Tumbleweed Bees

28/05/2026

My daughter Alice is now my Social Media Content Creator! She’ll be working with me this summer while she’s off from school.

27/05/2026

Things are happening at Tumbleweed Bees! We moved into an office at Texas Tech Innovation Hub in preparation for future collaboration with the university. More to come later. 😉

26/05/2026

25/05/2026

Recently, a new customer in Lubbock, bought some of our Caprock Reserve Coffee. After delivering his order, Cori, came out to meet me in person. We ended up talking for a while. I learned that he also has a small local business called “BPOS BBQ.” His original bbq rub finished 4th place at The American Royal World Series of Barbeque in 2023!!! If you plan on grilling this Memorial Day, check out BPOSBBQ.COM and grab you a jar. You can also find a local store locator there to see where you can find it in town. Local business owners like Cori and I depend on your continued support. Thank you all for your business!

19/05/2026

Learned a lesson this last winter. Strap the hives if using candy boards. Last year I used straps, but this winter I used brick thinking it would be enough. Wind was on my mind, not animals. They opened the hives to raid the candy fondant. Not sure how long these bees were exposed to the winter weather, but I assume awhile since the left over fondant was weathered. All these honeybee colonies survived! It’s amazing how resilient these creatures are.

18/05/2026

Photogenic Honeybees

17/05/2026

Time lapse of the beehive entrance.

16/05/2026

I have been replacing queens throughout the month of May in all our hives. We replace all our queens each year. It’s a practice I learned from an old foreman at a commercial beekeeper operation in Hawaii. Honeybee queens can technically live around 3–5 years, but realistically, most queens are productive for about 1–3 years before problems start showing up. In West Texas, I’ve never had a queen live longer than two and a half years. Younger queens have high pheromone output. This helps the colony stay organized and produces more brood, which helps with honey production. We also source our queens from a commercial breeder, so our hive genetics are generally calmer.

The hive I’m working on in this video used to be my favorite because they were high yield honey producers and calm. But they have re-queened themselves and this new queen has been producing brood that are becoming increasingly more… fierce. Likely due to the new queen mating with multiple drone bees from more aggressive feral hives in the area. I’m looking for the current queen to remove her before installing the new queen. But… she was elusive. I saw her briefly walking on top of a frame then disappearing in the mass of bees. When I pulled the frame she was on, she was already gone! I ransacked that hive looking for her and never saw her again. I eventually had to give up because it was getting dark. I’ll try again this weekend.

15/05/2026

Grab your bag and enjoy your day! Purchase at https://tumbleweedbees.com/products/caprock-reserve-coffee.

13/05/2026

We have coffee now! Sourced from honeybee friendly farms and roasted in West Texas! Shop at Tumbleweedbees.com!

12/04/2026