Beginning a Sustainable Apiary in Central Texas – The First Year

Right now, our beehives are building their populations in order to have enough bees by May to make surplus honey from wildflowers such as Indian Blanket and Horsemint. When the worker bee population in March and April is rapidly increasing, and nectar and pollen supplies are abundant, a honey bee colony will often begin swarm…

Introduction Honey bees have kept themselves for eons. Within their beehives they have labored tirelessly to produce honey, beeswax & propolis.  Man has harvested these products from the beehive for thousands of years.  In former, less industrial times, honey was man’s most valued sweetener.  Beeswax and propolis had many household uses.  Most importantly, bees have…

Beekeeping is not as easy as it used to be.  As I was growing up during the 70’s and 80’s in a beekeeping family business, the main problem we had to worry about was the low price of wholesale honey.  That all changed in the late 80’s with the arrival of the parasitic bee mite,…