Honey bees have a tendency to swarm in St. Augustine for a good part of the year. The coastal paradise boasts warm temperatures and lots of foraging opportunities for honey bees. People have been dealing with honey bee swarms in St. Augustine since the introduction of the western honey bee, (Apis mellifera) around the 1600’s. […]
So, You Want To Be A Beekeeper? Whether you want to strengthen the pollinator population in your neighborhood, harvest and sell local honey from St. Augustine, or learn more about how important honey bees are to the biodiversity of our ecosystem, beekeeping can be a fun and rewarding experience. In fact, new beekeepers are popping […]
Have You Ever Wondered How A Queen Bee Lays Eggs? Honey Bee Queens have one very important job in the colony – they make honey bees and lots of them! A simple hive inspection can give you a good indication of how well a queen is performing. Capped brood, larvae, and eggs are all good […]
Long Live The Queens! We introduced a mated queen to a nuc at our Nursery apiary. This nuc was a mix of a weak split from our St. Augustine South apiary and a weak swarm that we caught at our St. Augustine Shores apiary. We added a frame of capped brood along with the caged […]
5 Easy Steps To Break Down An Apiary We decided to break down our Nursery apiary and take the seven honey bee colonies to our St. Augustine Shores apiary, where we could better care for them over the winter. We showed up early in the morning in an attempt to close the honey bee hives […]
Heat Treating For Varroa Mites And Small Hive Beetles Producing local honey from St. Augustine starts with protecting honey bee hives. Honey bees have many pests, but Varroa Mites and Small Hive Beetles are two of the biggest threats to our honey bees. There are plenty of products and theories on how to treat for […]
Preparing Apiaries For Hurricanes If you are a beekeeper on Florida’s coastline, it is just a matter of time until you have to deal with the inevitable; HURRICANES! This was our first hurricane since having our honey bees and it certainly added some extra preparation for us. We just pulled all of the supers (where […]
We started this endeavor to produce local honey from St. Augustine in August of 2018. As we learned more about honey bees and how to best care for them (while staying out of their way) we made the decision not to pull any honey from the hives last Fall. It was a tough decision, but […]
Bee Augustine Honey Co. officially launched on January 1, 2019 with plans of providing local residents with St. Augustine honey in Summer 2019. The St. Augustine based honey company has been overwhelmed with the support that they have received from local residents and look forward to their first honey harvest this Summer. How Many Apiaries […]