After a couple of years and tremendous demand for our local, Texas honey, Beelieve is growing its operation.  We have 20 hives scheduled to arrive on March 19th.  This will put our total active and producing hive count in the 30’s.  While we will not fully see the fruits of our investment until next year, it is a step in the right direction.

Growth is great for business, but it is also great for everything that requires pollination…which is A LOT!  Over 1300 plants are grown worldwide for food, beverages, medicines, and a whole lot more.  Almost one out of every three bites or swallows we take is made possible by a pollinator.  Bees serve everyone – chocolate-lovers, coffee-drinkers, beer-connoisseurs, fruit-peelers (yeah, that one didn’t work so much…sorry).

Our featured picture shows the crew getting ready for the arrival of our new bees.  We spent a couple of afternoons assembling and painting the new bee-boxes.  We started one Saturday morning and were done by Sunday afternoon.  With sore backs and sullied clothes, it was nice to see the pride in everyone’s faces for doing some hard manual labor…we need to do more work with our muscles.

One of my other brother-in-laws (remember I have five of them), Pat, stopped by to help solve the world’s problems, but found himself sucked into the painting activity.  At one point he asked why were we painting them white.  Tommy quickly replied with, “To keep them cool”.  That made sense to the chemical engineer in me, so I let it go without rebuttal.  However, I am being driven by my good friend Brian Schwertner to get my facts straight before spreading the Gospel according to John…and I have a lot of Gospel to spread.  Anyway, I did some research and Tommy was right.  White does help keep the boxes cool, which makes sense where heat is a problem…like Houston, Texas.  But, other colors are certainly acceptable and even promoted in colder climates where heat retention is preferred.  So Swedes can probably get away with black or brown bee boxes.  If white is not your thing and you find yourself tending bees in Texas, then any pastel should work just fine.

YBIB,

John the Elder