What Do Beekeepers Do in Texas During the Cold Time?

Okay, so you’re probably wondering, how come there aren’t many posts about actual beekeeping??? Don’t they do anything with the bees when it’s cold? Does it even get cold where they live? Well, yes it does actually. Currently we are going through a bit of a cold spell here in lovely south Texas. Yes, believe it or not, I said cold. I grew up in North Carolina and we had four lovely seasons. I’ve now lived in this area of Texas about 16.5 years and we have pretty much three seasons. Burning up hot from about May to October; nice and chilly October to February; and rather pleasant, enjoy it before the furnace turns on March to May. Of course, this is just my opinion and I didn’t take a meteorology course as the beekeeper did so just keep that in mind.

I love cold weather but I am no longer as able to handle the cold as I use to in the past. I recall running around in shorts into winter in NC. Now? My hands and feet are always cold this winter here. We’ve been hitting the low 30s and upper 20s overnight so see – it does get cold here. Okay, enough chatter about this, let me get serious for a bit. We actually do stay busy during the cold times of the year. While the bees are tucked inside more often lately, we have a lot to do to prepare for the coming months of hive growth (and dividing) and honey production. The bees don’t just do it all; we’ve got to help them. Mark goes out when weather permits and checks on any hives he’s noted that might be weak. If they need a little help, he may feed them to keep them going until things bloom and the weather warms a bit for them to fly.

See that long row of boxes in the picture? I didn’t even capture all of them – not sure how many are there but remember that each box contains eight to nine frames and each stack has six boxes. Even if you aren’t great with math, you know it all equals out to be a whole bunch of frames. Each frame must be taken out, examined and evaluated for use the coming season. The moth crystals put on top of each stack will have (hopefully) kept out the dreaded, yucky wax moths. If you didn’t read it or don’t recall the post about wax moths, you can click here to see what can happen to your equipment if you don’t check on things regularly. The larvae eat up pretty much everything on the frame and then they develop into the moths. Worms and moths. Gotta love ’em. Not. I’m not exactly fond of wormy stuff so I am thankful the beekeeper lets me do other things for the bee biz. Thanks, Honey Bee. If you aren’t following us on Twitter, I had tweeted earlier this week that we interviewed a potential intern to help us while learning about beekeeping and about running a business for her senior year in college. I made sure to be totally up front and asked her if she was squeamish since she’d have to help with all parts of bee work. Good for her, she isn’t! I like how Mark described beekeeping and the business of running a business – 10% really fun beekeeping, 90% all the prep work that is necessary in order to enjoy the 10%. 🙂

We continue to learn as we move forward with construction of the new Honey House (HH). We are right on the edge of city limits and we’re about to be annexed. Better to do things according to city ordinances now than to not and then be told later we have to make adjustments to things. It is amazing to us to learn how much work and money goes into every tiny little (and not so little) aspect of owning your own business. It’s not just our line of work, we know anyone who owns their own business has challenges and now we are seeing and understanding AND appreciating small business owners even more than we did in the past. You work hard on the actual beekeeping part of things but then you also have to work on learning about business taxes, pricing, supplies and where to find them (for as little as possible without sacrificing quality) and how to get them here (without breaking the bank on shipping), buying and surveying land, designing work space after analyzing workflow and processes, getting bids on building, modifying plans once you get the bid (we’ll build and add as we go), and a million other things.

Something else getting done right now is building boxes – we’re going to need them as we divide and grow the hives. You certainly don’t want to run out of supers in the midst of honey production. There is hardly ever time for equipment building once the season is in full swing. Speaking of which, I just heard the beekeeper say we are out of nails for Stan so looks like a Home Depot outing looks like it’s in our near future. Tomorrow the men will also be opening up the crazy canopy that got wind-blown last weekend. We’ll need to inspect it to see if it’s going to be okay for markets this weekend. 🙂

Okay, we’re off to the gym. We’ve got to keep in shape and build strength for lifting heavy equipment, you know. Those honey supers get heavy!

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