Venom Collection with Whale Labs' - James Watts (S4, E32)

Today, we welcome James Watts from Whale Labs, in Australia. Whale Labs works on a variety of research projects, but today we talk with him about the honey bee venom collection and the commercial value of that venom. Whale Labs has developed a honey bee venom collector that is easy to use, does not harm the bees, and makes collecting bee venom fast, easy, safe and very profitable. Moreover, regular collections do not harm the hive, nor reduce honey production. The collector consists of a glass plate placed in at the entrance of the hive. Alarm pheromone is administered near the entrance of the hive to draw bees out of the hive. When bees start walking on the glass plate, embedded wires in the plate are made to pulse, or vibrate, which irritates the bees, that then sting the glass plate, ejecting venom. The barbed sting does not catch on the plate, so when the bees are empty of venom, they quit and return inside. The venom crystalizes and is easily gathered by scraping it off the glass plate. Raw venom in this form can be sold for $80 - $100 per gram. However, if it has the various components extracted, using an HPLC and a mass spectrometer (together valued at somewhere near $100,000), the principle component of this that is used in cosmetics and elsewhere, has a value of somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500/microgram, and one gram of venom contains about 200 micrograms of this particular valuable component. Whale Labs sells collectors, provides technical support, and the market for the collected products. Visit them at www.Whalelabs.com/au. Listen today. This could be your next profit generator from your operation. If you liked today's episode, subscribe/follow to keep up to date with the latest releases! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Whale Labs - https://www.whalelabs.com.au/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode!  We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening!  Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC