Archives

Winter Removals – Why *not* to do them

I’m often asked by a homeowner to perform a honeybee removal in the winter. My removals are “live” removals – and I do not kill the honeybees to remove them.

Education about aspects of the honeybee’s lives is essential to let homeowners know why I generally choose to NOT remove bees from someone’s home, tree, […]

Winter Feeding

The bees need to be able to maintain their warmth throughout the winter to survive. That means that they need to have a ready supply of carbohydrates available to them – without my having to open their brood boxes, and allowing their heat to escape from the hive. These “candies” are placed directly above the […]

A few leftover bees…

Hah! I received a call today from a gentleman that was referred to me by another beekeeper. He said that he had a lot of bees on the outside eve of his house – and that he’d had bees removed from a wall of his home about 3 weeks ago. I thought to myself – […]

Score at an estate sale

Shannon and I visited a Tyler area estate sale last weekend. I’d gone through the house – as well as the tool shed, and didn’t really see anything that caught my eye.. until we were leaving – I glanced down at a brown box.. that simply said “bee box” on it.

Of course, my interest […]

The ladies are hot!

The ladies are HOT! We’ve finally – now that we are in late July – hitting 98 to 102 degrees outside. Bee sure to provide fresh water for your honeybees – just like you would for your dog or cat. The honeybees use the water to help cool the hive (evaporative cooling) – to […]

Plug on Podcast – BKCorner

I wanted to send a special shout-out and thank you to Kevin Inglin of Beekeeper’s Corner. Kevin noted this blog (and Harmony Hollow Apiaries) in Episode 31 of his podcast BKCorner. He also has a Facebook page HERE.

I have yet to build the hive-stand of Kevin’s design – however, I do plan on doing […]

Hives bumped up / LocalHarvest

It was time to bump up 2 of my 5-frame nuc hives to 10-frame boxes. I waited until the rain had subsided to a slow drizzle, and fired up the smoker.. and moved 2 nucs to 10-frame deep hives with screened bottom boards.

I believe that this will give the bees something to do besides […]

Hot in Texas

One of my 7 hives is bearding outside the 5-frame nuc. Temperatures here in North Texas are in the mid-to high 90’s right now (1st week of June 2012). I do believe that it’s time to move these ladies to a 10-frame box along with a screened bottom board. That should do wonders for helping […]

Now Hiring: New Queen For Old Hive.

Strange subject line, eh?

My oldest hive seems to have lost its queen over the last month or two. The brood boxes are full of honey and pollen.. and LOTS of drones… but not a single egg, larvae, or capped brood in 2 deeps and 2 supers.

My latest captured swarm has filled out EVERY […]

Trap-Out Re-Start

Today I checked up on a trap-out that was started about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, the 1-way screen was blocked with masses of dead bees – and the survivors chewed through the other blocked entrances/exits to get out. I can’t say that I blame them for their industrious nature!

I made the appropriate repairs to […]