This episodes guest is Glenn Card—the proprietor, with his brother Wes, of one of the largest and most respected beekeeping operations in the country. Together, the brothers manage over over 30,000 hives, spread across an outfit that spans honey production, queen breeding, pollination services, and nuc production.  Listen to learn:

🐝 How the Cards shipped 8,000 nucs in under 7 weeks—with real-time brood data

📍 How they analyze pass-through mortality across 200+ yards to refine pollination contracts

📦 How they predict nuc supply 7+ days out, based on live data from the field

⚠️ How they identify underperforming hives early—before wasting time and resources

👷‍♂️ How they manage 12+ crews and hundreds of pollination contracts with real-time crew oversight.

Nectar CEO Marc-Andre Roberge and apiary researcher Brandon Hopkins join Max on the pod to talk about overwinter mortality rates in the 2024-2025 season. The conversation focuses on a recent study by Project Apis (PAm) showing an average of 62% winter colony losses across the commercial beekeeping industry. In response, Nectar conducted its own study of winter mortality rates and found an average of 30% losses for the same period among its customer base.

The resulting conversation digs into the discrepancy, asking what the commercial beekeeping industry can do to finally get ahead of hive losses.

Links:

1. Project Apis' (PAm) overwinter mortality study: https://www.projectapism.org/pam-blog/keeping-beekeepers-buzzing-addressing-industry-concerns

2. Marc's blog post in response to the PAm study: https://nectar.buzz/en/blog/13/

Nectar Customer Success Specialist Aaron Toma joins Max on the pod to talk about how and why beekeepers are using Nectar to plan, execute, and track their splits and take learnings from almond season ahead of spring pollination.

For the second episode of the Nectar Podcast, Shoreline Honey founder Nick Groenhof joins Max to talk about what he's learned during his first full year on the Nectar platform.

Nectar COO Max Cherney brings us inside the world of digital beekeeping and shares his plans for the podcast.