Wrap Up: Getting Started with Beekeeping in Texas
Discover > Beekeeping > Wrap Up: Getting Started with Beekeeping in Texas
Honey (how long does honey last?) is probably one of the most widely used natural sweeteners and cosmetics ingredients out there. It’s used in different stuff like pastries, cosmetics, distillation, and more. Because of this, I’ve started to wonder how our Texas sweet honey is made and that’s when a colleague of mine from work told me about TexasRealFood’s webinar on beekeeping.
Starting, the topic piqued my interest as I started looking around our backyard for a great spot to prop up my small colony. Listening in on the discussion, I learned that putting up a colony of bees is great for people like me who are into homesteading. This is because honey bee colonies are not only a great way to enjoy your own honey but also to help the environment recover through pollination. Planning to engage in beekeeping also helps in the global effort to augment the shortage of honey bee colonies all over the world. That in itself is a win-win proposition to me.
If you've missed the event or if you want to review something, we have a recording of the event which you can check out below!
Now, on to the wrap up!
The Speakers
Of course, the whole learning session was made possible by the expertise and the wealth of knowledge from two qualified speakers who seek to spread the good news that beekeeping brings.
Nathalie Biggie
10 years ago, Nathalie Biggie started as a hobbyist in the world of beekeeping. She started with one hive and this was what led her to look for other people interested in bees. Her initial interest eventually ignited her passion for beekeeping and she found her way to attending clubs and other social gatherings where she started to pick up more knowledge. The avenues of learning gave her the confidence of expanding her hives. She then signed up for her master's in beekeeping and eventually started her very own club to promote natural beekeeping. Eventually, she began earning from her hobby. For her, her income was dedicated to expanding her beekeeping horizons even more. At present, she is one of the leading experts in natural beekeeping and horizontal beekeeping in Texas as well as the owner of Bee-Mindful.
Dodie Stillman
Dodie Stillman grew up in a family of beekeepers and this greatly reflects on her passion for beekeeping. Starting around the same time as Nathalie, Dodie started joining beekeeping clubs around her local area. Eventually, she signed up for the Master Beekeeper Program and from there she volunteered for different Texas organizations focused on beekeeping like the Austin Bee Club. She was put on leadership positions for her participation in different beekeeping organizations in Texas like her time as the Director of the Texas Beekeeping Association. Eventually, she is now one of the board of the Texas Master Beekeeping Program and the owner of Sweet Ass Honey. She thinks bees are a great hobby for everyone with its own set of rewards.
The two speakers were awesome at sharing their knowledge when it came to beekeeping. I saw how Dodie and Nathalie are passionate about beekeeping and eager to spread the word. The wide breadth of knowledge that I was exposed to at the webinar was such an eye-opener and now I’m eager to try out. Th
is is because of certain points that, for me, support a more sustainable approach to my micro-homesteading efforts at home.
Why Beekeeping?
There are many primary and indirect advantages if you’re planning to set up a small colony on your property. The number of advantages alone will open your eyes to how beekeeping is a great opportunity to get your sweet tooth going and can also be a way to earn on-the-side while also having an impact on the ecological health of your surroundings.
Pollination
Bees are one of the most efficient natural pollinators of nature. This is a great boost to homesteaders and people who are living in areas that are trying to re-establish plant life. The bees have a range of a one to three-mile radius and because of this, they can pollinate all sorts of plants. Vegetable gardens can benefit from this by boosting yields by a lot. The owner of Bee Mindful elaborates on the positive impact of beekeeping on the cultivation of produce, ‘If you have a vegetable garden, if you have trees that have fruits, you will get 30% to 50% more yield in your crops and fruits and vegetables will be bigger or better formed if you have these [bees] pollinating your garden.’
Honey
Well, of course, honey! Getting into this hobby, one of, if not, the main goal is to get honey. Visions of Winnie the Pooh bathing in honey are all that I can think about at this point. Jokes aside, I am keen to get into beekeeping because I want to make my honey. This is to ensure that I’m getting legitimate honey from my hive because there are a lot of off-the-shelf brands out there that put sweeteners and other artificial stuff in their bottle of honey. Dodie pointed out how this is apparent with the current market for honey, ‘95% of beekeepers use pesticides in their hives to keep their colonies in the face of some pests and that has the potential of getting into your honey.’
Beeswax
Another advantage of setting up your beekeeping operation is that you can make your beeswax. This particular kind of wax has a wide variety of uses. This alone can help you branch out in making products that will be avenues for income or, even, more hobbies to get into. Dodie points out how beekeeping produces beeswax that, in itself, is great for people who are into crafts, ‘You might want [bees]wax as pristine as possible and this is a way to control that by producing it yourself…you can make candles, soaps, furniture polish, all kinds of things…’
Bees
Part of making natural honey is ensuring that you’re getting local bees and, if ever you have plans of expanding, you can even sell your bees to other beekeepers who are just starting out. The prized genetics of bees that do well in specific areas is what novice and seasoned bee-keepers are after. This is why it’s a profitable avenue for beekeepers to also market their colonies. Dodie remarks on the potential of selling bees to the local beekeeping community, ‘Right now there’s a shortage of supply in honey bees colonies and that demand is so high that the prices are sky-rocketing…so that’s a great business model if you’re homesteader, for example, and you’re trying to make a living with that kind of activity.’
Getting Started
If you’re hyped as much as I am for beekeeping then you have to remember that you can’t just go to Ace Hardware to buy equipment like tools, and some materials to start. Beekeeping, before getting started, also needs a bit of planning to push through. You have to consider several things before starting to increase the chance of success in your first colony.
The Bees
Getting your bees to start your very first colony can be done in two different ways. Free bees are the first way to get yourself started and to do this you need to get a few things together. You’ll need old beeswax or lemongrass essential oil, and a trap box where you can attract bees. So basically you put the old beeswax or lemongrass oil into the box where the bees can get to them. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to attract a queen and its swarm of bees that chose to leave their old hive to establish a new one. ‘That would be a fairly cheap to free way to catch bees for people to get started,’ Nathalie said.
Another way to establish your own colony is to purchase bees from beekeeping suppliers around your area. There are a lot of suppliers for bees in and around Texas where you can arrange to buy a package of bees containing bees and a queen. The best way to look for beekeepers that sell starter colonies in your local area is at bee clubs.
Each colony is going to range from $150 to $250. There are even more established baby colonies or nucleus colonies that are for sale which include a comb, babies, and a queen but have an added value of around $100. Nucleus colonies have a higher chance of success for people who are new to beekeeping. Nathalie emphasizes how it’s best to ask before buying bees so you can ensure that what you’re getting are hardy bees, ‘If you care about your bees being resilient naturally without having to rely on pesticides to keep them alive, I would look into survivor stock.’
And don’t forget, if you’re going to buy your starter colony, you have to order way in advance. The best time to order will be around November or December. You can expect that you can get your bees as early as March or April. By ordering in advance, there will be less of a chance that you would run out of bees. ‘Once you find the place that you want to get your bees from, you want to pick the earliest time that is convenient for you to pick up your bees,’ Dodie said.
Setting Up a Colony
Once you’re done planning out where to purchase your bees, you need to make a place for them to put up their hives. There are varied ways of going about this and you’ll find that specific beekeeping boxes will do great depending on the area you’re trying to house them in. The more common method of housing bees in the commercial setup is a type of vertical beekeeping called Langstroth hives. ‘Those Langstroth boxes, they’re made for commercial beekeeping. They’re used by commercial beekeeping that are doing the pollination contracts. They take and move hives all across the countries to follow blooms of different crops…A lot of the time commercial beekeepers will feed them sugar syrup or pollen supplements. It gets very complicated because they require extracting. So if you’re doing beekeeping for that reason, the Langstroth is probably the best fit for your needs,’ Nathalie elaborated. This type of beekeeping takes a lot of effort because of the heavy lifting involved and also you have to deal with the constant switching of boxes and box frames.
The easier way for micro-homesteaders like me is the top bar boxes otherwise known as a method of horizontal beekeeping. These boxes are best for people who want to start in beekeeping without much technical know-how and are also on the cheap side so that’s a plus for me. The top-bar hive only has one level as opposed to the Langstroth boxes where multiple boxes are usually stacked onto each other. The top bar looks more like a trough with multiple wooden bars that are tiled on top of the box and sized according to the top rim of the trough. These bars are also a means to protect the hive against the elements. As a result, the bee combs would be separated by the bars where underneath them will be their combs that eventually take up the space of the trough beneath. And when checking on the bee colonies, you don’t have to necessarily disturb the whole hive because you can remove one bar at a time. This is one strength of top bar boxes because the bees won’t be exposed to that much stress. Nathalie goes into the pros of choosing the horizontal beekeeping route for beginners, ‘It’s just very calm and easier to manage in a horizontal configuration because you know exactly where everything is in that colony and it’s not spanning several boxes.’
Protection
One of the aspects of beekeeping is getting stung. That’s something to expect but fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself. You can start by getting an old hat [preferably a cowboy hat] and go look for some mosquito netting if you have one lying around in your house. You can put the netting over the hat and fashion a way that the net can tighten around your neck to provide a seal of sorts. In beekeeping, the face will be the priority when protecting yourself. To protect your upper body you can wear an old hooded jacket or you can buy a suit specifically for beekeeping and always keep in mind that it gets hot out in Texas so you might need something ventilated. Normally you’ll see beekeepers sporting bulky leather gloves. Nathalie elaborates on how this can be quite cumbersome, ‘First, they attract stings because they’re animal skin. And the bees evolved to sting mammal skins. Also, they retain the smell of the stings that signal to their sisters that they can come and sting right there. They don’t stop all of the stings…They prevent you from really working your bees without crushing them which stresses them out … If you’re wanting to be a little more delicate or if you want something less bulky, the kitchen dishwashing gloves that Dodie uses - I love those. That’s a very good way to protect your hands while retaining that dexterity. It’s also washable and it doesn’t retain the alarm pheromones that the bees place when they sting. And they’re very hard to get stung through - especially the thicker ones.’ It’s also important to cover your ankles and legs because bees tend to go for that spot of the body. A good pair of high-cut boots would do the job. You can use long-bottom pants or thick threaded pants so you can protect your legs.
Lastly, you need to be aware of specific colors of clothing that are a no-go in beekeeping. Kind of like how bulls really hate the color red, the same goes for bees. Nathalie explains in detail, ‘Don’t wear anything dark, black, or red. They see those and they tend to attack those colors.’
Beekeeping Tools
Another important aspect of beekeeping that you need to get started is the tools. First, you need a J-hook if you’re working with a Langstroth box or a prying tool to open your bars if you’re going to opt for the horizontal box. The next tool you need is a smoker. The smoke effectively hides the alarm pheromones when you’re working on them. This is going to minimize the risk of getting stung when working on your boxes. The smokers can also be used as a herding tool to keep bees away from certain areas that you don’t want them to get to. These tools will be your main go-to when you’re working on your colonies.
Harvesting
I can imagine harvesting honey for the first time as a very exciting experience that should be approached with great care. You have to be mindful of how much you’re getting from your colony, especially in the first year where the bees haven’t built enough combs to give you big amounts. Nathalie elaborates on this, ‘As a rule of thumb, don’t harvest honey unless they have a surplus. And the rule of thumb is about one frame of brewed baby’s bees and one frame of honey and anything that they have extra after that is considered potentially surplus. Of course, the less you harvest, the better off they are because they’re going to need that amount of food for the winter.’
Come harvest day, the methods of harvesting honey are quite different for the Langstroth boxes and the horizontal box. With the horizontal boxes using top bars, you just have to lift a bar out of the hive to reveal the honeycomb and you can scrape it off and put it in a bucket to process at home through crushing then straining. This process of extracting honey only needs things that you can readily find in your kitchen. You’re going to need a fine strainer, potato masher, and a small container. Mash your harvested honeycombs inside the strainer so it can filter out the beeswax, bees, and other impurities.
As for the Langstroth box, there are two ways to harvest that precious liquid gold. One method is removing the frames with honeycombs on them. Then you place the frames in a container where you can slant them a bit. Scrape one side of the frame using a fork or an electric knife and let gravity let the honey drip down to the container. After extracting honey, you can put back the frames in the boxes so the bees would clean them up. Another method is using an extractor. Extractors are quite expensive and Dodie points out a great way to get to use extractors without buying a new one, ‘If you join a bee club, lots of bee clubs have extracting equipment that they’ll loan out to you for the weekend or a week. So you don’t have to purchase an extractor for something that you’re only gonna use one or two days out of a year.’
Now that webinar really got me pumped in trying out beekeeping for next year. Putting up my colony of bees in my backyard will be an advantage for my vegetable garden. The bees are also going to help in sprucing up our backyard because they’re going to also give us healthy flowering plants.
I’m probably going to start with noting down all the things I need and finding the time during the weekends to start building my own.
Helpful Links From Our Hosts
Bee-Mindful
We host a free weekly "Chat With the Mindful Beekeepers" virtual Q&A on Thursdays 5pm-6pm Central US Time: join us on ZOOM or on Instagram #BeeMindfulHoneyFarms (TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED, but recordings are still available on Instagram)
We host virtual and hands-on beekeeping classes and workshops, as well as an in-depth Beekeeping Apprenticeship.
We sell Top-Bar hives and teach their proper maintenance. Free Plans available HERE.
We offer Maintenance services for your hives, and Turn-Key hive rentals of our hives for your Ag Exemption (ask for our Price Sheet).
Sweet Ass Honey
Link to the Texas Beekeepers Association so folks can find local clubs to join
The Texas Honey Bee Education Assiciation to find the document about helping bees if you are not a beekeeper. And a great document if you are a new beekeeper.
Real Texas Honey to locate beekeepers in your area so you can get real local honey
The Texas Master Beekeeper Program to learn more about honey bees and beekeeping in Texas.
Texas Bee Supply for a local beekeeper (Blake) that sells bees and supplies, and also had a super informative free online monthly magazine, and a monthly webinar. As well as beekeeping classes!
