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wild bees

How Wild Bees Winter in Insulated Horizontal Hives

Published February 1, 2026

A January storm dumped five inches of snow on us this weekend and I wondered how the swarms of wild bees I’d caught over the last few years were faring. Here’s what I found.

Snow-covered homestead in western North Carolina the morning after a January storm
The scene of the snow: our homestead the day after the storm.

The bees live in five insulated horizontal hives that I built in our hay barn and then placed around our property. Unlike the standard Langstroth hives most beekeepers use, these heavily insulated horizontal hives… Continue reading →

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How to Put a Swarm of Wild Bees into a Horizontal Hive

Published April 27, 2025

Feel like gettin’ a natural buzz? Let’s go put a wild bee swarm I caught into my horizontal bee hive (see video below). No cuts, no fades, no special effects. Just a man, two dogs, a cup of cowboy coffee, 8,000 wild bees and 18 minutes of morning, mountain holler bliss. Enjoy!
VIEWER ADVISORY: Contains graphic content (a worker dies in my hand at 13:00)

PS: Thanks Jesse and Angela of Happy Valley Filling Station fame for letting me hang… Continue reading →

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Which Swarm Trap Will Catch the First Swarm of Bees?

Published April 15, 2024

I put up four swarm traps this week in the hope of catching a swarm of wild bees. Of the four traps I put out (Walnut, Oak, Wisteria and Willow), which one do you think will catch the first swarm of bees?

Four swarm traps for wild bees hanging in trees at a western North Carolina homestead.
More about each swarm box in just a sec. A swarm trap is also known as a swarm box or a bait hive.

How to Catch a Swarm of Bees

Last year, I built a swarm box, caught… Continue reading →

Posted in Around the Homestead, Horizontal Hives for Feral Bees | 2 Comments

Drinking at the Beebox: Feral Bees Settling in for Winter

Published December 11, 2023
My new passion is beelining, where you catch wild bees in a small box called a bee box, feed them sugar water, and follow them to their nests. Here, a yellow jacket joins three bees for a sip of sugar water in front of the bee box I built in my shed. I'm hoping the bees don't lead me to a wasp nest (or "wasper" nest, as Cooter, the guy who used to live on our property, called them).
Drinking… Continue reading →
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Dreaming of Wild Bees

Published May 10, 2023

My last thought before I fall asleep is of how I’d catch a swarm of wild bees, install them in the crook of an old tree and let them live up there, just like they were living in a hollow old tree. I wouldn’t medicate them, bother them or even take their honey. I just want to watch them come and go with tiny balls of orange pollen on their feet.

Bernie Harberts sitting on mule Brick pondering where to put a beehive in the barnyard chestnut tree.
Me, sitting on Brick, pondering what bees would look… Continue reading →
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