• Honey Bee Sperm and Reproductive Bee Anatomy with Brandon Hopkins
    Mar 29 2024

    One in every three bites you take are made possible by honey bee pollination. Keeping bees healthy and productive is essential.

    Honey bee reproduction depends on a queen's ability to have one mating session, store sperm for years, and lay about 1,000 eggs a day during the warmer months: an amazing honey bee characteristic among many. Brandon Hopkins shares fascinating honey bee behavioral adaptations in this discussion.

    Listen and learn

    • How a queen's anatomy and sperm morphology work to make this reproduction effective,
    • What storage methods are best for honey bees to make the large almond yield in California possible, and
    • How these storage methods also work best to deter certain types of mites from overtaking colonies.

    Brandon Hopkins is an assistant research professor and the apiary and laboratory manager with the Washington State University Apiary Program. Studying reproductive biology across different animals led him to a honey bee obsession. "They're fascinating creatures and present lots of room for improvement in assisted reproductive techniques in honey bee breeding," he says.

    He gives listeners a primer on honey bee social behavior and reproduction, describing the sperm, the queen's spermatheca organ, which stores the sperm in a quiescence state over years, and the complex ability of the queen to continue laying eggs by releasing the sperm through a tube.

    He also gives us a glimpse into how this works over our geography.

    While he's worked on methods of cryopreservation of honey bee semen, he's now mainly focusing on practical aspects of beekeeping management. Over two million honey bee colonies have to be moved to California in January for February almond pollination, so the storage and transport of bees is a vital topic for research.

    Many beekeepers store their bees that will go to California in large warehouse-like buildings for the winter. He explains why this is an advantage, from saving their energy production to keeping mites and bee interaction at a lower state, and for a better quality of life for the keepers themselves. Listen in to understand more about the ways researchers like Brandon Hopkins are keeping bees healthy.

    For more about his work, see entomology.wsu.edu/directory/faculty/brandon-hopkins.

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    46 mins
  • Bee Space: Honey Bee Social Behavior with Cameron Jack
    Mar 28 2024

    Bee keeping is an ancient practice: even prehistoric cave paintings in Spain depict a keeper reaching for a hive to collect honey while holding a smoker to calm the bees. Cameron Jack shares some of the more interesting details of this ancient art with lucky listeners.

    Tune in and hear

    • How honey bee characteristics, bee anatomy, and evolution have led to optimal frame and hive size for beekeepers to follow,
    • Why bees are considered a superorganism, which means a honey bee can't survive on its own, and is organized by queen, brooders, and workers, and
    • Why Cameron Jack's prime interest is managing honey bee diseases and pests and what are the main areas of concern.

    Cameron Jack holds the unusual position of one-hundred percent lecturer at the University of Florida. He's still involved in research and extension work, but his full lecturer designation means his beekeeping course list at the University of Florida is probably the most extensive college-level beekeeping instruction out there.

    He teaches seven different beekeeping courses, covering everything from evolution, biology, the annual cycle involved in beekeeping, and more. The courses are complete enough to turn out people who can actively be beekeepers. In this interview, he describes everything from why 3/8 inches is a magic number to how bees find and maintain hives in the wild.

    Honey bee behavioral adaptations of course take center stage. For hive building, beekeepers who want to maximize honey production must learn such behaviors to know why they might, for example, sequester the queen in the lower level. Bees build their combs vertically and are considered a superorganism—"the whole animal is the whole colony," he adds. They are able to determine their hive sizing in multiple ways and if it gets too big, they swarm—one colony becomes two.

    Furthermore, the queen designation doesn't mean ruler. She's a producer, laying as many eggs as she can in a systematic spiral through her level of the comb. Cameron Jack's primary interest is the management of pests and diseases bees face like types of mites, beetles, and even wax-eating moths. While the interaction of mites and bees is the most concerning, diseases even involve microorganisms in honey bees' guts.

    Listen in to hear more about this amazing superorganism.

    For more see the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab page.

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    46 mins
  • Sweet Talk: All about Honey Bees with Jamie Ellis
    Mar 27 2024

    It's estimated that 20% of our food is dependent on honey bee pollination. Meanwhile, recent news has highlighted concerns like viral diseases of the honey bee to mites to invading "killer" bees. It's hard to keep straight where honey bee diseases and treatments stand. This conversation does the trick, leaving listeners with a clear and fascinating vision of what's up with the honey bee.

    Listen and learn

    • Where do our current North American honey bee populations stand and where do they fit in the larger picture of bees worldwide,
    • What pests and diseases of the honey bee and control measures are entomologists most involved with, and
    • How do these concerns fit within agricultural, ecology, and the backyard beekeeper.

    Jamie Ellis is the Gahan Endowed Professor in the Entomology and Nematology Department at the University of Florida. Fascinated with bees since childhood, he took care of his first honey bee hive at age 12 and hasn't looked back since.

    He's not alone: humans have been interacting with honey bees for thousands of years.

    While there are 20,000 of bee species worldwide, only 9 of those species are honey bees.

    Even more daunting, 8 of those 9 are specific to Asia. That remaining species is the one we're familiar with and it inhabits Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Honey bees are actually not native to North America; rather, Europeans brought them over hundreds of years ago.

    Are the populations of this one honey bee species that inhabits such disparate regions the same? Well, while it is the same species, entomologists divide it into about 30 subspecies or races, such as the African bee, which the press has misnamed the "killer bee." North American honey bees have been facing population struggles lately because of a mite, and Ellis describes various pest control and pest management plans, including nature's own adaptation through honey bee evolution.

    He also helps listeners with the big picture of the many reasons to raise honey bees. While many are familiar with bee hives used for honey, pollination services are also a tremendous business. Others raise colonies to sell and some keepers specialize in raising queens.

    For more information, including resources on your own bee keeping, see the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab page.

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    46 mins
  • Honey Bee Threat: Not-So-Sweet Mites and Bees with Zachary Huang
    Mar 26 2024

    It's hard to imagine a world without honey, much less all the fruits they pollinate. That's one reason Zachary Huang's research into honey bee stressors is so important.

    Listen in as he teaches listeners about

    • Primary bee stressors, including parasites, pathogens, pesticides, and agricultural transportation,
    • In-depth information regarding their primary stressor, the Varroa mite and how it harms the honey bee, and
    • Honey bee characteristics that make them especially vulnerable to these stressors.

    Zachary Huang is an associate professor in the Department of Entomology at Michigan State University. He's also an avid photographer of all-things-honey bee, including the plants they pollinate. Honey bees face many stressors and are on the decline. Researchers across the country are trying to figure out why.

    Dr. Huang tells listeners about the Varroa destructor mite, which hitchhiked from Brazil or Asia on bees into North America. These purplish-red mites are about the size of a pinhead and feed on the fat body of the bee. They are an obligate parasite, meaning they are dependent on the bee for their life cycle. However, their bite transmits several viruses, which weaken and affect the bee anatomy and eventually lead to the death of the bee and increased hive vulnerability.

    These types of mites are actually responsible for the death of 35% of honey bees a year. Honey bee social behavior increases mite transmission likelihood.

    They can be transmitted from drifting, if a bee goes to the wrong nest and brings a mite back, or if a new colony takes over another colony's site.

    Researchers have tried several methods to combat these mites, from chemical methods to Dr. Huang's own method of "zapping" the drones and mites, killing them with heat so that infected drones and mites die and the colony is free to recover. Other research explores utilizing honey bee behavioral adaptations like grooming behaviors and hygiene, working on breeding bees with increased habits that will decrease the mite population in their hives.

    For more about his work and to see some of his photography, see bees.msu.edu.

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    33 mins
  • Aligning With Holistic Wellness: Discovering The Power Of Postural Restoration With Aleena Kanner
    Mar 25 2024

    In this episode, we connect with Aleena Kanner, a Postural Restoration Therapist and Certified Athletic Trainer with a passion for helping others with chronic pain. With a background in athletic training, she works with the neurology and psychology of the body to help restore sensation, realign position, and repattern the nervous system.

    How can better posture transform your well-being and pave the way for holistic restoration? By putting the root causes of underlying health conditions at the heart of her practice, Aleena guides her clients down an empowering path of healing – and you may be surprised at the results…

    During the episode, we delve into:

    • What typical postural evaluations consist of.
    • How our body movements can dictate internal pressure.
    • Intricate techniques that teach the brain how to understand its space.
    • The asymmetries that can exist in the body and how to address them.

    Want to learn more about Aleena and her distinct approach to physical and mental health? Click here now!

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    28 mins
  • Reinventing Healthcare: Taking An Alternative Approach To Wellness With Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier
    Mar 24 2024

    Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier joins the podcast to discuss his latest book, Change Your Genes, Change Your Life: Creating Optimal Health with the New Science of Epigenetics. Dr. Pelletier is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF, a renowned keynote speaker, and a pioneer in mind-body medicine and integrative health research.

    Change Your Genes, Change Your Life is renowned for pioneering work in integrative medicine, epigenetics, and longevity. Throughout the book, Dr. Pelletier navigates readers through a captivating journey into the realm of health and wellness – unveiling actionable steps to alter our genetic expression and enhance our well-being for a lifetime…

    Presently, Dr. Pelletier works as a medical and business consultant to an array of entities, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Business Group on Health, and the Federation of State Medical Boards. He also serves on the boards of the Healthtrac Foundation, United Behavioral Health, American Institute of Stress, and more.

    In this conversation, we dive into:

    • What “adept meditators" are, and how observing them drove Dr. Pelletier’s career interests.
    • The difference between the voluntary and involuntary nervous system, and how they interact.
    • How practice and repetition can create pathways in the nervous system.
    • Examples of skills that can be learned through deep concentration.

    You can follow along with Dr. Pelletier and his work by visiting his website!

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    41 mins
  • Inside Schizophrenia: A Compassionate Exploration Of The Science And Treatment Of Mental Illness
    Mar 23 2024

    Dr. Xavier Amador and Janet Hays join the podcast to discuss the intriguing topic of schizophrenia. How is it treated? What systemic barriers do patients face? These experts sit down to offer their comprehensive perspective on this complex mental illness – and all of the intricacies that come with it…

    Dr. Amador is a world-renowned clinical psychologist and the founder of the LEAP Institute. As a leader in his field, he has written many books, published clinical research, and completed worldwide speaking tours surrounding the topics of schizophrenia, bipolar, and other disorders.

    Janet Hays is a mental healthcare advocate and founder of the Healing Minds NOLA. Determined to make a difference, she supports policies and funding priorities that focus on evidence-based treatment and care programs for those struggling with mental health issues.

    Join us now to learn about:

    • Dr. Amador’s personal relationship with schizophrenia.
    • Why it can be difficult for schizophrenia patients to understand and accept their illness.
    • The average span of time between diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia.
    • What assisted outpatient treatment is, and why it is the most therapeutic way of doing intervention.
    • Why many patients are so resistant to mental health treatment.

    Whether you're seeking a deeper understanding of schizophrenia, grappling with its complexities firsthand, or simply interested in the intersection of science and practice in mental healthcare, this episode provides invaluable insights into a condition that affects millions worldwide.

    Want to find mental health resources in your state? Visit www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org now!

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    48 mins
  • Fertility & Diet: Bridging Traditional Medicine & Functional Nutrition To Achieve Optimal Health
    Mar 22 2024

    Meet Nikki Burnett, a functional nutritionist and the Founder and CEO of Taste Life Nutrition. Drawing from nearly a decade in practice and over 25 years of education, Nikki has helped hundreds of clients unlock their optimum health. She does this by digging into the root cause of dysfunctions – and then using manageable and strategic methods to restore balance and wellness…

    Nikki's own health struggles fueled her mission to empower others on their health journeys. By highlighting the effectiveness of personalized approaches, she helps people suffering from an array of complex health conditions.

    From chronic pain to fertility struggles, Nikki is on a mission to bring holistic solutions to those who look beyond conventional norms. What sets her approach apart from other nutritionists? Tune in now to see for yourself!

    In this conversation, we cover:

    • Why people are so confused about their health and wellness.
    • How a healthy diet can impact fertility.
    • What epigenetics is, and what it can tell us about the body.
    • Different factors that can impact fertility for both men and women.

    Click here to find out more about Nikki and her work with Taste Life Nutrition!

    Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection.

    Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9

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    33 mins