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

Orange Groves, Honey Bees, and a Vanishing Industry

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in March 2026.

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

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

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

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

Season 7 Episode 11: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Bee Poop, Yellow Rain, and the Bee Gut

Honey bees refuse to defecate inside their hive all winter—and when the first warm day arrives, thousands of bees take a sudden cleansing flight. In this episode, we explore one of the stranger realities of beekeeping: the honey bee digestive system and the dramatic spring event known as the cleansing flight.

From my snowy backyard apiary in Calgary, Alberta, we begin with the subtle signs of early spring. The sun is higher, the hive entrance warms, and a few brave bees take flight—even when temperatures hover just above freezing.

Honey bees spend the entire winter confined inside the hive, eating stored honey but refusing to defecate indoors. Instead, they store waste in their hindgut until a warm day finally arrives. When it does, thousands of bees launch into the air to relieve themselves in spectacular cleansing flights.

Today, we'll explore the biology of the bee gut, why hive hygiene is critical to colony health, and what happens when digestion goes wrong through dysentery or Nosema infection.

We even take a detour into Cold War history, when mysterious "Yellow Rain" falling over Southeast Asia was eventually linked to mass defecation flights of giant Asian honey bees.

Yes, really.

Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in March 2026.

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

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

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

Season 7 Episode 10: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – February means Almonds

Most California almond pollination takes place in late February and earlier March. In this episode, we look at the world's largest mass migration of livestock and the problems honey bees encounter during pollination season. We also examine how almonds are pollinated (looking closely at the flowers) and why honey bees remain essential to get the job done.

Recorded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in February 2026.

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

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

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