Copoco's Honey

06/23/2026

06/22/2026

🐝 Why do bees fight? More reasons than you’d think.
Honey bees are fierce little protectors — and they have a lot worth defending.

🛡️ Hive defense — Guard bees will take on any animal or human that gets too close to their home.

🍯 Robbing — When nectar is scarce, bees raid neighboring colonies for their honey stores. The battles can be intense.

👑 Queen rivalry — Two queens can’t share a hive. When rivals emerge, they fight to the death for the crown.

🚪 Drone eviction — Every fall, female workers kick the male drones out before winter. No foragers? No room at the inn.

All that drama produces something pretty sweet. 🍯 Come get some for yourself at Copoco’s Honey in Fort Collins, Colorado!

06/18/2026

Moving day for the bees — here’s how to do it right. Relocating a hive takes a little planning, but your bees will thank you for it. Here are some tips we’ve found to be most useful!

🌙 Move at night — Bees are back in the hive and calmer after dark. Always the safest time to move.

✅ Seal the entrance — Use mesh or a screen so air still flows but no one escapes mid-trip.

🚗 Drive smooth — Hard stops and sharp turns stress the colony. Take it slow and steady.

📏 The 3-foot or 3-mile rule — Move a hive less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles. Anything in between and foragers get confused and can’t find their way home.

🌡️ Watch the heat — Hives can overheat fast in a closed vehicle. Keep them ventilated and avoid the hottest part of the day.

🕐 Give them time to settle — Once relocated, open the entrance and let them reorient to their new surroundings before inspecting.

Happy bees are bees that know where home is - not so different from you and me. Need more tips and tricks on caring for your bees? Come see us at Copoco’s Honey on North College!

FortCollinsLocal

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

Just another day at work...one sting from apis laboriosa (Himalayan honeybee) is 2.5 times the venom of a western honeybee. Apparently, when she stings your arm, your entire arm will hurt!

06/10/2026

She isn’t a ruler in the way we typically imagine. She doesn’t give orders or direct the colony. Her role is singular and essential: she is the hive’s only reproductive female, and everything revolves around that.
A healthy queen can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day — more than her own body weight. She uses s***m stored from a single mating flight early in her life to fertilize eggs for years. She never leaves the hive again after that flight, unless the colony swarms.

When her laying slows, the workers notice before you do. They’ll begin raising a replacement — a new queen fed exclusively on royal jelly, the same substance every larva gets for the first few days, but continued far longer for her alone. That difference in diet is what makes her a queen.

If the old queen doesn’t leave, the new one will find her. And only one will survive.

A hive without a queen will raise a new one within days if they have young enough larvae. A hive that runs out of options will collapse. She is, quite literally, the future of the colony.

06/01/2026

Just a few happenings around Copoco’s these days - new honey products lining the shelves, beekeeping supplies coming in by the truckload, and new beekeepers trained and equipped with some skills to steward their own hives!

We love to see it all. Spring is the absolute BEST.

05/27/2026

Yummy!

05/26/2026

Good vibrations are a powerful thing.