s calling it now is he’s calling it Darwinian Beekeeping. I call it Intelligent Design Beekeeping because I know who created it. And so but the findings, nevertheless, you know, he goes in there and he goes, “Look, bees are extremely adaptable. You know, through natural selection (which is something that Darwin taught) bees are able to, you know, the weak ones die off, the strong ones live. And so when they’re impacted by something like Varroa mite, he found and was able to study that bees were actually able to, when you left them alone and let them do their thing, they were able to become resilient to the Varroa mites and live with them. And so when he studied bees in nature and bees out in trees, he was able to see that the bees did not completely collapse. They did have losses, but the strong ones survived, and wouldn’t you know it, pretty soon (I think in that recent study he did in 2019, 2020) feral queens over winter have about an 85 percent success rate. And so that is actually better than what we expect in the beekeeping world as far as like you’re going to have losses. You’re going to have hives get small and die. You know, there’s just going to be attrition. But out in nature, 85 percent is impressive. And so, you know, everything’s kind of coming full circle. And I know you know this: it doesn’t matter what it is—when we’re talking about cows and chickens and big Ag and big medicine and all these things—you know, there’s this huge movement amongst people like us to get back to the earth and get back to creation and get back to intelligent design and really ask God for the answers instead of leaning on modern medicine or conventional farming techniques or whatever it is, you know? So that’s really where we’re at today. And that’s what this book is all about. So it’s Bee Kept with Wild and Free Honeybees. You can find it at Sawdust Publishing—would probably be the best place to go get it. It’s on Amazon. We haven’t put it out on our audiobook yet, but we will at some point soon, hopefully.

Amy Fewell Oh, that’ll be fun. I will link it in the description too, so you guys can just click a link and go to it and buy it. And that way, I know for me, I love reading and having a hard copy of something that I can reference back to. So I love that when we have podcast guests on, they have a book, we always encourage you guys to go get those. So we’ll link that stuff below and Adam’s website and things like that.

Amy Fewell We’re taking a break from the podcast so I can tell you a little bit about this year’s sponsor, Murray McMurray Hatchery. Murray McMurray officially started his chicken business in 1917. He had always been interested in poultry as a young man and particularly enjoyed showing birds at the local and state fairs. He was in the banking business at the time and sold baby chicks through the bank to area farmers and hobbyists. But now, we know Murray McMurray as one of the top homesteader’s choice hatcheries here in the United States. They have all kinds of birds, from show birds to exotic birds to meat birds, because who doesn’t want every kind of chicken or poultry possible? They have ducks and all kinds of options for you. Here at Homesteaders of America, Murray McMurray Hatchery has supported homesteaders for at least the last eight years (or as long as we’ve been around) and beyond, since 1917. Make sure you check them out at McMurrayHatchery.com to get your orders in for the year.

Amy Fewell Speaking of bees being adaptable, we’re going to finish our conversation we were having before we hit record. I was telling Adam that my husband, right before we started recording, sent me… All week this week, we’ve been in… Well, the last couple of weeks, we’ve been in like negative temperatures here in Virginia, which is not really common here. You know, it’s not uncommon to have like one or two nights, but to have a week of nights at these very cold temperatures, you know. And we just have the regular hives. We don’t have the hives like what you do and we’ll talk about that in a second. But I’m like, they’re so thin. You know, I feel like they’re just so thin and it could be so cold. And so yesterday I was telling him, I’m like, “I really hope that I can get up tomorrow morning and those bees are flying because it’s supposed to be close to 60 degrees today.” Because I have had bees for years and I have bought them and they get right to January or February and then they die. And I’m like, what in the world? And so I told him, I’m like, “I’m not buying bees again. I’ll do swarm traps, but I’m not buying bees again if they die this year.” And so even through… We switched where we got our nukes from last year to a more local, more organic beekeeper. And he just sent me a video before we started this, where both hives are flying and there’s tons of bees. And so I’m so excited about that. But this podcast is going to be released sometime in February where we’re still probably battling some winter temperatures. And so I wanted to ask you about that. You know, what can beekeepers do to… Is there anything we can do at this point in the year to ensure that those hives naturally make it through the winter, these last few winter months?

Adam Martin Yeah, I mean, at this point, if you wanted to, you know, basically, if we still have some of those cold snaps coming, you could absolutely insulate the outside of the hives. You could put up a wind block around the hive. A lot of people use round bales or square bales, that sort of thing, to kind of create that wind block. So there’s still things you could absolutely do to kind of help them. One thing that I do, I don’t feed my bees sugar water. If I want to feed them or if I think I need to, I’ll just put out honey and let them have at it. And so I actually did that yesterday. I had a couple of frames that were, you know, kind of junk frames of honey that I couldn’t or didn’t want to extract, and I’d saved them. And so I literally put those out yesterday as soon as the temperatures reached, you know, 50 degrees and the bees covered it up yesterday afternoon and they’re still out there right now. I guarantee over the next few days, they’ll be doing that. And that just kind of gives them a little spring. You know, they know that something starts coming through the front door and so that’ll kind of kick that queen in the high gear. It gives them a little extra boost and it just kind of encourages them is all it really does. But yeah, those would be the things that I would think about doing if I was concerned at all. Really, if you’ve made it to right now and they have enough stores, they should be fine. They’re pretty good at maintaining their heat no matter what, so your bees are adapted to your boxes. And I’m sure that they’re doing fine in there. If you see them on a day like today and we’re, you know, rapidly approaching February, all we need is a week or two of this kind of weather and we’re going to have dandelions popping up and there’s going to be things that they can go out and start foraging for, and that’s going to kick them into high gear, too. One thing I could… You know, putting some sort of an insulating jacket on the hives if you’ve got vertical hives is a really good thing to do, especially when we do have these weird polar vortexes. And it’s interesting. I referred to Dr. Seeley earlier. I was watching one of his videos and he talked about how he actually built… He put foam board insulation around his Langstroth vertical hives and then encapsulated that with plywood. And that is a permanent insulated box, basically. And so he leaves the brood nest alone. He doesn’t get into the brood nest and all he does is come out during the spring and add honey supers and then take them off to get the honey and then that’s it. And so those bees, the insulation actually works the same in the summer as it does in the winter. It actually shields them from extreme heat, which you probably don’t get real extreme heat. But, you know, if you were in an area where it was hot, it would help them as well. And it’s not going to hurt them in your area. So that is something that you could do as well. If you were concerned at all about insulation for the hives, you could do something like that.

Amy Fewell Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the differences in hives. Like you’re doing horizontal hives versus vertical hives. And I’m sure this can take a while for you to explain, but I know people are going to want to know what the difference is and what the pros and cons are.

Adam Martin Yeah, I can make it pretty simple. I’ve been teaching it enough to where I can really break it down because it can be a little bit confusing. So the first thing is when you say horizontal, the frames are still vertical. So they’re sitting in the hive but basically, the hive is more of a chest where the bees are going to move… They’re going to build from right to left or left to right versus with vertical hives, it’s stacked boxes. The frames are all in there vertically but the bees are building up, basically. Up and down is how they move. So again, the bees are very adaptable. So in a horizontal hive, they just move left to right or right to left. I expand them and contract them the same as you would a vertical hive. So with horizontal hives, that’s my normal maintenance is every spring, here in a few weeks, I’ll be going out to do my spring expansion and give them a ton of room to start bringing in nectar and pollen and get with it so that I have honey in June. And then in the fall, what I do is I’m going to go in before winter, before we have our first frost usually, and I’m actually going to contract the hive by going through and seeing if there’s frames that they’re not using, whatever, make sure they’ve got plenty of honey. And I’m going to get them into the tightest space possible so that they’re the most efficient they can be over the winter. So you think about like, you know, we use mummy bags when we go out camping in the middle of winter and you don’t want to have any air gaps inside of that sleeping bag. Otherwise, you’re going to get cold. Well, it’s the same thing with the bees that the tighter the space that they can inhabit and the better insulated it is, the more they can maintain their heat over their winter. And they actually go through less honey when they are better insulated than if they’re less insulated because they’re having to try to stay warm. So it doesn’t seem… I don’t know. It seems like it’s opposite of what you would think that if they were hot in there, they would burn more calories and they would consume more honey, but it’s the opposite case. And then when you go to a tree, you know, out in the middle of the woods, think about the sidewalls on that tree for insulation. They’re super thick. So with the horizontal hive, we build them out of two inch construction or you do an insulated box, which would be plywood, insulation and plywood. And it just makes for a much more efficient house for the bees. That’s one of the pros to horizontal hives. Another one is how the bees are treated when you do a hive inspection. So it’s easier on the bees and easier on the beekeeper. And I’ve kept bees in vertical hives, and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when I when I say this: when you go and you do a hive inspection on vertical hives, you have stackable boxes—and all of your listeners—if you’ve seen bees out on somebody’s farm, most likely it’s been in the vertical hives with the stackable boxes. So when you go to do an inspection and when you do an inspection, that means you’re going to go check on your queen to see if she’s doing OK (make sure she’s laying eggs and make sure everything is good), you’ve got to get down into what’s called the brood box. And the brood box on the stackable boxes is the bottom box. So you’ve got this tower of boxes and you’ve got to go take each box off, get all the way down to the brood box, check on your queen, put the frame back in as soon as you see an egg, and then you put it all back together. Well, what you did was you just tore the house in half or you tore it in thirds or fourths. You did a complete air exchange with the air outside—they had a nice sanitary air pocket inside and you just completely disrupted that. And then as you put those boxes back together, it’s almost impossible not to smash bees as you put it back together. And that puts off alert pheromones. So all of a sudden your bees realize, hey, we’re losing our sisters. There’s something bad going on. So the next thing you know, as the beekeeper, is you’re getting, you know, you’re having bees bouncing off your veil and you’re going, oh, my gosh, I got to get this done. The bees are upset. Understandably so. And then you get it all back together and you run away. And I’m totally convinced that bees have PTSD so that the next time you come into the bee yard, they recognize you as a threat, right? I teach this, especially when I’m over in my apiary, is you don’t wear dark colors around bees and the reason is because their predators are dark colors. And so if I walk through with a black T-shirt in front of my hives, I expect to get some aggressive bees come out and check me out. Well, if we go out there in our white spacesuits and we completely tear apart the house and put it back together smashing bees, we now look like a threat to them. And then also when they hit your veil and your jacket, they’re actually leaving alert pheromone inside of your jacket. And so you actually smell like a threat. You smell like something bad has happened. So that’s with the vertical hives. Now with a horizontal hive, that’s a chess style. You’re literally able to isolate or to figure out where you need to go inside of that hive to pull one frame to look at it, see what you need to see (which if I’m doing an inspection, I’m looking for an egg from the queen), and put that one frame back in and close it back up and walk away. And it’s just easier on you, it’s easier on the bees. And the last thing on that that I didn’t touch right off the bat is when you pull those honey supers off the top of a vertical hive, those, God willing, if they’re full of honey, those can weigh 40 to 80 pounds. And so that was one of the things. Like I started out with vertical hives and then I found out about horizontal hives and I found out about that specific thing. And I thought, I want to keep bees until I’m 100 years old. I love the honeybees. I love honey. I love teaching about it. I want to do this until I’m 100. Well, I’m not going to be, you know, climbing up a ladder and pulling a 40 to 80 pound honey super off. Like, that’s not sustainable for me. I know that for sure. And so that was just another thing with the horizontal hives that I just thought, OK, this really does make sense to me. Another pro is that when you grow in a horizontal hive, when the colony grows, you can literally add one frame, two frames, three frames at a time, rather than putting an entire box on top of a vertical hive. And a lot of times, as experienced beekeepers know, it’s sometimes hard to get them to move up into those new frames. And you have to do some checker boarding or you have to kind of fool them into moving up into those frames. But I find in the horizontal hives, I’m able to just kind of manage their size. And if they’re small, a small colony, I’m able to keep them small and just give them a little bit of space. If they’re a huge colony, I can just open up the entire chest and pack it full of frames and let them have at it. And so I’m really able to customize, you know, their space inside for the size of the colony of bees that I’ve got. And so those are just some of the things. And of course, I talked earlier about the insulating properties. We build them all out of two inch construction. And so we literally have the lumber milled to two inches. And we build out of cedar because it’s the same price here in the Amish country as it is for pine. And they’re just beautiful and they last a long time. And then if you know anything about cedar, cedar is antimicrobial, antifungal, rot resistant. And I have found bees in cedar trees. And that’s what kind of gave me the idea to start doing that. And the bees love it. People often ask me if I notice a difference with hive beetles or wax moths. I haven’t noticed a difference. It seems like they’re always lurking and ready to take over if, you know, the colony starts to collapse. But I’d say those are the main things with horizontal versus vertical and why I really like the horizontal hives. And for backyard beekeepers, you know, where you’re going to have two or three or four colonies of bees, in my opinion, it really is the only way to go. Now, if you have vertical hives, and I know you do. So all is not lost. If you decide you wanted to go that route, you could actually turn all of your deep boxes or even you could turn your medium boxes if you wanted to. But the deep box is actually the perfect size for a swarm trap. Dr. Seeley came up with the ideal cavity size for a wild swarm out in the woods and that was 1.4 Cubic feet. Well, that is exactly what a deep box is. So you can actually convert every single one of your deep boxes into swarm traps. And then obviously, you would need to have horizontal hives ready to go to put the bees into the horizontal hives.

Amy Fewell Okay guys, we’re taking a quick break in our podcast to bring you some more information about one of our sponsors this year. We are delighted to have NutriMill with us once again this year as a sponsor. We really enjoy this company and everything that they stand for. They are super like-minded. They educate us about whole grains. You can even check out one of the past podcasts we did with the owner of the company. Nutrimill is dedicated to creating high-quality, small kitchen appliance products that function well, are easy to use, and promote healthy eating. From mixers and grain mills to dehydrators, they have it all. Make sure you hit up this one-stop shop for all things fresh grains at NutriMill.com.

Amy Fewell I 1000 % know what you’re talking about—pulling those boxes off. When I found out I was pregnant, back in the fall was, of course, when I needed to do some of my fall inspections and I couldn’t do it because it was so heavy. Those, especially the deep boxes, they’re just so heavy. And so I couldn’t do it. And then it got too cold for me to even try to get anyone else to do it. And so, you know, that’s one of the appealing things of the horizontal high for me, especially as a woman. You know, I’m not necessarily as strong as a man. And so that’s something that if we can keep these bees alive, you know, moving into the next season, wanting to switch over. But that brings me to the next question: is it possible to take vertical hives and turn those hives into the horizontal hives? Or do we have to start all over brand new?

Adam Martin So there’s a couple of options. So the frames that you’re using are Langstroth deep frames. Langstroth was the one that developed the vertical hives. And he came up with the frames, the frame style. You can absolutely go straight from vertical, literally transfer them directly into a Langstroth Long Horizontal Hive. So it’s a horizontal hive that is set up and designed to fit your Langstroth frames. So there’s tons of plans online to build Langstroth Long Hives. They fit about 31 deep frames. You could also put medium frames in there if you wanted to. The bees will just build comb off the bottom of them. And I’ve done that before. It’s not a problem. So you could go online, you could find plans to build your own or you can find somebody locally. We did start a Facebook page called Horizontal Hive and Trap Builders and Buyers. And there’s actually a ton of people that have come to it. We’ve got an interactive map to where people can go and find somebody local to them, because I know not everybody’s got woodworking equipment or skills. And they may want to go find somebody that’s building these things because it’s not just, you know… You can’t just go to TSC and get you a horizontal hive.

Amy Fewell Right.

Adam Martin And so, you know, people are connecting on that Facebook page, which is really cool. And then with your deep boxes, you could take those deep boxes and probably cut out or make holes in the walls and put those boxes together in a horizontal configuration. But in my opinion, I would use those for swarm traps is what I would personally do. And I would just start with some brand new horizontal hives that fit Langstroth frames. Another thing I will mention is that you can build these horizontal hives out of anything you want. You know, if you have lumber on your property, if you have a lumber mill, if you have palleting material, bees will inhabit anything. And so if you give them a good home, they’ll set up shop and get to it. The critical thing is to make sure that everything fits your frames and what you’re using for frames. You want to respect bee space and that’s one of the things that Langstroth found and found out about and wrote about was that bees need three-eighths of an inch bee space inside of their colony. If they have more than that, they will take advantage of it and build comb basically in those gaps. If they have less than that, they won’t be as efficient. And then two bees won’t be able to pass by each other when they’re doing their work. So three-eighths inch bee space is really critical if you’re going to build your own equipment.

Amy Fewell OK, now, so do you have any plans online that you sell?

Adam Martin So we are working on plans right now. When I say we, I’m talking about Leslie and she’s going to laugh when she hears that. She’s a registered civil engineer and she’s got AutoCAD experience and all that stuff. And she really does like doing that sort of thing. So she’s been working on some plans. But if you go to horizontalhive.com, there are free plans there for the Langstroth Long Horizontal Hive. And those are the plans that we’ve been using and they’ve been great. So we don’t need to necessarily reinvent the wheel. Really, the only reason why we’re developing plans is so that we can put them on our website and we can have people go to our website. But they’re going to be free and there’s free plans all over the place. And I think that’s great. You can build a top bar hive with free plans, you can build swarm traps with free plans, so it’s pretty easy to find them and they’re out there and available, but we will have plans on our site hopefully soon for swarm traps and for horizontal hives.

Amy Fewell OK, awesome. All right. Well, I don’t want to ask you all the bee questions because I want people to buy your book and I want people to come listen to you at conference. But I am going to plug our May event real quick because at our Tennessee event, Adam did a really cool demo. He brought bees and had people get into the hives with them. And you know, there’s nothing like that. Like for someone to experience getting into a hive and then they’re either terrified or they’re completely inspired to do beekeeping. And so we are having a May event at Polyface Farms, Joel Salatin’s farm, where Adam is going to do the same exact thing. He’s actually coming to do a two hour lecture and weather permitting, get into the hives and kind of show you guys how to look for things, and just give you the experience overall. And so Adam is just one of many of those teachers coming to that May event. And as of the recording of this, we do still have tickets for that May event, which is very intimate setting. You get to talk to the teachers and ask all of your questions and get hands on experience. So we’re excited to have Adam there for that. So check out our website for tickets if they’re still available. But before we go, Adam, the one thing that I ask every guest, and it’ll totally put you on the spot. If there’s one thing that you could say to our homesteading community, whether it’s about beekeeping or homesteading or anything, what would be that one thing—that encouragement, that inspiration—that you would say to the HOA community?

Adam Martin I would say you can start wherever you’re at and you can get going. And I think that’s kind of cliche and I think most of us try to let people know that. But you literally don’t have to be a pro at any one thing. You can start doing some of these things. And, you know, again, that’s what I’m teaching is I’m teaching people how to get back to intelligent design and how to ask the right questions and the simple questions and really to go to the creator and just get back into the dirt. I think that we were made for this, honestly. I think that we were born for this. And so I would just say, don’t get overwhelmed with all the things, but, you know, literally figure out, OK, let’s start with some chickens or let’s start… And I know a lot of your listeners are probably already homesteading, but for those that are out there that are dreaming of it, that are where we were in 2018, 2017, knowing nothing and just dreaming about it, just don’t get overwhelmed with, you know, I’ve got to learn everything and I’ve got to do this, that and the other. It’s not a bad thing to plan. I’m a terrible planner. So, you know, we got cows and we didn’t have fences. We got pigs and knew nothing. I mean, we learned the hard way: you don’t overwinter pigs unless you’re going to be a hog breeder, and we were definitely not going to be hog breeders. And so that cost us a ton of money. But you know what? We learned. And you just learn these things as you go. I didn’t know anything about bees when I got into bees. And, you know, it’s just one of those things where some of these things, you have to fall off your bicycle to learn that that kind of hurt. And I need to do a little bit better next time and focus a little more or whatever it is. We’ve got to run and trip and fall and get back up. And so, you know, I would just encourage your listeners to not get overwhelmed with any one thing and just do something. Just start doing something if they’ve done nothing. And then if you’re on your way, if you’re already doing things, you know, just figure out what it is you love. I love honeybees. So figure out what that thing is that you love. You don’t have to be a pro at everything. But guess what? I can trade honey for goat’s milk if I want it. I can trade honey and bees for whatever. And that’s that one thing that I just love doing. And so I’m good at it and I enjoy it and I’ve fully immersed myself in it. But figure out that one thing that you want to do and do it and go for it.

Amy Fewell Yeah. And it all begins with just starting. You know, our first set of bees came out of an old house. A friend of ours was like, “Hey, I don’t want these bees, but I have to go get them. Do you want them?” And we’re like, “Sure. We don’t know…” Never taken a bee class. Still haven’t taken a bee class other than just listening to you and other beekeepers. And you know, we did it. And we’re still learning. Same with cows. Same with chickens. We got chickens. We didn’t have a chicken coop. We put like this plastic netting up to just keep them in one space with a tarp over it for a few days before we could build something. And so I’m not suggesting that’s what people should do. But but, you know, there’s something to be said about gaining your own experience. You know, there’s something to be said about making your own mistakes. It’s like our parents, right? Like our parents could tell us our whole lives what we should and shouldn’t do. But until we actually like mess up on our own, we’re like, oh, OK, that makes sense. And so I feel like homesteading is the same way. And then eventually you turn into somebody else’s mentor from all the mistakes you’ve made, right?

Adam Martin That’s right.

Amy Fewell Well, Adam, I’ve really enjoyed having you on the podcast today. And you guys make sure you check out all of the information below. We will link everything that Adam has talked about. And then you should come here and speak or you should check him out online or buy his book because there’s a lot more information out there. So thanks for joining me, Adam.

Adam Martin One more thing. I just want to plug that spring event one more time. You plugged it, now I’m going to plug it. For what we just talked about: getting your hands on bees, getting your hands on a cow, getting your hands on a chicken to process it—this spring event is going to be huge. And my teaching experience, like I feel like I leave half my teaching experience at home when I come to an event and I teach about bees, because I literally love getting people into bees for the first time. It’s like my favorite thing to let people taste honey right off the comb. So I highly encourage you all. If you can’t make the spring event, get to another event, get to your local bee club, whatever it is, find somebody that’s got a cow and go get hands on experience, even if it’s just for an hour or two, because that’s going to really let you know, is this something I really want to do? And it’s also going to get you over that mythological fear of whatever it is. It’s totally natural to be a little bit freaked out about getting in with some insects with a bunch of stingers. I promise you that. And I was at the beginning. But that’s what I’m going to do in May is I’m going to get you over that hump. And by the end of it, you’re going to be totally hooked on bees. You’re going to want to do it. And there won’t be any ifs, ands or buts. And you’re going to have so much fun, it’s going to be an adrenaline rush, it’s going to be so much fun. So if you haven’t got your tickets, get your tickets if there’s any available still. And we’ll see in May and super… just looking forward to it. I’m very appreciative to be on your podcast today. And Leslie and I really do thank you guys for what you’ve done for us and just given us a platform to share what God’s put on our hearts. So we love you guys and really appreciate it.

Amy Fewell We love you guys, too. And we thank you for sharing all of this knowledge and information that’s not in your head anymore. It’s, you know, it’s out there with us and other people and on videos. And so we really appreciate you. And now in a book, too, you have your book, so. All right, guys, until next time, happy homesteading.

Amy Fewell Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s Homesteaders of America episode. We really enjoyed having you here. We welcome questions and you can find the transcript and all the show notes below or on our Homesteaders of America blog post that we have up for this podcast episode. Don’t forget to join us online with a membership or just to read blog posts and find out more information about our events at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. We also have a YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media accounts to find out more about homesteading during this time in American history. All right, have a great day and happy homesteading.