The Beekeeper
original art

03.14.26

Still building out frames, and waxing queen cups for grafting tomorrow!

Yard Notes for MF Yard, 03.10.26

More photos and detailed notes under the cut.

Not as many notes as I probably should have, but I was very distracted. The client had messaged before about wanting to ask me about an opportunity lol, he’s super entrepreneur brained, and to let me know he wanted to record some of his own video of me working.

I know he’s pretty entertained by what I do, even though he doesn’t really understand a lot of it, so I thought he wanted the video to show his friends, since he hands out his honey to them. I was wrong.

His teenage son was there, first time meeting him. And the opportunity was that the client wants to turn his property into a destination, a cute little country getaway bnb thing where people can ride four wheelers, shoot targets, go fishing, and see some honeybees!

I was pretty annoyed that he was just volunteering me to be his employee; he said he wanted to offer hive tours, and I’m the only beekeeper around, so that means he expected me to run that whole thing. Thankfully it was very easy to dissuade him with some very surface level follow up questions: do you have liability insurance, for when someone gets pissed that they were stung and wanted to sue you? Are you going to set up security, so people aren’t killing your bees and costing you money while you’re away and they’re stuck on the property with nothing better to do but start messing with beehives? How much are you paying me for these hive tours? Will they work around MY schedule? Do I even want to do that?! Lol

He claims he’s just pitching the idea, nothing is set in stone, blah blah blah, but he wanted to get a video of my work to show his potential future ‘business partners’, so whatever. He made his son suit up and video my work though. He was a good kid, but he got nervous when the bees got spicy and he ended up bailing by the second colony lol. No judgement, it’s a natural instinct, but relief that I was no longer expected to perform and could just take care of the bees.

I’ve done agritourism with bees before, that was my whole job before starting my own Beekeeping business. I’m not interested in that again, especially for someone else, with no strong boundaries or protections in place!

Anyway, the bees are doing well. They’re continuing to flourish through the raw beginning of spring, and starting to even cap some honey cells.

Colony 1 was doing fine.

Colony 2 got a super on top of their second deep, they were plugging away!

Colony 3 has been weak since before winter. They’re building out fast, but still not ready for a super or second deep. Maybe by the end of the month.

Colony 4 was SUPER aggro, so I took a brood frame from them to start building out Nucs for the year (client has given permission for this).

Colony 5 was also aggro, and all the end of the apiary colonies always are, but they had brood and food in their super, so they got a second super. There still seems to be competition between those last colonies, so I angled colony 5 a bit more to reduce crowding, hopefully.

Colony 6 has a queen excluder under their super, so they’re working in there, just slowly. But their two deeps were looking well balanced with brood, food, and bees.

Colony 7 is the same as 6 essentially, and I took a frame of mostly eggs and larvae from them for the Nuc build.

All the colonies got 1:1 spring feed, and beetle sheets, though thankfully beetles were sparse this time.

Double Removal, 03.09.26, Part Two: Wall Cut Out

The second colony was a fiasco. Just because I don’t have a FLIR and I really need one. For this exact situation!

We could see the entrance on the corner of the second story. We started there, trying to take siding off piece by piece to see how big the colony was.

Because the house was so old and abandoned, it was pretty much disintegrating, so it wasn’t too hard to pull apart, but we only got the very end of it exposed by the time we realized the colony was built in between the floor and ceiling, and the client would have to let us cut into the floor. Sadly, he wasn’t willing, despite reassuring us the whole time that he was a carpenter and could fix anything we needed to do. So I took so much comb and I could from our little access point, and tried to smoke out as many bees as possible, but no doubt there are thousands left and essentially all of the comb and resources still there.

The homeowner decided he was going to poison whatever was left, and just try his best to seal up the comb, despite my warnings that it would rot and attract other pests. We just took the survivors out to my apiary to hopefully assimilate with the other colonies. The homeowner was still quite gracious and tipped us for the effort.

03.13.26

Another long day of Beekeeping, kind of a mixed bag. I’m behind on sending invoices and writing up my yard notes 😮‍💨

I’m pretty exhausted and despite being fully covered all day I still got sunburnt? I’m behind on bee club work too, Christ. I’ve just fallen off. I just want to sleep though lol, I’m still fighting whatever’s left of this cold.

03.12.26

The beloved Texas bluebonnets have arrived! They always have such a brief season, they all suddenly appear overnight, stay for maybe a week or so, then all disappear simultaneously. It’s bittersweet, they really are beautiful. And it’s tradition to take a picture with them every year! Usually on the side of the highway lol.

It’s been a bizarre week of Beekeeping, lots of ups and downs. I also had the bee club board meeting today, but that went well. It’s a strange comfort to hear my fellow beekeepers being super busy and not so sure what to make of things, either lol.

But I got stuck in the mud today at a client’s property because I don’t have 4WD 😭 one day I’ll drive with the big boys, but until then it’s just me, my little Ranger, and USAA roadside assistance lol. The tow driver was very nice.

Can you spot the queen in the second bee picture?

Good morning from the flight deck

Today’s forecast is breezy with clear sunny skies and a high near 70 degrees. ☀️🐝

All clear for takeoff.

Happy First Day of March from me and my bees!

02.22.26

Well we hoped otherwise but knew better, and a slight cold front is moving in. There is another blizzard in the north of the country, so it’s not terribly surprising.

We’re gonna wrap the hives for a couple days since it’s going to get close to freezing at night. It’ll be back in the 80sF again in a matter of days.

Just spent almost $800 on UNASSEMBLED, UNPAINTED bee equipment 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I guess it’s good that this is my full time job… Now to render all that used beeswax and make a natural wood protector for the outside of the hive bodies, and a nice wax coating for the inside.

Yard Notes for February 18 2026

FB Apiary

Detailed notes under the cut.

I had a pinched nerve in my neck so I was very slow to get moving. I arrived around 11am, and it was already 80°F and extremely humid. It was threatening to rain all day, but thankfully didn’t. Some wind was moving, but nothing extreme.

All of the colonies were relatively calm, despite the threat of rain and the naturally spicy colonies just being themselves, like S1, Foxtrot, and Delta.

I was hoping to add second deeps to all the remaining colonies today, and that’s exactly what I was able to do!

Before:

After shot is above and at the end.

Colonies S1 & S2 we’re doing fine. There were plenty of bees working in their additional boxes, as well as in the brood box below. I am slightly concerned about the queen excluder hindering their growth in S2; some people call them ‘queen killers’ or 'honey excluders’, they’re somewhat controversial. But it’s what my friends wanted for their colony. Hoping for the best.

S1:

S2:

Colonies Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie were all right on track. Every colony had a minimum of 3 full frames (both sides) of eggs, larvae and brood, plus food frames, and therefore ready for their expansion. I want to get ahead of our early swarm season, and actually grow these colonies out to have double deeps going strong into next winter, and use this yard for bee and queen production. So I did whatever rearranging of feeders and empty frames I felt necessary, and added their second deeps.

The removal colonies, colony India and unnamed recent removal, are still growing out and getting established, so they were just fed and checked for status. Thankfully the abandoned cafe removal is staying on and going strong! It’s so hard to get a removal to stay and establish themselves in a hive body, as the removal process is inherently so destructive and traumatic, but I feel I’m getting better odds at it.

Colony Hotel got their expansion finally, and colonies Foxtrot and Golf already had theirs, and are already filling their second deeps with resources. I’m not expecting them to start laying up there until it’s drone time, possibly the first week of March at earliest.

Loving the bull’s-eye pattern here though. All the queens have healthy laying patterns, very little unused or missed cells. If you look closely you can see that the uncapped cells have larvae and eggs already. A good sign!

Colonies Delta and Echo are still the smallest, but technically met my minimum of three brood frames, and got their expansions. I hope I’m not overwhelming them with space too soon; it won’t be an issue unless we get an unplanned cold snap before the first nectar flow hits. Fingers crossed 🤞

I am in DESPERATE need of beetle sheets, I just keep fucking forgetting to order them! Lol. But I also need to order more deeps and deep frames with foundations ASAP, I used all my available frames and deeps just on this yard, and I have dead-outs and second deeps to replace in other yards soon…

I have a metric fuck ton of supers though lol, hopefully this spring will yield a hearty honey flow.

02.18.26

Busy bee day!

My yard is doing very well and staying right on timeline, which is such a blessing, I’m so grateful and relieved. A lot of people had a lot of loss this winter, and our winter is going out mild and warm, so I am experiencing a streak of luck 🍀

My neck is still killing me though, this sucks!!

02.17.26

Happy Lunar New Year and Mardi Gras and Ramadan!!!

Busy Tuesday for the universe lol.

I only had to prep for the bee club monthly meeting today, so it was pretty chill, until I started feeling pain in my neck. Seems somehow I pinched a nerve, but the onset was delayed or something, it came on slowly. But now I feel essentially immobilized.

The meeting was great though! My friend/mentor Lauren and her friend/mentor (lol it’s how beekeepers roll) Steve had presentations tonight on Swarm and Splits, it was very informative. And we had our first potluck night of the year, which was a success. I made another king cake and Shanghai stir fried rice cakes with pork. It’s so cool to celebrate all these different events together.

The turnout was great too! We had a bunch of people present, and a handful even sign up as new members on the spot, which is great!!

It’s 60 degrees and beautiful outside today. Warm enough the bees were busy buzzing and I was able to check on them for the first time since November.

Super happy to report that not only did they survive but one colony had a much higher survival count than I expected. There’s probably another month to go here before we are past freezing temps and things begin blooming but it’s looking like they won’t have any trouble making it to Spring.

The undertaker bees were working hard at pulling all the dead ones out and cleaning up.

Listening to a presentation today on honeybees, and when he mentioned the German bee expert Schirach who published a bee book in 1767 I ofc immediately thought about Sherlock reading it, adding it to his library

Yard Notes for January 29, 2026

Home and R Yard

Photos and notes under the cut.

Home Yard, FB Apiary

I accidentally deleted the screenshots of the weather and timing reports for this day 😭 but I remember it was a warmer day, high 50s low 60sF, light breeze, sunny.

I think I arrived late morning, probably around 11am.

The colonies are doing GREAT after the deep freeze. They’ll stay wrapped until we come out of near freezing temps at night, which should be at the end of the first week of February. Lots of activity at the entrances.

Colonies S1 & S2 are looking well. Not much disturbance in the sugar layer, but noticable movement. Not many dead bees around entrances at all, all dead bees cleared away.

Some standing water under the top insulation, and the newspaper got wet and pulled in quite a bit of moisture, but the bees do not seem bothered at all. Added a small amount of extra feed.

Colonies Alpha Bravo Charlie are stable and active. Topped off sugar, but same conditions noted as colonies S1 & S2.

Jumped over to the Nuc and Colony India. The Nuc, sadly, was a dead out, but allowed me to see that it truly was just a cluster of scavengers, not a small, now dead colony. It’s a shame the bees couldn’t assimilate with the stronger nearby hive, but the frames were cleaned of dead bees and the Nuc removed.

No sign of queen, eggs, larvae, or brood.

Colonies Foxtrot Golf Hotel damn near bursting at the seams. Will return next week to determine if it’s time for early spring expansion, double deeps. I need bees for immediate production for client yards with dead-outs, and I don’t want to buy them this year from another apiary. Going to walk away split my strong colonies, and start identifying and working queen rearing colonies.

Colonies that got printer paper instead of newspaper had less water inside.

Some of the wraps for this town had fallen off, I reaffixed them.

Colonies Delta and Echo are feisty and looking strong. Saw red pollen coming in on bees at Echo!

Overall good experience, ready to start shifting into spring prep. No significant loss.

R Yard

Arrived around 2:30pm.

I already knew of the two absconded colonies, so I spent more time cleaning them up and checking the healthy hives.

All the remaining colonies are doing well, and consumed very little dry sugar.

Removed wax moth damaged frames, cleaned unused boxes. Will replace frames when the colonies are reinstated.

I sat very patiently in front of this colony today and barely caught these quick, flighty devils with their beautiful red pollen!

Where did they get red pollen?! It’s so cool!

Also I very much enjoyed just sitting in front of the entrance, watching them come and go lol.

Edit: I just looked it up lol, it’s likely henbit! We did have a very mild winter before the Arctic Blast…

Stored all my good equipment to protect it from the Arctic Blast coming in today… It’s supposed to last at least a week, but I hope not. I’m sure the bees can make it…maybe… 🥺

A sweet beekeeper asks you on a date, whys she yellow? you wanna see her face? that’s second date stuff

The Beekeeper tries to be in the same vein as John Wick. Some would probably say poorly. But I see it, I appreciate it. I like that not only are some people trying to add to this specific subgenre but some of the projects are being greenlit (with or without exec messing idk). But we’re getting them.

So we have John Wick franchise, Nobody 1 & 2 (same guy as JW), and Beekeeper—that I know so far.

Parent saving or avenging wronged child I am categorising differently.