Bell Farm

05/25/2026

📣📣🐝 EXTRA NUCS!! 🐝📣📣

If you’ve been anxiously awaiting our nucs to be back in stock, today is your lucky day! We have a limited number of extra nucs and we are taking deposits NOW! These nucs will be ready for pickup beginning next weekend (we’ll contact you to coordinate a specific pickup date after you place your order).

Go! Order now before they’re gone:
https://www.iowabees.com/product-page/spring-2026-5-frame-nuc-deposit

05/22/2026

We’ve got some REALLY nice queens going out in this year’s nucs! 🔥😍🐝

05/16/2026

An update on our mama wood duck! She continues to sit faithfully, day and night, leaving the nest only once or twice a day to eat briefly. By our best estimate, she’s got about 10 days to go until her eggs hatch. 🦆🥚👀

05/04/2026

Have you ever seen a queen bee being born? 🐝👑 This is a special thing that even seasoned beekeepers get excited about witnessing. ❤️

# bellfarmbees

04/26/2026

Look at all those eggs! By our best guess, today she will be laying egg #8. She comes every morning for a couple hours to lay her daily egg, then she buries them all and leaves. As you can see, she’s also been working hard at feathering the nest with her down feathers.

For those who may have missed our first post, this is a wood duck hen that has started nesting in an owl box here at the farm. We have a remote camera mounted inside the box so we can see her daily activities. 🦆🪺❤️

04/23/2026

An update on our resident wood duck, aka Little Mama…

We received some helpful advice from folks about the need to make a slight modification to the nest box. Wood ducking babies can’t fly; instead, they’re born with little claws on their webbed feet so they can climb out of the nest! Because our box was originally intended as an owl box, it has smooth interior walls, so we added a piece of plastic mesh/hardware cloth to aid the babies in climbing out.

We also added an aluminum flashing collar to the tree to prevent raccoons from climbing to access the nest.

Here’s hoping these modifications don’t upset Lil Mama too much tomorrow! 🙏🦆🪺

04/22/2026

In celebration of Earth Day 🌎, we want to share some fun, non-bee related news from the farm!

Last fall, we hung an owl nesting box, in the hopes of attracting a barred owl family. Instead, we have an unexpected visitor this spring… a wood duck! This little mama has been visiting the nest every day to lay an egg. Once she has a full clutch (usually 10-12 eggs), she’ll begin to stay full time and incubate them. Roughly a month later, her eggs will hatch and the babies will jump down to the ground, and she’ll lead them away to water. 🦆

A camera mounted inside the nest box has been providing us with daily views of her activities. If you look closely in this video, you’ll see a couple of her eggs underneath her! 🥚🪺🥰

Look for occasional updates from us on the wood duck family’s progress, and hopefully 🤞 some photos and/or videos in a month or so of the duckling’s big jump day! 🐣

04/21/2026

☕️❤️🐝

Good news is we are back in Monroe today! And maybe even better news is only 2 more weeks and we'll be back to our full schedule 👏

We'll have all our spring specials like the Queen Bee Latte, made with honey from Bell Farm 🐝 A classic favorite, hot or iced!

We're here until 10:30am today at Salon Essence!

See you soon 👋

04/18/2026

We’re set up at the Runnells Christian Church today for their Spring Craft Show! Come see us from 10-2. 🌸🍯🐝

02/05/2026

100% of our hives are alive and buzzing on this warm February day, and we are so grateful! ❤️🐝☀️ Plus, big sniffs from one of our bee yard helpers. 🐶😍