Carter Family Bees

Carter Family Bees Family owned and operated beekeeping supply store.

When you're avoiding the heat and just sitting inside make beeswax candles and the bees realize you haven't put your bee...
09/04/2026

When you're avoiding the heat and just sitting inside make beeswax candles and the bees realize you haven't put your bee suit on today...

Small swarm from one of the 60 hives we have here at the house (had a mated queen and everything) just a perfect way to top off the evening... šŸ˜©

2026 is a weird year for sure.. some beeyard are practically starving and others are trying to produce a bonus honey cro...
08/26/2026

2026 is a weird year for sure.. some beeyard are practically starving and others are trying to produce a bonus honey crop.. I guess I'll put a couple supers on to see what happens

We do not recommend feeding/checking your hives this morning lol the girls were angry!! (Each white spec is a stringer)
08/04/2026

We do not recommend feeding/checking your hives this morning lol the girls were angry!! (Each white spec is a stringer)

07/28/2026

We will be closed Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (July 30th, 31st, and Aug 1st)

Sorry for any inconveniences

We have been blessed with being able to bottle 48 4oz jars of the purple honey!! If you would like to snag one stop by t...
07/26/2026

We have been blessed with being able to bottle 48 4oz jars of the purple honey!! If you would like to snag one stop by the store in Kershaw or PM us to check out shipping options (we have already shipped out 12 jars, shipping is between $7-$12 depending on quantity)

This is the last round of purple we will have and we honestly don't know when we will have another batch (could be years), our bees worked extremely hard to make it even with this drought so make sure to thank them!

We have several 4oz jars of rare purple/dark blue honey available for pickup (or shipping)!! Everyone who has purchased ...
07/25/2026

We have several 4oz jars of rare purple/dark blue honey available for pickup (or shipping)!! Everyone who has purchased our purple honey says it's delicious and definitely a different flavor than traditional honey!! Don't miss your chance at grabbing a jar before we run out and we have no idea(could be years) when we will have some more!!

4oz jars are $15 apiece
**Shipping is around $8-$10 depending on quantity**

07/23/2026

Did another round of treatments today
Hive A- 6 mites (2% mite count)
Hive B- 9 mites (3% mite count)
Hive C- 4 mites (1.3% mite count)

The mite counts were better at these 3 yards than they were at our others but still higher than we want them.. we will test all 6 of the original test hives again in 4 weeks to determine if our treatment method works

(We also lost 3 hives to absconding due to high mite counts so we were a few weeks too late this year in our treatments :-()

07/22/2026

Performed some Varroa mite checks today on some hives and the results were not good so we went ahead and treated the bees with thymol.
3 different hives in 3 different yards
Hive A- 16 mites per 1/2 cup (5.3% mite load)
Hive B- 11 mites per 1/2 cup (3.6% mite load)
Hive C- 4 mites per 1/2 cup (1.3% mite load)

Hive A was in dire need to be treated (they were a strong colony too, so don't take their strength/number of bees as a sign of needing/not needing treatment)

Hive C had a good mite load for this time of year but I would prefer it to be lower. If I can get every hive down to this level or lower then they will do just fine during winter.

All in all we have treated 68 hives so far this week and we still have 78 more to go by weeks end.. (we have already treated 35 other hives but those yards are further away so we chose to use Apivar to treat them due to infrequent visits)

It is HOT!! But don't let that stop you from checking on your bees!! Even tho they may be bearding in the front and look...
07/18/2026

It is HOT!! But don't let that stop you from checking on your bees!! Even tho they may be bearding in the front and look really strong there might be some issues inside that you aren't seeing without performing an inspection. It's time to treat your hive for varroa mites, going untreated can weaken and kill your bees.

After a long season of foraging the mite loads within the colony start growing which leads to sickness (ex: deformed wing virus - bees die within 48 hours of hatching) and if the mite load is too high the bees will abscond and leave everything behind.

Our preferred methods of treatment are listed below in order from favorite to least favorite:

1- Apiguard
2- Apivar 2.0 (use to be our favorite until they switched to the 2.0 and doubled the price)
3- Oxcylic acid vapors
4- Apitablets (currently testing them out in our hives)
5- Formic Pro (very effective but really rough on the bees)
6- Varroxan (more of a suppressant than a treatment)

**The brown dot on the bee is a Varroa mite, if you visually see any it's time to immediately treat the colony**

07/17/2026

We have 1 queen available for tomorrow pickup, after she's gone we won't have any until Aug 1st and the Aug 1st queens will probably be our last round of queens.

It's not too late to split a nice strong hive, we have made several splits the past 2 weeks!! We also found some more purple honey this week so be on the lookout for when we harvest it and post it's availability (I went to split a hive and found 4 frames with purple honey so I stole it from them)

Address

5880 Gold Mine Highway
Kershaw, SC
29067

Opening Hours

Tuesday 2:30pm - 5pm
Wednesday 2:30pm - 5pm
Thursday 2:30pm - 5pm
Friday 2:30pm - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 4pm

Telephone

(336) 870-2689

Website

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