- There's a lot of bees, holy smokes!

On the season finale of "Charlie Bee."

- Should we eat some drone brood?

- Shall I?

- Ugh.

- I travel home to Massachusetts.

- Woo.

- How's it going, everybody?

- Charlie.

- And meet beekeeper, Curtis Mraz.

- Take a ride down there, and we'll get into some bees.

- Who shows me how beekeeping is done up North.

- We'll have a bear come in and take out a hive.

- Ow.

I go behind the scenes at the Norman Rockwell Museum as well as a BIPOC beekeeping program.

- Oh my goodness, that's gorgeous.

- Yankee Doodle is coming to town!

(mellow guitar music) (air whooshing) My name is Charlie Agar, and I'm a beekeeper in the Texas Hill Country.

They got me.

I help people with nuisance bee problems and rescue bees from sticky situations.

(bees buzzing) I think I got some bees on me.

With bee populations in decline, it's more important now than ever to save these bees.

(person speaks indistinctly) (person exclaims) Beekeeping has taken me all over the state of Texas, and working with bees has given me the opportunity to meet some incredible people along the way.

(people laughing) I'm always learning, experiencing new things, and working hard.

Things can get a little crazy.

Ow, ow!

Ah, ah.

But I love it.

(truck engines rumbling) (upbeat rock music) Oh yeah.

(upbeat rock music) Timber.

(object thuds) (upbeat rock music) This is just wild.

I love it, I love it.

We're solving somebody's problem We're putting these bees to work where they're meant to work, somewhere safe and away from people.

(metal clanking) This is what it's all about.

Retreat.

Woo.

(person exclaims) (upbeat rock music) (mellow guitar music) (air popping) (air whooshing) So we're in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, close to New York State.

This is where I grew up being a little rapscallion, chasing around the woods, around this beautiful lake for the summer.

Back in the '40s, my grandfather built a little summer home on Stockbridge Bowl, part o this beautiful little community called Beachwood, 140 cottages.

And my father knocked down the old pier and beam cottage and built himself his dream home And I was lucky enough to b part of putting that together.

So it's a real special place.

It's just wonderful to be back here.

It just fills my heart.

Like when I come here, it' like this is such a part of me, this part of the world.

(mellow guitar music) (vehicle door clicks and thuds) (mellow guitar music) (air popping) (air whooshing) (mellow guitar music) (hinges squeak and creak) (door thuds) Hey, diddle diddle.

- Woo.

- Charlie.

- How's it going, everybody?

- Charlie.

- Charlie.

- Freddy.

- Oh.

- Oh.

- Juan Diener.

- Oh my goodness.

- Mmm, mwah.

Hey, the money.

- Nini.

- You made it.

- Nannini.

- You made it.

- Nannini, how are you?

- Charlie was a surprise.

He's our youngest child.

- Youngest of four.

- He was a surprise and the best thing that happened, so.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

We're so happy you're here.

- You guys okay?

I'm glad to be here, I'm glad to be here.

- Wow.

- We ordered some cool weather for you.

- Ah.

- Just a little different from Texas.

- Just a little different from Texas.

You know, we're here on the recon mission to see what our future holds.

And I think just moment one, feeling the cool air and- - Woo.

- I'm telling you.

- A little sunshine.

I don't know, I don't know.

But you know why I'm here.

I'm ready to get in the lake.

- Did you bring a suit?

- I am, I have a suit on underneath this.

I'm ready to go.

(people laughing) - We don't skinny dip until after dark.

- That's fine.

- No, no.

- You don't want me to skinny dip.

- No skinny dipping.

(people laughing) - Let's go take a quick water ski.

- I'm game.

- The lake is like glass, it's awesome.

- As long as we've got med clinic somewhere nearby.

- Yeah.

- I should be okay.

- I'll call the ambulance.

- You think you can still get up?

- Oh, you'll be- - I can do it, I can do it.

- Can you get up on on one?

- You'll be great.

- On one.

- You'll be great.

- Let's do it.

- Woo.

(upbeat rock music) - Did you ever think we'd be this old doing this kind of thing?

- Our bathing suits are just a little bigger.

- Yeah.

(people laughing) Gimme a minute to pee when I get in because I'm nervous and excited.

- It's a little nerve-wracking.

- No, no, no, no, I start with one.

(Charlie inhales and exhales) - Okay.

- Okay.

(upbeat rock music) (air whooshing) (air popping) (upbeat rock music) - Okay.

(upbeat rock music) - You got this.

(upbeat rock music) - Ready?

(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music) (engine revving) No.

(mellow lighthearted music) - Yeah.

(mellow lighthearted music) - I'm too fat and old.

- Yeah.

- I used to get up on one ski no problem.

- Did you just say you used to get it up no problem?

- No.

(person laughing) There's a lot of mass.

A lot of large body back there.

- Yeah, that's what I think it is.

- Is that what it is?

- Yeah.

- Lots of large mass back there?

- Too much back, so.

- All right, hopefully, we get this this time.

Hold on.

(engine rumbling) (mellow rock music) (mellow rock music) (engine rumbling) Woo.

(mellow rock music) (mellow rock music continues) (water gurgling) (mellow percussive music) - Yeah, it's pretty good.

- For an old man.

(Charlie laughing) (Charlie laughing) (person laughing) Boo-yah.

That felt pretty good.

Yeah, baby's still got it.

Wee.

(mellow guitar music) (mellow rock music) (air whooshing) (air popping) (air whooshing) We're at North Plain Farm, right near Housatonic, Massachusetts.

Ooh, bees.

It is so green, it is so lush.

We are here with some awesome beekeepers.

Curtis Mraz with Smoke & Honey Bee Company.

There's the man, Curtis.

- Hey, Charlie.

How's it going?

- How're you doing?

Great to meet you.

- Good to see you.

We're gonna have an opportunity to get into some hives, meet the bees, see how they're different, see how they're the same.

- This is Sawyer.

- Sawyer, Charlie.

- Sawyer's been working with me for the last four or five years.

- Good to meet you.

- Beekeeping.

- Yeah.

It's a real honor to be able to tag along and learn more about this business in a different part of the world and get our learn on here today.

Beautiful Western Mass.

And y'all are more than just beekeepers, right?

- Yeah, so we run a farm and a bee management business.

So we manage a couple of different vegetable farms, but essentially, we are not just beekeepers and we're not just farmers because we realize how holistic this picture is.

- Yeah.

- Hey, my name is Curtis Mraz.

I'm a fourth generation beekeeper and I run Smoke & Honey Co.

It's a beekeeping and farm management business based in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York.

We manage about 100, 150 bee colonies, and we're vegetable farmers as well.

- Yeah, it's kinda like a multifunctional farm with sustainable practices working in the fragmented agricultural landscape of the Berkshires.

- How's it fragmented?

Like just different?

- Yeah, there's just not a lot of like large contiguous pieces of land and so you have to kind of get clever with where you're grazing your animals.

Just kinda like figuring out that puzzle.

- We manage about five acres of vegetable production and berry production and we have an orchard, 60 chickens and a few too many ducks.

(duck quacking) - I'm ready to get into it.

You ready to get into it?

- Yeah.

- Let's do it.

- Let's light some smokers.

- All right, I'll follow your le (mellow rock music) - Yeah, so generally, what we're trying to do with the smokers is we want hot fire at the bottom.

- Yeah.

- And then we want to put in a lot of burlap so that the smoke coming out of the actual smoker is cool.

We don't want to go in there breathing dragon's breath all over the baby bees.

- Right, right.

- And burning their wings.

- Oh, cold smoke right there.

- (clicks tongue) Now we're in business.

- All right.

- So I like this yard 'cause it's in what's considered dappled sunlight.

- Uh-huh.

- Which is, if you think about it, a bee's natural preferred habitat, if we're thinking about wild bees and where they like to live, they don't live in the middle of a sunny field.

- Right.

- They live in a tree line.

The more we can mimic that with our bee yards, I think the better.

And we try to make sure that the queen is healthy, that no sicknesses or disease have come up.

So that's what we're doing today.

And we might get lucky and get to pull off some honey too while we're at it.

- This looks like the Raptor enclosure at Jurassic Park.

What's this all about?

This looks like the Raptor enclosure at Jurassic Park.

What's this all about?

- Yeah, so bears are a real thing here in the Northeast.

And Winnie the Pooh is a reality but a much crankier version.

And year after year, we've had bear problems at a number of different yards.

- Bears just tear it apart?

- Yeah and generally, they're hungry enough that an electric fence isn't much to stop them.

- Oh, really?

- So even though we have electric fences at a lot of our bee yards, we'll have a bear come in and take out a hive the first night, usually, the first night they're kind of questioning the reason they're there and they'll only do a little bit of damage.

- Uh-huh.

- It's the second & third night where they tend to (clicks tongue) clear things out.

- Wow.

So what do you do?

- So if you catch 'em on the first night, you're in luck because you can go back, you can electrify the fence and make sure it's really hot, hot, hot.

And then put a little sliver of bacon on the fence so the bear doesn't just push through the fence and feel the shock on its fur, rather, it grabs a piece of bacon with its nose or with its mouth.

And bears are smart.

They'll learn that the fence is electric.

- Okay.

- And they won't come back.

- Oh, man.

- But you've kinda gotta train it just like a pig or a dog that, hey, this fence is electric.

You can't just push through it.

- You don't sit out there with a shotgun across your knee or anything all night?

- No.

(Charlie laughing) No, no, no, that's not for me.

- You're not shooting a bear.

- I gotta catch sleep.

I'm a farmer too.

- You're a farmer too, right, okay.

- So we smoke the entrance and, (bees buzzing) but we can see the bees are bringing in nectar.

- There's some honey in there, for sure.

(bees buzzing) - Come on.

- Ooh, look at that.

Woo.

That is heavy.

- That's probably about two and a half pounds of honey.

- I'd say at least, yeah, that's beautiful.

- You see all this cap stuff is probably early spring flow that they finished dehydrating and sealed off.

And a lot of that early spring flow up here, you know, we have apples in bloom.

Dandelions are huge in the spring.

And this time of year, all the clover comes in in the hay fields.

- Okay.

- Slide her right back there in the middle.

(bees buzzing) (mellow guitar music) - Wow, that's crowded.

- Yeah.

- And that's all honey.

- Yeah, that's honey and this is their winter box.

So we'll leave this for them.

- Leave this for them.

- For us, it's most important that these bees get through the winter, not that we end up with 20 more pounds of honey.

- There are big differences between how the bees survive up North compared to my Texas bees.

- I think a big difference is finding the genetics that can overwinter in the North If we buy bees from the South, a lot of times they'll make great honey and they'll look like they're prepared to go in the winter, but they'll never come out of it - Texas bees definitely don't have to deal with blizzards.

They're definitely beefier.

There's more resources and the larvae is so well fed.

But the biggest difference is their temperament.

These bees are very mellow.

- Mm.

- They're not bothering me.

And here I am kind of talking and it's like blowing a carbon dioxide out and they're not coming from my nose and mouth.

- No, no.

- So that's really nice.

- They're busy.

- They're working.

- They're not- - Yeah.

- They're not interested in what I've got to tell 'em, Curtis has a very zen approach to beekeeping.

They're not bothered at all.

Is this always the case?

Do you get feral bees, aggressive, defensive bees?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Do you get that at all?

- Yes, the answer is yes.

We have bees that have different temperaments.

- Yeah.

- Very rarely have I met a hive that I, you know, walk up to and look at funny and they kick my butt.

- So, in my world- - Yeah.

- That's not the case.

- Yeah.

- I have hives that I approach from 10 feet away.

- Right.

- And they'll right in the eye.

It's a different deal down South - And it's dry.

They're thirsty and they're angry and they don't have all that they need.

- Down South, ornery feral bees are usually called hot bees, killer bees or even Africanized bees.

- Africanized, it's used to describe, you know, these angry bees.

- Right.

- And it's a really interesting term, but I think problematic.

You know, I first learned t think about it a different way through a friend and a fellow beekeeper, Ang Roell, who runs They Keep Bees in Montague, Mass.

And they said, you know, "Look, this term Africanized is really problematic in a racist society because we're ignoring the fact that honeybees, you know, come from the White man."

The indigenous people of this country used to call honeybees the White man's fly.

And so, targeting bees that are angrier or tend to be more hostile and labeling them as Africanized when there's, a lot of the times very little genetic proof to back up, you know, this hive is actually angry because it came from Africa.

And I think that that, ultimately, you know, in a racist society, especially within beekeeping, which can be a predominantly White field and- - Big time.

- It can isolate people, especially beekeepers of color that want to be in the community And it's hugely important to kind of shift our terminology around that and change the way we talk about things.

- Curtis has got me thinking.

I'd never questioned the Africanized moniker for aggressive bees.

(mellow guitar music) - With scutellata in particular, you know, there's advantages to them being adaptive like that.

Like it's a lot hotter where they come from.

- Yeah.

- Right?

And so being more aggressive and having a faster metabolism helps them to survive.

- Yeah.

I was an English major and, to me, words matter.

I think it might be time w change what we call these bees.

- Cool, so we'll leave them this honey and we'll put this box back on, which they're starting t fill up but doesn't have much.

And then we will go back over here and check out DayDreamz Estate.

(bee buzzing) - Ow, ow.

Even these Yankee bees have stingers.

Welcome to the Berkshires, Charlie.

- That'll give him a puffy one for the rest of the show.

- (laughing) Pretty much.

- Throw that hood on if you need to.

- No.

- Nobody's gonna look at you different.

(bees buzzing) - Ah.

- Everything's bigger in Texas until it's running away from a bee yard.

(Charlie laughing) (mellow guitar music) (air popping) (air whooshing) (vehicle doors thudding) - Oh, what do we got here?

- We got some snacks.

I figured before we- - Oh, that's great.

- Start over here.

Most importantly, some comb honey.

- Perfect.

- Some veggies from the farm.

- I love it.

- Hey, Phil.

(Phil speaks indistinctly) - Phil.

- Phil's the owner of DayDreamz Estate.

- Charlie, nice to meet you.

- Philip, nice to meet you.

- It's nice to meet you, I love your spot here.

- Yeah.

- Holy smokes.

- It's so great.

- Yeah.

- Come on over, come on over.

We're snacking.

Who's this little pretty?

- Violet.

- Violet.

- Violets are onsite bear protection.

- Oh, there you go, you're the bear hunter.

- Slacking.

- The bear hunter.

(people laughing) - When the bear like walked across the field, I was like sitting at my desk and I'm like, wow, Violet got really big.

And then I like looked down and I was like, (person laughing) a bear.

(people laughing) It's like two o'clock in the afternoon.

- Oh man.

- Not Violet.

- My name's Phillip Blume.

We're here at DayDreamz Estates Cannabis Company LLC.

We've been working on this project here for about a year and a half cultivating a sustainable place to grow cannabis.

So this year, we're probably gonna have around 2000 plants in the ground and this is our second year with the bees here.

- Yeah, Charlie, the reason why I like having bees here at DayDreamz Estate and with Phil in particular is Phil's always been a really intentional cannabis grower.

I think there's a lot of people in the industry that saw it like the internet boom a generation ago and they hopped on and they threw a bunch of money at it.

And there's no intentionality, there's no purpose behind it.

And Phil is a local, he's from Sheffield and it's been really cool to see him buy this land.

And you know, one of the first things he said to me was, "Curtis, I wanna put bees there.

'cause if I'm gonna have a farm, I want to do it right."

And bees are the indicator of whether or not we're doing it right.

If they're happy, you know, the property's happy, the land's happy.

And yeah, beware, we're gonna have some stay sticky sticks.

- Yeah.

- Hitting shelves.

(people laughing) - I know, I'm excited.

- Soon.

- Honey allows you to, in the morning, get cannabis into your diet in a healthy way.

And then honey is also really beneficial for you.

I put into my coffee every single morning, - I call this nature's gusher.

(person laughing) - That's awesome.

- And that allows the body to consume it in a healthier manner.

And I believe everybody needs to eat more honey.

- Dig in, guys.

- Dig in.

- You want some?

- So this is gonna taste like Berkshire County, I assume?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

This is from a Woven Roots Farm.

- Mm, that's light, that's good.

- Finger-licking.

- So tell me about these peppers again.

- These are shishito peppers.

Great raw, even better cooked.

Story is that one in 10 of them is spicy.

- All right.

- So you play a little Russian roulette every time you eat one.

- So I got lucky here.

(people laughing) I didn't get a hot one.

So tell us about this yard.

This is beautiful.

We're like in timber country.

- I was super thrilled to set up this bee yard.

But one of my first concerns was, you know, we're in the woods, this is bear country.

We definitely deal with a lot of black bears.

This is bear country.

And the first year, nothing, nada.

It was almost too good to be true.

And sure enough, it was because year two, she came in and she took ou a couple hives the first night and Phil called me the next morning, asked me to come by, I came by, we cleaned everything up, we put the bees back in the hive.

They were excited, they ran right back in there.

And then we fortified, we put in a couple more wires around the electric fence.

And she came back that same night with her cubs this time and she actually had taught her smallest cub to sneak under the bottom wire of the fence.

- Oh, man.

- And the cub would drag out one hive at a time and then the whole family would set up a picnic right outside the bee yard (Charlie laughing) and have a feast.

After about two weeks of battling and losing five nucleus colonies, ran an extension cord and made this fence about as hot as you can get it.

And by hot, I mean electrified.

And we put bacon all over the fence so the bear would grab the bacon.

And we haven't seen the bear again.

(mellow rock music) - That's a little scary though.

Bears are unpredictable, right.

This is not something we deal with in Texas, I guess.

- No.

- So it's a whole different world.

The electric fence thing, that's another layer.

It's expense, right.

- Yeah.

- You gotta set that up.

- And that's a serious one, that's a lot of lines.

- Yeah.

(person speaks indistinctly) - Yeah, right.

- I know a lot of people will ask me, well, what's the electric fence for?

You put collars on all the bees.

(people laughing) Not exactly.

It's usually to keep things out.

(people laughing) (mellow guitar music) - All right, well, let's get in there, see what these bees are up to.

- Come on.

- Check 'em out.

- Yeah, let's check it out.

- All right.

- So yeah, we'll we'll turn off the fence.

- Okay.

- We'll have to step over that one.

(Charlie exclaims) - Hey, bees.

- Yeah, we can take a peek and do a mite roll and- - Sounds good.

(mellow guitar music) - Check out this big boy.

- I don't know how I'm gonna get up here, Curtis.

What do you think?

- All right.

All right, shorty, we'll get you something- - Get me a little - You can stand on over there.

- Get me a little stool to stand on.

I need a little help.

That's perfect.

- How's that?

A little lift.

(mellow guitar music) There we go.

- Much better.

- Oh my God.

- There's a lot of bees.

Holy smokes.

(mellow guitar music) - We'll just take this box off and go down a couple stories.

- Okay.

- If we are doing a mite check, what we're gonna want to do is check the bees that are bringing in honey for mites.

We want to check the bees that are freshly born for mites.

- Nurse bees, babies.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

(mellow guitar music) - All right, Charlie, see if you can lift this one up.

- Manhandle this one up.

Yeah, sure.

I had some Wheaties a couple years ago.

(mellow guitar music) Ooh, there you go.

- Look to see if we see some eggs first.

- You obviously don't wanna shake the queen.

- Correct.

(Charlie laughing) Mite rolls are kind of a difficult thing to do as a beekeeper because it does involve sacrificing some bees for the greater good.

- Sure.

- But I also wanna say that if you don't do mite checks and you don't treat for mites, all of your bees will die.

- Yeah.

- So this is, you know, the lesser of two evils and we are here to help, so.

Sawyer, you got a kit over there?

- Oh yeah.

(objects thudding) - What I generally do is I kind of scoop the bees off of the frame.

- Uh-huh.

- What I first wanna do is make sure I'm not seeing a queen.

- Okay.

- Because I don't want to shake the queen, I don't wanna sacrifice the queen.

- Sure.

- And it does not look like she's here.

- Yeah.

- So we're gonna use this frame.

You'll see I'm just scooping them right in there.

- About a half a cup.

- Yeah, they say two thirds of a cup.

So I'll do just a little bit more maybe.

(bees buzzing) (mellow guitar music) - Cool.

- Got a little stinger in my finger as a- - Uh-oh.

- Gotta pay the price.

(Charlie laughing) What we'll do is we'll take this and we'll tap it down so all the bees are at the bottom.

And we'll take a hive tool full of sugar and we pack it into the top.

- Yup.

- And the powdered sugar i gonna help to dislodge the mites from the bees bodies.

- Yup.

- You getting some activity around your face?

- No, no, no.

- So once- - I smell bad (people laughing) - Once they're kind of slurry around, we set 'em in the shade for two minutes.

- Okay.

- And at this point, we can put the hive back together- - Okay.

- While we're waiting, - Shall I?

- Please.

(mellow guitar music) - I need my step stool.

- I know.

- These bees just let me manhandle them and breathe and I'm outta breath from picking them up.

And they didn't come at me at all.

They bumped me a little bit, but in Texas, this wouldn't be happening.

The kind of bees I raise.

They're probably mad in Texas 'cause there's not enough to eat These bees are busy.

They got plenty to focus on.

It's also potentially genetics, different genetics.

We got our feral bees are pretty wild in Texas, so it's pretty cool to be able to work such a big hive, right.

It's a monster.

And they're full of bees.

They've drawn most of this out and they're doing just great.

And they're not stinging me.

Someone just bumped me in the back of the head though (Curtis laughing) to say stop talking.

- Yeah.

- Right, bee?

(people laughing) - So what we're gonna do is we're gonna vigorously shake these bees.

And vigorous, it's hard, it's hard to do, because you know, they're bees.

- They're bees, yeah.

- But keep in mind that i you don't shake it vigorously, then you may get an inaccurate mite count and therefore, you may do more harm to your bees than good.

- Okay.

- So once they're all swirled around here, gonna turn it over on its head and shake out.

And as you'll see here, dislodging.

- Ooh, I see a few already.

- Powdered sugar.

Some little flakes of pollen.

What we're gonna do here is we're gonna dissolve the powdered sugar that's left in the bottom of the bin so that we can- - And this is moonshine.

- This is straight moonshine.

- Oh, sweet.

- Yeah.

- Water.

- Water.

- In an old huddy jug.

Just enough to dissolve the powdered sugar- - Yeah.

- That's at the bottom.

- Yup.

- So all that we're left with is the debris that were on the bees.

- Yup.

So I'll count 'em if I may.

- Yeah, please.

- One, two, three, four, five, six maybe, and seven.

Maybe eight, divided by three.

This is pretty low mite level.

- Yeah, so our sample size with two-thirds of a cup is at roughly 300 bees.

So if we're looking to get a percent, what percent of bees have mites on them, then we divide our sample size by three.

- So we have like eight, nine mites.

- Right, which is- - And that's out of 300.

So we divide by three, they're about two and a half, three.

- Look at beekeepers doing that math.

- English major, even worse.

(people laughing) - Yeah, between 2 and 3%.

The threshold for the fall is 3% - Okay.

- So generally, we treat anythin above nine mites per 300 bees.

Sawyer just treated this hive because we did a mite chec on it earlier and it was high.

- Mm-hmm.

- So this is, you know, maybe an indication that that treatment is working and that the mites are starting to come down.

- Great.

- So last things last, yo gotta bring these ladies home.

So you'll see they're a little worse for wear, but they're not dead.

It's like, you know the Gravitron.

You ever been on that ride?

- Yeah (laughing).

All the bees (laughing) there.

Oh, we're going in the top?

- Yeah, so we can just dump 'em right in.

They'll just kind of make their way down.

- They're in shock a little bit.

(mellow guitar music) So the bees are back in the hive We got a good mite level.

So we got that.

That's pretty cool.

- Yeah.

I think let's wrap it up.

- Should we button it up?

I'll put this lid up here.

- Let's jet outta here.

- All right.

- I'm ready to get home and get some dinner cooking.

- Phil, thank you, man.

- Thanks for coming, yeah.

- Appreciate letting us on- - Yeah.

- God's good earth here.

- Yeah.

- This is amazing.

I'm so excited for your farm.

- Yeah, I'm excited to just share my dream and share what we got going on with anybody who's interested- - We need to come back- - In seeing it.

- And see where you are- - Yeah.

- In a year or two years- - Yeah.

- And see how big the apiary gets, So good stuff.

- See you later, babies.

- You need to call this like the bear apiary or something.

(people laughing) (mellow guitar music) (liquid trickling) (air whooshing) (twangy guitar music) (air popping) (air whooshing) (twangy guitar music) All right, y'all.

It's painted hay bales, colorful streamers and a painted truck here at FarmOn!

Foundation at Empire Farms in Copake, New York.

We are gonna get into their apiary.

We're gonna learn all about what they do here and get our farm on, yo.

Farm on, y'all.

(rooster crows) Good morning, y'all.

- Sweet, look who it is.

- How you doing?

- Charlie, good to see you again - Good to see you, Curtis.

- This is Mikayla.

- Hi, Mikayla.

- Hi.

- I'm Charlie.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Mikayla's, the farm manager here at Empire Farm.

- This is amazing, this is beautiful.

- Well, we're glad to have you.

- How many acres are we talking about here?

- The entire farm is about 320 acres.

- Oh, wow, that's big.

- Yeah, it's a historic farm.

It's been here since the 1800s and now we're a nonprofit that focuses on education and entrepreneurship.

- Well, the cool thing is I'm an entrepreneur who needs education, so I'm in the- - You're in the place.

- Right spot, man, that's great.

(chicken clucking) - So our apiary is actually down over the hill over here.

- Okay.

- So we're gonna hop in the truck, take a ride down there and we'll get into some bees.

- Let's check it out.

- Yeah, cool.

- Awesome.

I'll follow you.

- Yes.

- I'll jump in the back.

- Yeah, hop on in.

- Yay.

(twangy guitar music) This will work, this'll work.

Ah.

(vehicle door thuds) (twangy guitar music) Om.

- Arms and feet inside the vehicle at all times.

- Hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.

Lotus position optional.

- Might get a little bumpy.

- I'm good.

(Curtis laughing) (twangy guitar music) We got bees.

(twangy guitar music) All right.

(twangy guitar music) Bees.

Should I touch the wire?

How much does it hurt?

Pretty bad?

- Will it throw me to the ground?

Gotta grab it.

- (exclaims) I'm scared.

(person speaks indistinctly) You just like, what, hold it?

(electricity crackles) (people laughing) (Curtis laughing) Yeah, if I were a bear, I wouldn't like that.

That's the only time I'm gonna do that.

I hope you got that on camera.

(Curtis laughing) (upbeat rock music) - All right, here we are.

Ladies first.

- Let's check it out.

- You know how it goes in the bee yard.

- Thank you.

- Respect the matriarchy.

- That's right.

- That's right.

- Charlie, these are- - These are gentle bees?

- These are gentle bees.

They look a little similar in size to the bees down South that you have, right?

- This is how I do it.

Yeah.

So should we meet these ladies?

- Yeah, do you wanna pop the top?

I also have this hive tool if you want to.

Good morning.

- No way you can open up a hive like this working feral Texas bees without a suit.

Wee.

- So these bees, Charlie, are bees, they're a little bit less far along than the other hives we've been looking at that you needed a stepping stool to climb up to.

- Yeah, totally.

- Because these bees ar actually babies from those bees.

- Okay, they're nukes, they're- - Exactly.

- Splits.

(upbeat guitar music) - Mikayla, you're fearless.

(Mikayla laughing) You seem totally comfortable.

- I really enjoy the bees.

- Do you?

- I appreciate them a lot and I trust them.

They're proper little ladies.

- So do you bring the kids into bees at all, Mikayla?

- We do, definitely an important part of our curriculum here because without bees we don't have food.

- Right.

- We would like to grow the apiary here and then have more to offer in the way of showing people how to be self-sufficient and making things for yourself.

- That's awesome.

- One of the really cool things that I like about Empire Farm and the FarmOn!

Foundation is y'all have taken some concrete action steps to put Black and Brown farmers first and women farmers too as well.

- Yes, we are women-led just like the bees, it's a great model.

There is something to be said to be a woman and a person of color who is farming.

And I think there's so much healing that needs to be done in BIPOC communities and with the land.

Biodiversity is important everywhere, not just in the fields, not just in wildlife habitats, but within our own communities.

A mix of people and plants and bugs is preferred.

- That's great, that's great.

- Idyllic (laughing).

- That's awesome.

(indistinct) Love drones.

So Curtis cuts this comb out as mite prevention, which is perfect poultry feed.

(person whistles) (chicken clucks) - Oh, hi, ladies.

- That's my kind of breakfast.

(people laughing) (person whistles) - That's some protein.

- Come on, girls, you know you want it.

Kathay, don't be rude.

(person laughing) Here, ladies, come on.

- Should we eat some drone brood?

- You should prepare to survive in the wilderness.

- If I were in the wild, if I were Bear Grylls- - That's a hardy meal right there.

- That one's got eyes.

- Hey, if the chickens are doing it, you gotta do it.

- Yeah, you shouldn't give animals anything you wouldn't eat yourself.

(chickens clucking) (mellow light music) - Shall I?

- Ugh.

(people laughing) - How is it?

- Not good.

- No, I thought you were gonna say not bad, it looks- - No.

(people laughing) - You wanna try one?

- No, thank you.

- You wanna try?

- No, thank you.

- I heard they got more cinnamon up here than down in Texas.

Kind of a richer flavor.

Nuttier.

- It's the aftertaste.

(person laughing) I could really use something to drink.

(people laughing) - Slimy yet satisfying.

- Yeah, no.

(Mikayla laughing) (chicken clucking) (upbeat bright music) (marker swishing) (air whooshing) All right, y'all, we are here at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

This is the locust o Americana art and illustration in the United States to me.

I grew up going to this museum.

The story of Norman Rockwell and the stories he told really still influence my life to this day and I've grown up with it, so it's just wonderful to have a chance to get kind of behind the scenes.

So here we go.

(upbeat bright music) How you doing?

- Hey, how's it going, - Jesse, right?

- Yeah.

- I'm Charlie.

- Hey, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

This is like one of my favorite places in the world.

- That's great.

- Thank you for taking the time.

- No, it's good to have you here.

- Get behind the scenes a little bit and learn more.

- Sure, let's go.

- All right.

(mellow guitar music) What do we got here?

Oh, there he is.

Oh my goodness.

- One of Rockwell's most famous painting's.

Probably his most parody painting.

- So this is a self portrait, r ight?

- "Triple Self-Portrait," yeah.

- "Triple Self-Portrait," okay.

- Yeah, this was done for "The Saturday Evening Post" to promote his autobiography, 1960.

The drawing of course he's doing on the canvas.

Rock was here.

And then he's painting an image of himself in the mirror.

- He didn't get a lot of respect in certain times as like a, quote, artist in his time.

- No, no because he was considered an illustrator.

- Right.

- You know, America's kind of first art form was abstract expressionism.

- Right.

- Which came along and it was not, you know, Rockwell's thing at all.

It was, you know, about the mind and Jungian archetypes and things.

And Rockwell was all about real life and creating good feelings about America, Americana.

- Yeah.

Oh, I love this painting.

- Yeah, so she was a 6-year-old African American girl in New Orleans in 1960.

Rockwell had worked for "The Saturday Evening Post" for 47 years.

And in 1963, he stopped working with them.

- Okay.

- And he had begun considering other projects, one of which was a series for "Look" magazine.

And they gave him complete freedom over what he wanted to do.

- Okay.

- Yeah but we have a lot of great photographs of Rockwell kind of setting this up.

You know, throwing a crushed tomato against a wall, taking photographs of that to see how it would look.

- Inspired by 6-year-old Ruby Bridge's historic walk to integrate Black and White students in public schools back in 1960, he created one of the most iconic paintings.

"The Problem We All Live With."

It's a powerful image and it's a timely image, I think.

- Yeah, no, this painting's very inspiring.

It was then, and I think it's just as inspiring now.

- The work was an important shift in Rockwell's career and continues to be a national symbol of hope for racial equality.

Among Rockwell's other iconic images are his famous "Four Freedoms."

- Yeah, so the "Four Freedoms" were painted by Rockwell in 1943.

- Freedom to worship.

- Mm-hmm.

- Freedom to overeat.

- Freedom.

- No.

- Freedom from want.

- What is this one?

- Freedom from Want, okay, sorry - Freedom from fear.

- Freedom from fear.

- And Freedom of speech.

- Rockwell's also known for his unforgettable covers on "The Saturday Evening Post."

- This is all 323 covers he did for "The Post."

- Oh my goodness.

- This is his first cover from 1916.

And it ends over there with his very last cover, 1963.

- Oh man, amazing.

- Yeah, it's nice to see kind of the evolution of America from 1916 through the '60s, - Norman Rockwell, he was able to tell stories that change people's lives, that change people's perspective At heart, I'm a creative and I'm a storyteller.

So many of these are, I guess, meant to be identifiable.

We sort of see ourselves reflected.

- He was able to capture these human emotions that everybody has.

- Right - Everybody will have forever.

- Right.

So many iconic images.

I get absolutely inspired by the fact that just with his hands and his mind, he was able to affect so many generations.

And I hope that I can d something like that with my life Totally inspiring.

(liquid trickling) (air whooshing) (mellow guitar music) We are at Woven Roots Farm here in Tyringham, Massachusetts.

It is about the most iconic, beautiful green, lush valleys in the United States.

- Hey.

- Hey.

- What's up?

Everybody's had coffee this morning, I hope (laughing).

We have a great opportunity to learn about this BIPOC beekeepers program.

So for people of color learning beekeeping.

You know, beekeeping as a industry is very monochromatic.

And it's really great tha these folks are addressing that and training up younger beekeepers and a diverse group of people.

How's everybody doing?

- Glad to have you here, man.

- Yeah.

- This is amazing.

This is so beautiful, what a spot.

You know, when you go to these beekeeping conferences, it's a lot of people who look just like me, slightly older and varying sizes belly, like I have.

And it's like, is this the future of farming?

Is this the future of this industry?

I don't think so.

I think the future of thi business looks kind of different So what are we gonna get into here?

- I think we're gonna go do some hive checks, and hopefully, pull off some honey together.

- Oh, that'd be great.

- Yeah.

- I'm excited to connect with these folks, hear their stories, and learn more about this program.

- We might even help Jen out on the farm up here.

- Oh.

- Ooh.

There's always something to do here.

- Get sticky and get sweaty.

- Yeah.

- Uh-huh.

(Jen laughing) - All right.

I love Curtis's approach to bees about checking ourselves before we get into it.

- Yeah.

- I think that's cool.

- Finding your zen.

- Finding your zen.

- All right, y'all, let's take some honey off.

- Look at this apiary, this is beautiful.

- Welcome, y'all.

- How cool.

So this is off, right?

- It's off.

- It's off.

- Okay, good.

- Y'all wanna just give a little bit of smoke to the hives?

- One of the things that like, I have 50, 60,000 friends.

- Hello.

- Good morning, ladies.

- Thank you for letting us be with you.

- Let's start over here and kind of work our way this way and see which hive's got some honey pull off.

- It's wonderful to have a community of other people who are like trying to figure this stuff out together.

- Did everyone get freaked out the first time they went in bees?

- I definitely had to work through some stuff.

- Did you?

Yeah.

- To get in there, yeah.

- I think what it was for me is that like growing up, I've just learned not to swat bees.

- Mm.

- I've never been stung.

- Okay.

- So I kind of just like chill and wait for 'em until I go away.

They're not trying to hurt you.

- Yeah, Jen, what did you have to work through?

- Understanding that my energy was affecting theirs and that I needed, that practice of centering and creating a space of welcoming and invitation to be working together felt like a necessary step.

- I found it helpful when I first got into bees to be with someone who wasn't scared.

- Yeah, I was also with people that were scared when I started.

- And I started by myself.

- Yeah.

- And I was petrified.

- Yeah.

- And then I got a mentor.

He's just like, "What are you so scared about?

Just relax."

- Yeah.

- And so I was like, oh.

- That's- - Oh, that's cool.

- Yes.

That's what happened when I started working with Curtis actually.

- Yeah.

- All of a sudden- - Curtis is very zen around the bees.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Look at that, y'all.

- Yeah.

- What do you think?

- Yummy.

That is great.

- Feed the people.

Am I right?

- That's great, that's great.

- Ripping.

What we're gonna do in order to take this box is we're gonna take the fume board and we're gonna put some stuff on it that smells.

So if somebody wants to go over there and help me drip some on, and then we'll put it on here.

We'll drive the bees down and then we'll take this box back to the truck and we'll move on to the next hive.

And you're just gonna drizzle, like- - Wait, so what does this liquid do?

- Butyric acid.

- Butyric acid.

- There's an, it's called honey robber.

- What the- - It smells really bad, so all the bees are gonna move down in the hive.

- Got it.

- And then we're gonna come back in five minutes and this box is gonna be practically empty of bees.

- Got it.

- So we'll get to take it without having to brush them all out.

A lot of pheromones, so anything that smells gross, (clicks tongue) they're out of there quicker than we would be.

- So the Mraz family actually had a hand in inventing these fume boards.

- Juliana, you wanna pop this on?

- Sure, ooh, it's stinky.

- It smells like some dank cheese.

(people laughing) - Maybe let's check back over here and see, while Jen's prepping that one, see if the bees have left.

And if we can pull this- - Oh, wow.

- Super.

- Cool.

- Wow, I see one.

She's probably taking her last little bites.

- Oh.

- All right, who's gonna grab this one?

(people laughing) - This one's sticky, huh?

Makes you work for it.

- Woo-woo.

- Oh, they're capped.

- Hey.

- Wow, that's a lot of big money.

Big money.

(person laughing) - Liquid gold.

- These girls are working.

(people chattering) - Wow.

- Look at that, that's beautiful.

- Oh my goodness, that's gorgeous.

- Makes me hungry.

- Grab the sides here, please.

- Yeah.

- What do you think, Jen?

- Oh my goodness.

- Oma.

- Well, I think we can take her- - That's what we do as well.

- Oma.

- I think we can take more.

I think so.

- Oh man.

- Almost at the marlow.

- That's how much honey?

- 50 or 60 pounds.

- Yeah.

- 50, 60 pounds.

- It seems likely.

A five gallon bucket full, baby.

- Look at that.

(mellow guitar music) Brittany, what do you like about this?

- I am naturally attracted to bees because of community.

How they communicate with one another.

How they work together- - Yeah.

- For one another.

How they support their queen.

I am a queen.

- You are a queen, I love it, I love it.

So tell me about the BIPOC beekeepers program.

How long have y'all been doing it?

- This is something that kind of unofficially started last yea where we got a grant to give out free hives and bee management contracts to people of color in the Berkshires.

- Awesome.

- This year, we got a similar grant, but to do a camp style program where everybody comes to the same site.

And we also wanted to uplift the work that Woven Roots is doing here with their educational barn.

And everything just fit in like puzzle pieces meant to be.

- Yeah.

- And now you've got a hive.

- We do.

- Yeah, we've got hives and we've got a- - You've got community.

- Beautiful community.

- Yeah.

- That's awesome.

- And we're all learning from each other and I think that's one of the coolest aspects.

- That's awesome.

(mellow guitar music) (horn honks) - Hey.

- Hey.

- The club car.

- Your club car has arrived.

- I love it.

This is great.

- I love it.

- Yup.

- Put me to work, I want to get dirty, I love it.

(person laughing) - Have you ever worked on a farm before, Charlie?

- Not really.

- Okay, all right.

- You know, my grandfather was a farmer until eighth grade and then he started a business.

And my dad worked hard to get us off the farm.

- Yup.

- Now I'm working real hard to get back on.

- So we have over 40 different crops, mixed vegetable production, culinary herbs, cut flowers, medicinal herbs, a little bit of everything.

- That's awesome.

- And we make sure that we keep that rotation going on so that the soil isn't being drained in any way.

That's a huge part.

Crop rotation is a huge part of the work that we do.

- Crop rotation, right.

- Awesome, So here we are.

- Yes.

- Welcome.

- Welcome.

- Welcome to the farm space.

So this is a little snippe of what we have going on here.

Everything- So take me into it.

- Yeah.

- Let's do it.

- Let's do it.

So I'm gonna introduce you to a couple tools here.

We have one tool called a shuffle hoe.

I'm gonna go along and I don't wanna go very deep into the soil.

I don't wanna disturb the soil much, but I wanna get those roots broken.

- Okay.

- Just a little shuffle.

- Shuffle.

- There you go.

So we do a lot of succession planting, it's called.

And that allows us to really turn a small footprint, an acre and a third of land, into something much bigger.

We're magnifying it- - Okay.

- Quite a bit.

- As someone who cares about bees and our environment and who likes to get his hands dirty, this kind of farming is right up my alley.

- Just keeps getting better.

It keeps getting easier in lots of ways.

- Uh-huh.

- The community that we build is a beautiful experience through the process.

And right now we're feeding the community for more than half the year.

- Do you teach this to people?

- Yeah, we do.

- You do.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Okay.

So this is something, if I had a half an acre that I wanted to turn into productive farm- - Yes.

- That I could learn from you and practice.

- You could, yeah, exactly.

Yup, perhaps if you came back to the Berkshires.

- That's the plan.

- Yeah.

- I tell ya, I could see myself settling down in the Berkshires one day.

Thank you for opening up- - Yeah.

- Your farm to us.

- Thank you.

- This is incredible.

- Such a pleasure to share it with you.

- This was so awesome 'cause I sometimes, as a beekeeper, I get tunnel vision.

To be here and to get hands in the soil and to see how things are so connected.

It's bees to farm to table.

- Yeah.

- You know?

And that's what it's all about.

So thank you so much for just the opportunity- - You're so welcome, yeah.

- To make that rich connection.

- I love that, yeah.

- Well, thank you.

- Yeah.

- Appreciate you so much.

- Thank you.

(mellow guitar music) (air whooshing) (liquid trickling) (air whooshing) ♪ Yankee Doodle went to town ♪ ♪ Yankee Doodle went to town ♪ (upbeat percussive music) (air popping) (air whooshing) (mellow guitar music) - So we're rolling into Downtown Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

I just love the connection to family here.

We go back generations here.

So it's wonderful to see how it's grown and it just the amount of vitality here.

The creative community, there's a lot of artists and writers.

And a lot of opportunity for community and connection around bees and farming and agritourism.

The price of doing busines is definitely gonna be higher.

Regulation is gonna definitely be more intense, but it still has that old Downtown look.

You know, there's upstair apartments, Downtown businesses.

It's much like New Braunfels.

If New Braunfels was off th grid, progressive and liberal.

(Charlie laughing) (upbeat guitar music) So not having a Subaru is a sin here.

(upbeat guitar music) Frankly, if I moved here, I'd probably be the most conservative guy in town.

Whereas in Texas, I'm a flaming liberal, so I don't know what I am, but (laughing).

(person laughing) (upbeat guitar music) (person laughing) (air popping) (air whooshing) (mellow guitar and drum music) (air whooshing) (mellow guitar and drum music) (air popping) (air whooshing) - Woo-hoo, wow, sweet spot you got.

- Welcome to my humble abode.

- Tucked away Right by Great Barrington though.

- Right by great Barrington.

- Cool, man.

- I'm outstanding in my field.

- Hah, so they say.

(Charlie laughing) I'm getting a lot of thyme smell from all this.

- Thyme smell.

- Yeah, these purple flowers.

- Right, right.

- This is gorgeous, tell me about it.

What's going on here?

- So this goes back to the early 1800s.

It was a farm and my grandparents bought the land and they started out down there in a small business.

Their business grew - Uh-huh.

- They bought this land.

They just kind of expanded as they grew.

But I grew up coming here.

- Yeah.

- Learned how to play gol with my grandfather right here.

- Oh wow.

- Like there's just a lot of memories.

And the dream is to do something here in the Berkshires.

(mellow guitar and drum music) There's two acres extending into that cornfield.

- Yeah.

- That's probably where I'd keep bees.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And then this would be homestead, mini farm and- - Yeah.

- Goats.

- Honey shop.

- Honey, yeah, exactly.

What do you think, is this tenable as a working, teaching apiary?

- Yeah, I really lik proximity to Great Barrington.

I think that, you know, opens up a lot of windows for you, as far as opportunity.

You know, if there's potential for you to own some sort of that cornfield- - I'd love it, I'd love it.

- And plant it full of clover instead and be a part of that transition then, yeah.

- Be all over it.

With generations of his family's experience in bees, I'm excited to see what Curtis thinks of my property for a potential bee business.

Ah.

- Nice.

- This is like one of my favorite buildings.

In fact, I thought for years to convert this into some kind of residence.

And then upstairs is pretty cool too.

This is the workshop space.

- Cool.

- This is where I'll build boxes and frames and whatnot.

- Yeah, this is where you make the bee homes, huh?

- That's right, that's right.

What I love about this is like, my grandfather put those in, you know, and- - Right.

- I get that feeling like he's still here with me, so.

- No, this reminds me a lot of the wood shop back in my family's apiary.

It's in the top floor.

Sweaty, it's hot, but it's got that smell of intergenerational woodworking.

- Yes, yes.

- You know?

It's something beautiful.

Uh-huh.

- Yeehaw.

- Howdy doody.

- Howdy doody.

(Charlie and Curtis laughing) - You know, back home, we back the bee truck right up to the edge of the barn and we got one guy up there- - I now, there you go.

- Just go tossing down supers and- - There you go.

- Mm-hmm.

- Love it.

- Picture it now, Charlie.

- Right?

It's been awesome to come up to the Berkshires where my roots are and just dream about what it would be like to run Charlie Bee Company here.

But I love Texas too, and I've been adopted by the people there, so I'm blessed to call two places home.

- Yeah, man, I definitely see the potential.

- I've always loved this space.

You know, I've always loved it.

- Should be a lot of fun.

- Definitely have some big decisions to make for the next season of "Charlie Bee."

Stay tuned, y'all.

(music begins) For more information about Charlie Bee Company, including new and exciting removals, visit us online as charliebee.com.