Tag Archives: Beekeeping

Requeening a Honeybee Hive – Things We Didn’t Know…

6 Replies

By Texas Homesteader ~ 

Hobby Beekeeping is enjoying quite a popular resurgence. Many people are becoming interested in raising their own bees, whether for pollination of their own gardens, that delicious honey, valuable beeswax or just to care for our beloved pollinators.

Today I’ll be talking about requeening our hive. There are many reasons a beekeeper might want to requeen their hives. Maybe their existing queen is older and not productive anymore. Or maybe over the years the bees in the hive have swarmed and requeened their colony so many times the hive is becoming more aggressive, or ‘hot’.

You see, each time the colony makes their own queen, she must make her maiden flight for breeding with the surrounding bees. Oftentimes those are wild bees and some might even have more aggressive Africanized bee influence.

If you have very many generations taking those steps you’ve gotten too much opportunity for aggressive characteristics to be introduced into your hive.

There are several reasons beekeepers like to requeen their beehive. Recently we made a split and requeened two hive boxes. #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →

Making Your Own Natural Beeswax Jar Candles

Leave a reply

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

I love beeswax candles, don’t you? But back in ‘the day’ I had lots of regular scented candles and I burned them often. I loved the gentle flicker of the flame and the scent of the candle itself.

But then I heard of the nasties that can be released by burning traditional paraffin wax candles. So as time went on I burned them less & less. When they were gone I just did without.

But now we have our own apiary and I have access to that precious all-natural beeswax. So today I think I’ll make beeswax candles with it!

It's easy to make your own natural beeswax jar candles. It's fun, it's easy, and it's natural. And who doesn't love a beeswax candle?? #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →

How to Bottle Honey: From Beehive to Jar

4 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~

It’s not hard to bottle fresh sweet honey from the apiary. But what steps need to be taken from beehive to jar?

There are things to watch for. Things such as moisture content in your honey, capped vs uncapped honeycomb, etc. But now? Finally the time is right. We’re going to take that sweet honey from frame to bottle!Honey frame. See how we took our honeybee's honey from hive to glass jars. I share tips about honey moisture monitoring and more. #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →

How To Prepare A Hive For Honey Harvest

2 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

We have several hives in our small apiary. Here in NE Texas, we typically harvest our honey around the first week of July.

As you know, (or may not) July in NE Texas is at the near height of it’s hot and humid summer weather. So harvesting hone during this time is hot, sticky work that’s for sure.

But there’s much more to getting that honey harvest than just strolling out to the hives.

Beehive - two deeps, one honey super, telescoping cover. There's more to harvesting honey than just walking to the hives. Come see the steps we take before harvesting that sweet honey we crave. #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →

How To Build A Quick 5-Frame Beehive Nuc Box

5 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~

Spring is an exciting time in beekeeping. The bees are finally able to get out of the hive & forage from the blooming plants.

The number of hives grow by leaps and bounds this time of year too. It’s a good time to split the colonies to keep them from becoming too crowded.

But spring is also a time when some colonies will swarm. Sometimes when we capture a swarm we put the bees into an empty deep hive box with frames and let them get busy.

But sometimes so many swarms are caught that we don’t have a deep hive box available.

Let’s make some 5-frame nuc boxes for temporary housing for them. They’re super quick to put together & you can build four nuc boxes with a single sheet of plywood!

We needed temporary housing for a swarm of bees we caught. We can quickly build FOUR 5-frame nuc boxes from a single piece of plywood. #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →

Beeswax Wraps – The Sustainable Answer to Plastic Wrap

2 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~

Y’all know I shun plastic like a banshee, right? I haven’t accepted a plastic shopping bag from the store in years, much preferring my pretty shopping basket anyway.

And I refuse to buy overly-packaged items too. I’ve learned that recycling isn’t the answer to our landfill problems – PRE-Cycling is!

But what is precycling? Well that’s shunning trash from coming into your home in the first place.

But today I’m talking about cling film. You know the stuff, it’s always sticking to itself and hardly ever sticking to the item you’re trying to wrap. Use it once & throw it away. 

But whaddyagonnado??  Well, I’ve started using beeswax wraps!

Beeswax Wraps are the sustainable answer to plastic cling film. I use beeswax harvested directly from the comb in our beehives. #TexasHomesteader

 

Continue reading →

How To Purify Natural Beeswax From The Hive

4 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

Natural beeswax is useful in so many ways. But the beeswax in the hive needs to be cleaned to filter out hive trash. But how?

I want to make sure not an ounce of that precious beeswax is wasted. I’ll use it for salves, Beeswax Candles and more. But first the raw beeswax from the hive needs to be purified.

I can easily purify our beeswax and pour the melted wax into cute molds. I use it for homemade soap, lip balm & beeswax wraps. #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →

Frame-Swap Split for Beehives Doubles Your Hive Numbers!

10 Replies

by Texas Homesteader ~

Around the end of March RancherMan & I start thinking about splitting our beehives. Splitting a hive accomplishes 2 things – it expands the number of hives in your apiary. (yea!) But it also gives the bees a little elbow room by putting empty frames in each hive allowing for expansion.

You see, if the bees get to thinking things are too cramped, they’ll swarm looking for more space. And that’s something no beekeeper wants since there’s been lots of time & effort into managing their apiary. We did our splits by swapping empty frames for full ones. It was easy!

We did a hive split by swapping frames - then two hives came from just one! We find this frame-swap method helps both hives to recover quicker. #TexasHomesteader

Continue reading →