What is up, everybody? Mark on the mic here, and I tell you what the podcast studio is a buzz with

energy. I am talking to consummate B student, actually more like B professor, Ms. Gaila Gibson,

Gilles, packaging engineer here at Vortex Hopics.

And how many hives do you have, Gaila?

Currently, probably between 80 and 100.

Between 80 and 100.

And you've had up to 160, I believe.

160 last summer.

We'll probably be close to that again this year.

If it's not clear, we're talking bees today, raising bees,

and what it takes to do that. Gaila, we've had several conversations about bees in the past.

In fact, every time we chat, I find out some other new interesting factoid about your life that I find

just absolutely fascinating. And I was like, we got to jump on the podcast. We got to jump

on the podcast. And you're like, I don't know. I don't, you know, there's a level of trepidation there.

And I'm like, remember the conversation that we just had for like 30 minutes? That's what we, that's

just all we got to do. That's what we got to do. So hopefully the butterflies, we're talking all sorts of bugs.

Hopefully the butterflies are gone.

Let's talk bees.

Let's talk bees.

Before we do that, let's go.

I just want to dive into a little bit of your background and just kind of like where you

grew up, how you grew up, and then like how you got into beekeeping,

...