Tag Archives: beekeeping

Posts about beekeeping on Texas Homesteader’s website. #TexasHomesteader

How To Fix Crystallized Honey – Don’t Throw It Away!

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

It’s just a fact, sooner or later that delicious honey will crystallize. Is there any way to fix it? Or is it ruined? 

Don’t throw it away! It’s simple to restore crystallized honey to the smooth sweetness you love. Come see how.

Honey is said to be the only food with NO expiration date. Don't throw that honey away when crystals form - save your honey for years! #TexasHomesteader

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How To Feed Honeybees In Winter Months: Homemade Candyboards

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

How do you feed your honeybee hives during the cold winter months? It’s a different procedure than just feeding the sugar syrup like you do during warmer summer dearth months.

We easily make homemade honeybee candyboards to see them through the cold of winter.

Candyboard for winter honeybee hive feeding #TexasHomesteader

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Requeening a Honeybee Hive – Things We Didn’t Know…

By Texas Homesteader ~ 

Hobby Beekeeping is enjoying quite a popular resurgence. Many people are becoming interested in raising their own bees, whether for pollination of their own gardens, that delicious honey, valuable beeswax or just to care for our beloved pollinators.

Today I’ll be talking about requeening our hive. There are many reasons a beekeeper might want to requeen their hives. Maybe their existing queen is older and not productive anymore. Or maybe over the years the bees in the hive have swarmed and requeened their colony so many times the hive is becoming more aggressive, or ‘hot’.

You see, each time the colony makes their own queen, she must make her maiden flight for breeding with the surrounding bees. Oftentimes those are wild bees and some might even have more aggressive Africanized bee influence.

If you have very many generations taking those steps you’ve gotten too much opportunity for aggressive characteristics to be introduced into your hive.

There are several reasons beekeepers like to requeen their beehive. Recently we made a split and requeened two hive boxes. #TexasHomesteader

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Homestead Hack: No-Mess Way To Pour Honey

by Texas Homesteader ~ 
*contains affiliate link

I refuse to store my honey in those plastic squeezy bears and use glass canning jars to store my honey. But how do I keep honey pouring neatly? Honey jars seemed too expensive but I wanted something quality and made of glass. Luckily I’ve found an awesome solution. Come check out this Homestead Hack.

I needed a way to measure small amounts of honey each day without making a mess. I decided a vintage syrup dispenser fit the bill nicely. #TexasHomesteader

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How to Bottle Honey: From Beehive to Jar

by Texas Homesteader ~

It’s not hard to bottle fresh sweet honey from the apiary. But what steps need to be taken from beehive to jar?

There are things to watch for. Things such as moisture content in your honey, capped vs uncapped honeycomb, etc. But now? Finally the time is right. We’re going to take that sweet honey from frame to bottle!Honey frame. See how we took our honeybee's honey from hive to glass jars. I share tips about honey moisture monitoring and more. #TexasHomesteader

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Beeswax Wraps – The Sustainable Answer to Plastic Wrap

by Texas Homesteader ~

Y’all know I shun plastic like a banshee, right? I haven’t accepted a plastic shopping bag from the store in years, much preferring my pretty shopping basket anyway.

And I refuse to buy overly-packaged items too. I’ve learned that recycling isn’t the answer to our landfill problems – PRE-Cycling is!

But what is precycling? Well that’s shunning trash from coming into your home in the first place.

But today I’m talking about cling film. You know the stuff, it’s always sticking to itself and hardly ever sticking to the item you’re trying to wrap. Use it once & throw it away. 

But whaddyagonnado??  Well, I’ve started using beeswax wraps!

Beeswax Wraps are the sustainable answer to plastic cling film. I use beeswax harvested directly from the comb in our beehives. #TexasHomesteader

 

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