The Bee Place

06/04/2026

This CBS Evening News interview with Blake Shook and Dr. Juliana Rangel aired in March 2025, after severe honey bee losses were reported following almond pollination season.

Unfortunately, this was not just a one-year concern. Many beekeepers saw serious losses again in 2026.

There are several pressures on honey bees, including weather stress, pesticide exposure, loss of forage, disease, and the continued removal of natural areas that pollinators depend on. But within much of the commercial beekeeping community, one of the biggest concerns continues to be varroa mites and the limited number of effective treatment options available.

That is one reason mite-resistant genetics matter so much. Beekeepers can treat, manage, and monitor, but long term, we need stronger bee lines that are better able to survive mite pressure.

At The Bee Place, we are a small part of a much larger industry, but we do believe this is where the future has to go: healthier bees, better genetics, better management, and more awareness of how important pollinators are to the food system.

If this trend continues, the grocery store landscape will change in more ways than one. It will not just mean higher prices. Over time, it may also mean fewer choices and less reliable availability of some foods that depend heavily on pollination.

This interview is from 2025, but the message is still very relevant today.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/966675698970020

05/26/2026

The paper wasps that live under roof eaves and around doors and windows also eat flies and mosquitoes. Unless they're nesting extremely close to people activity, or passing through or interrupting their day, those are very beneficial and harmless.
The ones that live underground or in the walls can be almost as bad as Africanized honey bees when disturbed. So be sure to identify which they are by where they live.
If it's a paper wasp, we recommend leaving them. If it's the others, you should consider having them removed by a professional. Don't try it by yourself without proper protective gear because they typically have populations that can be in the thousands hidden inside of their nests.

The wasp building a small open nest under your eave isn't the one that stings at picnics. That's a different species entirely.

Paper wasps build small, visible nests with open hexagonal cells — usually a dozen adults, not aggressive away from the nest, and they hunt garden caterpillars to feed their young.

Yellowjackets build hidden nests underground or inside walls. Colonies reach thousands by late summer. They're the ones at the soda can, the hamburger, the trash can. They sting repeatedly.

The quick read: open nest under the eave with visible cells = paper wasp, leave it. Wasp at your plate interested in your food = yellowjacket, different animal entirely.

The nest most people spray is the species that rarely stings and eats garden pests. The species that actually causes problems nests where you can't see it.

05/23/2026

If you live in Texas, or the southern United States, you owe it to yourself to view this video.
A great lecture about Africanized Honey Bees

A lecture given by Juliana Rangel at the 2015 National Honey Show entitled "Africanized Honey Bee Biology". The National Honey Show gratefully acknowledge th...

05/22/2026

Before you knock it down:
- If the nest is in a low-traffic area — under an eave, on a shed wall, under a deck overhang — it's doing more good than harm. Paper wasps are rarely aggressive unless the nest is disturbed directly
- If it's next to a doorway, over a path, or near where children play, relocation or removal makes sense. Proximity to daily traffic is the real risk, not the nest itself
- Early spring nests are small and have few workers — this is the easiest time to relocate one if it's in the wrong spot
- Late-summer nests are fully active and best left alone until the colony dies off naturally in fall. The workers won't survive winter. The nest won't be reused

It's under the eave. A small, gray, umbrella-shaped structure hanging from a thin stalk. Open cells. A few insects crawling over it.

You see a problem. You see a sting.

Look closer.

That nest is paper. Real paper. The queen made it from scratch — she scraped fibers from dead wood, fence posts, and weathered plant stems, chewed them into a pulp mixed with her own saliva, and applied the paste in thin strips, cell by cell, mouthful by mouthful.

The saliva acts as a waterproof coating. In wet weather, paper wasps add more of it to the mix. The nest sheds rain instead of dissolving in it.

🌿 Each cell holds a single egg. Workers feed the developing larvae with chewed caterpillars and soft-bodied insects — the same pests eating your garden. A healthy colony removes a remarkable number of caterpillars, aphids, and beetle larvae over a season.

The thin stalk attaching the nest to the surface is coated with a chemical that repels ants — a single drop that acts like a moat. Nothing climbs past it.

She built a pest-control station, a nursery, and a weather-resistant shelter from chewed wood and spit. And she did it on the underside of your porch roof.

🐝 Before you knock it down:

- If the nest is in a low-traffic area — under an eave, on a shed wall, under a deck overhang — it's doing more good than harm. Paper wasps are rarely aggressive unless the nest is disturbed directly
- If it's next to a doorway, over a path, or near where children play, relocation or removal makes sense. Proximity to daily traffic is the real risk, not the nest itself
- Early spring nests are small and have few workers — this is the easiest time to relocate one if it's in the wrong spot
- Late-summer nests are fully active and best left alone until the colony dies off naturally in fall. The workers won't survive winter. The nest won't be reused

You see an insect you want gone. What's actually under the eave is a paper mill that's been eating your garden pests all season 🌱

05/21/2026

Thank you to the Alamo Area Beekeepers Association for having me as the guest speaker last night. I appreciated the opportunity to speak about beekeeper safety and Africanized bee awareness in South and South Central Texas.

With more people getting into beekeeping every year, I believe education, awareness, and practical safety discussions are more important than ever in our region. I enjoyed meeting everyone, hearing your experiences, and having the opportunity to share some of mine after working with some very gentle and some very aggressive bees in Texas, Florida, California and New Mexico.

A few slide snippets from the presentation are included below.

If your bee club, organization, or group is looking for a speaker on topics related to:
• Beekeeper safety
• Africanized bee awareness
• Colony management in South Texas
• Public safety and swarm response
• Starting out in beekeeping

…feel free to contact The Bee Place.

Thank you again to AABA for the invitation and hospitality.

— Gary Rankin
The Bee Place

More about Beekeeper Safety here:
https://www.thebeeplace.com/learning-center/beekeeper-safety/

05/14/2026

There is still time to get bees and a class this season.

If you need bees for property tax valuation, most counties allow until the end of June for getting bees on location to be compliance, since the bees must generally be on the property for more than half the year. (check with your county to confirm)

We still have queens, nucs of bees, hives with a nuc of bees installed, and Basic Beekeeping class seats available for the weekend of the 23rd & 24th.

If you have been meaning to get your bees ordered, don’t wait much longer.

Order on our website: www.TheBeePlace.com

05/14/2026

There is still time to get bees this season.

Pick Up 6/13 or 6/14 in Somerset — near San Antonio, TX

If you're looking to get started keeping bees, it's not too late this year. If you need bees for property tax valuation, most counties allow until the end of June for getting bees on location to be in compliance, since the bees must generally be on the property for more than half the year. Check with your county to confirm their timelines.

We still have queens, nucs of bees, and hives with a nuc of bees installed available for pickup June 13 and June 14.

Basic Beekeeping class seats are still available for June 14. The June 13 class is now booked/sold out. Class starts at 9 AM.

If you have been meaning to get your bees ordered, don’t wait much longer.

Order on our website here:

https://www.thebeeplace.com

05/11/2026

Queen Cells & Queen Cups

Not every “peanut” means a swarm — and not every cup becomes a queen.

Queen cells are the larger peanut-shaped cells bees build when they intend to raise a new queen.

Unlike worker brood cells, which are horizontal and uniform, queen cells extend outward from the comb and provide the space needed to develop a fully formed reproductive queen.

Queen Cells – 3 Flavors – 1 Purpose

Swarm Cells – Replace a parent queen for colony reproduction
Supersedure Cells – Replacing a failing queen
Emergency Cells – Replacing a missing queen

Queen Cups – Small bowl shape cups that may or may not ever become queen cells. As long as they are empty and dry, there are safely ignored.

In the natural world these all serve the same purpose — producing a new queen.

The difference is why the colony decided to build them.

In most cases the location of the cell within the brood nest tells the story.

Follow the link below to learn how beekeepers interpret each type during hive inspections and what they mean to the bees and the beekeepers.

https://www.thebeeplace.com/learning-center/about-the-queen-cells/

05/05/2026

Wax Moths – The Buzzards of the Bee World

When you purchase a nuc or hive from us, it will come with a mite strip installed (Apivar or VarroxSan).

These strips MUST be removed after 6 weeks.

After that, your hive is generally good until the next treatment cycle—but do not let your guard down.

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Here’s the part most people miss:

Wax moths do NOT kill your bees.

They move in AFTER the colony has already been weakened—usually by mites and the viruses they carry.

Just like buzzards don’t kill a cow…
they clean up what’s already dead.

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If mites get out of control:
• Bees weaken
• Viruses spread
• Colony collapses
• Wax moths move in

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Treatment basics:
• Treat approximately every quarter
• Rotate treatments to prevent resistance
• Organic treatments can be used with honey supers (always check the label)
• Apivar must be removed 2 weeks before adding honey supers

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Bottom line:

If you don’t control mites…
you will eventually have bigger problems.

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Set a reminder now — 6 weeks from pickup.

05/01/2026

General Bee Safety
Most bee encounters are minor and manageable.
However, it is important to know that south central Texas still has Africanized Honey Bees in the wild. They have been in this area for over 30 years and continue to migrate from the south as well as reproduce in our region. (Follow the link for more)

A common question we get is:

“If my hive needs a queen, does it matter whether I replace her with an Italian or a Texas queen if the hive originally had Italians?”

Short answer:
If you are installing a **mated queen**, the bees in the hive will accept her as their mother/egg layer, and she will not “mix breed” with the bees already in that hive.

The bigger concern is this:

If a hive is allowed to raise a **new queen on its own**, that virgin queen must go out into the wild to mate. In our area, that can produce undesirable offspring because Africanized genetics are still present in the wild.

That is one reason we strongly encourage beekeepers to learn the basics of:
• queen loss
• requeening
• swarming
• temperament changes

A hive that started gentle can change if these things are not understood and managed.

This is exactly why beekeeper education matters.

Please take a few minutes to read our Beekeeper Safety page here:
https://www.thebeeplace.com/learning-center/beekeeper-safety/

If your hive needs a queen, we can help.
Queens available Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 to 4:00 PM (by appointment only).

The Bee Place
210.289.0583