East Texas Quarterly Magazine Spring 2014 | Page 9

me the Honey
Sh ow

The sun casts a dull
gray in the east, and frost covers
the ground like diamond dust.
No birds have awakened in the
nearby woods, and all is still and
quiet. In the faint light you can
barely see white clad figures moving about, lighting smokers, and
starting the day’s work in a bee
yard. This is a daily occurrence
for hundreds of professional beekeepers across East Texas and the
entire Gulf coast to Florida. This
group of modern day nomads
will bring thousands of honey
bee colonies from Minnesota,
Iowa, North and South Dakota,
and other points north, down to
our area in November each year.

You’ve probably seen large
18-wheelers carrying several
hundred boxes, all under heavy
netting.
Those colonies of
honey bees were loaded
during the night and trucked
non-stop through the darkness. Even a brief delay
could cause the packed bees to overheat and die. They
arrive at a remote site in a carefully selected
pasture, and the crew begins unloading and setting out
boxes. For the next five months, bees will be fed,
dusted for foulbrood, treated for Varroa and tracheal
mites, and checked for Nosema disease. With this care, bee
populations explode, reaching 60 to 80,000 bees per colony.
This growth allows beekeepers to make “splits.” By
separating the 10 frames from each box into five 2-frame
boxes, and adding a queen to each, they will get five new
colonies from the original. In addition to having typically
mild winters, East Texas has one other advantage over
the rest of the state-early pollen production, which
stimulates the queen into laying more eggs. Bees take
advantage of elm and red maple blooming early in
January. Then follow holly, black gum, willow, yaupon,
blackberry, white clover and privet. Colonies expand until
one night in April or May when they are loaded for the long

trek back north. They arrive at full strength just as the honey
flow begins. It might be clover