Harrisonville Honey

Harrisonville Honey Local Honey in Harrisonville, MO.

Some of my favorite observations from a hive. One of the new queens installed last week. She's marked white signifying t...
04/12/2026

Some of my favorite observations from a hive.

One of the new queens installed last week. She's marked white signifying that she was born in a year ending with a 1 or a 6. Queens will live anywhere from 3-5 years which is crazy compared to the 5-7 weeks a worker will live.

Festooning! Bees will make little chains or groupings by holding onto the legs of another.

Different stages of larvae development. Baby bees cook for approximately 21 days. Only in the latest stages are they capped over to finish incubating. Plastic frames come in different colors. We can see this one and the next are black which allows the keeper to see the contrast of eggs or larvae against the dark background. Honey frames are yellow so impurities can be spotted against the lighter background.

Eggs! A queen can lay an average of 1000-2000 eggs a day!

After installing the queen and the majority of bees into the hive boxes, I left the bee bus (yes, the white thing is a b...
04/04/2026

After installing the queen and the majority of bees into the hive boxes, I left the bee bus (yes, the white thing is a bee bus) by the hive for the rest of the bees to make their way over. For convenience I just put the queen cage back in the bus so I could pick them up easily later.

As you can see, the queen's scent (pheromones) was still so strong in the queen cage that even after several hours many workers were still flocking to it.

To help them along I ended up moving it to the front entrance of the hive. Nature is crazy.

04/03/2026

The process of installing a new package of bees. Ten thousand little new friends.

First remove the sugar can that has been feeding them.

Next pull the queen cage and remove the sugar or in this case cork plug to free her. The rest of the colony has become accustomed to her scent and will stick with her.

Then put as many bees as you can in the hive to help keep her warm and expedite the moving process.

Last, put the inner cover and lid on. Put a little sugar water out for them.

Easy as that they have a new home!

Took advantage of the nice weather this weekend to do some spring cleaning and give the bees some sugar water to get the...
03/02/2026

Took advantage of the nice weather this weekend to do some spring cleaning and give the bees some sugar water to get them through these next two weeks of rain.

I swapped out old boxes that have been worn down by the weather for freshly wax coated boxes. I took the weathered boxes and put a fresh coat of wax on them. And I removed frames that were empty and had old comb. Overtime comb becomes dark and stiff because it's filled with pollen and debris, but the frames are reusable so you just scrape off the old and let them build new.

Lastly I gave the ladies some sugar water in my high tech feeding system! We always have juice bottles around. With a couple pokes from a box cutter you can have your own free gravity feeder.

We have 30 bottles of waiting to be your holiday helper this season! $8 for an 8oz squeeze bottle.
11/28/2025

We have 30 bottles of waiting to be your holiday helper this season!

$8 for an 8oz squeeze bottle.

We still have honey available! Approximately 50 of the 8oz squeeze bottles and 10 of the 4oz glass jars are available an...
10/18/2025

We still have honey available! Approximately 50 of the 8oz squeeze bottles and 10 of the 4oz glass jars are available and ready to fill your kitchen!

Prices are $8 and $4 respectively.

05/04/2025

For the first formal inspection I'm looking for a few things. 1. Overall action and population. 2. Brood, eggs, and baby bees. 3. Resources such a pollen and nectar. 4. AND my favorite, searching for the Queen.

As the hive population grows larger it can be hard to stop her, but she is generally pretty distinct! You can mark the queen with a small colored dot on her back. I'm too afraid of injuring her for my own benefits so I let it be. General place to look is wherever you start to see brood, and pupae, and then eggs. Bees don't stay eggs for very long, so if you see eggs, she's probably not too far away.

04/27/2025

Time to remove the queen cage and clean up a couple other things. First we remove the top cover and then the inner cover. Then take out the sugar water I gave them to help them get started. I just use old juice bottles and poke holes in them instead of buying something. Then we take out the queen cage and put frames back in where the sugar water had been. Then remove the upper box to get the mite treatment container out. And finally put everything back together and give them the remaining sugar water back. Quick and easy!

04/20/2025

One week in and the ladies are doing well. Unfortunately I did not get to see them over the weekend with the cold and the rain. It wasn't worth upsetting them. So how did I determine everything was more than likely fine? I listened.

The hum of a hive is something to behold. Bees are always moving and always buzzing. As you can see/hear in this video, put enough buzzing together and it's quite loud. Loud enough to be heard through the half inch thick pine box of the hive. As long as I hear that, I figure we are good enough to not invite cold and rain into the hive for a bit longer.

I will need to find time in the near future to remove the queen cage before the bees seal it in with propolis. While the queen has been freed by now, the bees will generally glue in any objects left in the hive. Bees make propolis as a mixture of pollen, saps and resins, wax, oils and more. All of the things they find in nature. Fun fact about propolis, it is naturally anti fungal and antimicrobial, and a good anti oxidant. It is used medicinally and widely studied for health benefits in a wide variety of ailments from cancer to heart disease.

Video: the hive has found the upper entrance. The upper entrance is a small cutout in the top board that allows for more traffic flow as well as ventilation in the hive.

04/13/2025

Spring has sprung and we are back from hibernation.

This year we tried something new! We are standing up two hives using packages. In the past we have used Nucs or Nucleus Hives where the bees come with established resources on five frames. A Package however is just a big old box of bees, around 3 pounds of bees, or 10,000 bees.

The first step is to make sure you have your hive setup. We have frames of existing comb from previous years, so I set those up along with some sugar water to get them started while they go forage.

Next we open the top cover and remove the queen cage. The queen is kept in a small box with wire mesh so she is safe during transport and the workers can get used to her scent. Off screen I'm removing a small cork plug to expose the sugar plug the workers will chew through to free her from the cage. I put her safely between some frames.

Now time to free the masses! I open the end panel, remove the sugar can that has been feeding the bees while they are captive. A few taps and the bees are in their new home.

The package is placed near the hive so the remaining holdouts can work their way over to their new home.

Welcome home ladies!!!

Address

E 283rd Street
Harrisonville, MO
64701

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