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Text of the page (random words):
nts this saturday therefore we will not have our usual free beekeeping workshop nevertheless please feel welcome to drop by if you need a queen or any supplies or just want to visit we always enjoy hanging out with beekeepers please visit our website if you d like to see a full list of our upcoming workshops i wanted to share a photo of something that you may not have seen before worker bees killing their queen the bees form a tight ball around the doomed queen and proceed to sting and overheat her until she is dead what a way to go this was a young queen that perhaps entered the wrong hive after a mating flight or perhaps had some defect that the colony found unacceptable i noticed that many of the workers in the ball continuously exposed their stingers when i picked up the ball with my bare hand i was immediately stung posted in administrative bee yard education health plants pollen queen weather tagged queen balling queen killing leave a comment it s no joke i m posting april 1 2017 by thien gretchen hello there it s been a while yes i have been doing all my updating on other social media platforms just because i somehow seem to be able to put up a picture and a few lines faster than sitting down at the computer to write out my full thoughts on something sorry but really if you are on things like facebook twitter and especially instagram you can keep up with all our happenings because i post daily there tis the busy season now for our bees here in south texas mark has begun his hive dividing in preparation for our nuc customers we still sell a very limited number of nucs each year primarily to our beekeeping students but also to a handful of other customers we are still at about 200 hives and maybe 10 bee yards though we continue to seek ways to consolidate apiaries in order to work them more efficiently a lot of that has to do with the fact that there s so much work to keep the bees going while also maintaining and running the shop not to mention working all the administrative details of small business fun and we love it but lots of work we are loving the shop and being there so cool to help our customers with what they need the classes are going strong filled up for spring and fall dates for introduction to beekeeping should be up soon on the website and so are the workshops designed to focus on specific beekeeping topics this morning s topic was south texas honey plants with special presenter bill evans huge group and lots of great discussion my favorite thing on saturdays is peeking into the showroom between my honey store customers to check on the beekeepers makes us so happy to see people hanging out and talking bees even after the one hour workshop is over it s a great way to network with other beekeepers even if you re not a beekeeper yet it s a great way to start learning about things we love seeing our customers showing other customers something about a product we have in the showroom i saw today that our dentist and her husband were in the shop they re starting their own beeventures too how cool if you haven t noticed i did just list new dates for upcoming drops in san antonio that s where we take orders into sa and meet up with customers at a designated spot at pearl i also listed the fall introduction class dates but wait a few more days for it to get updated on the website please if you have any questions just comment here or you can always email or call us info gretchenbeeranch com or 830 305 7925 goodnight xo thien posted in administrative bees dividing education equipment food health honey house honey plants plants store tagged gbr gretchen bee ranch sa drop shopping small business spring 2 comments well hey there 2017 january 24 2017 by thien gretchen hello friends and beekeepers our apologies for being absent for so long but so much has happened in the past six months that it s hard to know where to begin first off i got laid off my it training job which was full time it was hard at first but was obviously a blessing also because we experienced the most hectic in a very good way for a small business holiday season i do believe there were a couple of times mark and i looked at each other and acknowledged feeling overwhelmed by the amount of business and wondered if we could do it all but we did and we loved it we were however happy for the season to slow down on christmas day so we could take a break with me home for now and helping out we have been able to get reorganized a bit and have added a lot more to our honey store as well as in the beekeeping showroom we are so enjoying it how exhilarating to see our dreams of a cool beekeepers paradise take shape finally if you are in the area do stop in and look around we still maintain our bee ranch apiary and love to show our visitors the hives when we can meanwhile in the beekeeping arena i thought it best for you to hear from mark here s is an update he sent out to his beekeepers mailing list last week we are a long time away until our first full honey super and until our first divided colony but we already are seeing some exciting developments early in this beekeeping season wildflowers are sprouting up and growing thanks to our winter rains agarita one of our best early bee plants is about to bloom heavily and our mite counts are very low we sampled about 900 bees from three colonies in one bee yard today and found only three mites that is below the treatment threshold we will sample bees in every bee yard and treat as needed with oxalic acid we will also feed as needed just about every hive will receive a helping of natural pollen or a pollen supplement as most are light on pollen right now we do not have a workshop scheduled for this saturday but i am available for one on one consulting to help you with whatever beekeeping questions or challenges that you have and at about 10 am saturday morning i will open up one of my bee ranch colonies and give it a late winter inspection bring your protective gear and join me as i look through a colony and assess its condition and needs at this early stage of the beekeeping year it will be fun keep an eye on you hive s food level and mite level this time of year and take action as needed our low mite counts were a surprise today and i will not assume that they will be low tomorrow in the next bee yard i will take samples in each bee yard and treat accordingly i urge you to do the same we do however have a workshop coming up this saturday and then into february so check the right side of this entry and you ll see the workshop listing as well as other class information even if you ve had bees a while come visit and hang out a bit we are loving being a meeting area for local beekeepers and we love sharing news and ideas thanks and see you soon signing off from the bee ranch mark thien posted in administrative bee yard bees education equipment food health honey house plants leave a comment san antonio drops big honey jars a visit from the state october 10 2016 by thien gretchen hello folks just wanted to drop a quick line to say hi we are heading into san antonio this thursday morning if you need us to bring in an order of anything holler at us on the company line no texting 830 305 7925 also check out what mark and stan bottled this year it s been a while for the larger sizes of local honey this is nice to see i love that we have jars from cute little 2 ounces to the 5 pounder cool and fun for us here s an excerpt from a recent email mark sent out to his beekeeping group we are in the midst of a fall season that has been beneficial to our bees here in guadalupe county we see a moderate honey flow and a strong pollen flow continuing i am spot feeding here and there mainly the new splits to boost brood production we are nearing the end of our re queening project and we are very pleased with the kona hawaii and wilbanks georgia queens that we used we are seeing strong brood rearing in all of the colonies with new queens this will greatly help us in early spring when we start making divides and nucs two weeks ago we were inspected by the state apiary inspection service they tested for nosema spores and for mites the resulting numbers looked good although the mite numbers were slightly higher than i had predicted given that we had treated with apivar over the previous six weeks it underscored for me the need to perform a follow up mite treatment this fall with apiguard posted in bee yard bees disease dividing education equipment health honey plants pollen queen leave a comment 3 digits for august august 23 2016 by thien gretchen hi there at the beginning of august i noted the huge ground cracks at our lovely little bee ranch i was hand watering my garden and thought i d drop some water into one of the cracks to see if it d fill up a bit of land and after about 30 seconds i gave up no water filling up at all it was sort of sad to see the land like that again even though it s sort of typical for august in south texas it s still hard to see things drying up so badly anyway here we are approaching the end of the month and we have now had about 16 inches of rain give or take a few inches as i ve lost track of the rainfall we keep thinking what a weird august we are having but we are not complaining it s just different mark and his crew continue to harvest and are just about to wrap up the year only a little bit left to pull from the yards and extract it has been a bit of work to make sure everything is dry before storing but mark is getting through it all to get the moisture levels to where they need to be so the honey doesn t go bad check out this selection of comb honey the bees made this year sales at the bee ranch on the two mornings we are open to the public have been awesome and make us super happy we decided to focus our energies to increasing traffic here instead of out and about the beekeeper workshops mark conducts on saturdays he s free have been awesome what a great way for new beekeepers to meet each other and continue learning from one another last weekend we covered how to process ross rounds and of course we sampled for our guests super fun join us sometime if you can you can check all our social media for upcoming topics and other developments or you can just call us at 830 305 7925 posted in bees beeswax dividing education equipment extraction food honey honey house honey plants plants store weather tagged class harvest honeycomb kumquats rain retail weather leave a comment honey making honey harvesting thoughts june 27 2016 by thien gretchen often i like to go out to the honey house after work or any chance i have we both really love that we work and live on the same property so we can enjoy this luxury i was intrigued by the lovely beeswax the bees had drawn out on this frame we have pretty much run out of honey supers for the girls to fill up this happens when we have grown in the number of hives we have and it is a good honey flow year and the honey is slow to dry out so we can t extract quickly in order to reuse the supers if you don t continue to provide adequate space supers in this case then you slow the girls productivity and essentially can miss out on prime honey making opportunities we are taking this as an opportunity to just let our bees draw out some comb on more frames which will be useful in the future sometimes people say or ask how we feel about forcing the bees to make honey by continuing to put supers on mark who has kept bees for over 30 years told me that people who ask that have never likely kept bees or they d know whether we provide the supers or not they bees will make honey that s what they do and it is a real mess when they don t have adequate space in their home to store the honey i am always learning new things when we discuss things like this and he is always good about answering questions that come up that i raise to his attention he s so busy tending to the bees as well as managing the business that he doesn t see hear all the social media email and phone activities since i try to field those for him back to honey making don t worry we are pulling some supers when possible but we are simply taking our time and letting nature take its course rushing never works great in the long run here s a beautiful frame the men brought in last week do you like persimmons i love them have you seen them in the wild out in a field in the middle of nowhere on a ranch on the side of some old dirt road you re cruising to look for wildflowers or wildlife here s another thing i learned about bees and how persimmons come into play have you ever noticed bees going to a wild persimmon bush or tree but you look and think hey there aren t any flowers right now that s odd this happened here in our area a couple weeks ago the wild persimmons had already bloomed out earlier this year and mark knew that but saw bees on the big bushes so he took a closer look and watched patiently to see what the bees were doing he took that picture for me and for us to share with you those are aphids and i missed them at first he told me that the aphids secrete a honeydew on the wild persimmon bushes and that the bees must be gathering it you can t find a lot of writing on the matter but i read a post somewhere that people say they gather the honeydew there for different reasons some say they do it when they are desperate while others say they collect it regardless of what else is out there because it s just what they do whatever the case is our bees were seen on the wild persimmons good eye honeybee posted in bee craft bees beeswax education equipment extraction food health honey honey plants photography tagged aphids drawn comb harvest honey supers honeycomb honeydew wild persimmon 2 comments bring on june showers june 21 2016 by thien gretchen well i know i missed out on april but basically we have been getting april and now into may and a little into june rainfall which means more greenery than usual for south texas but it appears we are finally hitting our typical hot and or humid temperatures now it s okay you just have to know it s going to come and you accept it and wait for fall if you are me haha we have been doing well having tons of fun fixing up the honey house stocking the honey store creating and pouring awesome new products in the candle shop seeing our family more so much and all right here at the bee ranch the bees are well making honey and growing stronger not all of them but most of them being open to the public two days out of the week has been great so fun to share what we love with folks on those two dedicated mornings saturdays have been so busy it s truly amazed us both we feel so blessed and so excited about the future there are sooooo many ideas we want to pursue and we look forward to continuing to learn and do and enjoy before i forget free workshops most saturdays when we can and when we don t have a formal beekeeping class we have a great group of beekeepers mostly newbies coming...