Improvements to bzhoney.com
We realize that some of you may encountered some delays or difficulties accessing our website. This week, we addressed four main issues with our website and hope the improvements will enhance your customer experience.
- As our business grew, our website has been hosted on a shared server with other websites. This year, we saw other sites’ traffic impact the availability of bzhoney.com, so we migrated our website to a server dedicated only to our business. Early indications show that our website availability is much improved.
- Since we take orders from our website, we added SSL security to bzhoney.com so you don’t have to worry about the security of your profile or any purchases you make on our website. You browser should now show bzhoney.com addresses beginning with “https://” indicating a secure connection.
- We added new shipping options for pickup at local farmer’s markets. If you’d like to reserve honey for pickup at the market, select the FM pickup option and we’ll have your honey ready for you when you visit our farmer’s market booth.
- We now add classes if our Beginning Beekeeper class sells out. Our Saturday class is currently scheduled for 10-11 a.m., but we’ll add a 12-1 p.m. class, if the morning class sells out (6 beekeepers). As temperatures rise, we’ll change these times so we don’t roast in protective gear in the heat of the day.
We appreciate that many of you have left voicemails at our shop or sent emails and feedback from our website. We hope we’ve answered your questions and we’re trying to ensure everyone benefits from the answer by publishing it. If we accidentally overlooked your question, please don’t take offense and resubmit it. We’re working hard to keep the 45 beekeepers who purchased nucs from us informed and maintain our own hives so we can deliver more local honey this year.
Answers to this month’s questions
Q: I see beetles in my hive. How can I get rid of them?
A: Every hive in the southern U.S. has hive beetles. Even if they weren’t in your nuc, they’ll find your hive and fly right into the front door. We keep our hives in full sun and minimize the volume of the hive to give the bees the best chance to corral the beetles and keep them from laying eggs on combs. Wait until your colony is actively “working” 80% of your current boxes before you add another box.
Q: I can’t find my queen. How do I know if she’s there?
A: Sometimes the queen is hard to find. She may blend in with the workers and drones or decide to relax on the inside of your brood box while you inspect all the frames of your hive. If you can’t find the queen, look for eggs. The eggs look like grains of rice in the back of the honeycomb cells. See the picture to the left for a good example of eggs in comb.
Q: Can we meet to discuss what’s going on with our hives? Is there a club local to Tomball?
A: We don’t want to compete with the Harris County Beekeepers Association or the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association. Both of those organizations are actively promoting beekeeping in our local area. However, we do recognize that these organizations have meeting at times or locations that may be inconvenient for some. We will be at 403 Eats the second Wednesday of the month to talk bees with anyone who wants to join us.
Let’s keep growing to provide local honey to support the demand in our local area!
Thanks,
Matt
What time will you be at 403 Eats?
Debbie, we were there from 7-8 p.m. on the 9th. I apologize that I left the time out of the announcement. This will be a regular thing going forward, so we’ll do a better job on the scheduling next time!
Good morning Matt, I couldn’t find where to go to ask this question. We bought a nuc from you about 3 weeks ago, this morning my husband went to check on the bees and he found about a dozen or so baby bees, not developed, on the ground. He’s concerned. Can you tell me what’s going on? Thank you
Debbie
Hi Debbie, bees will do this for a couple different reasons. They may feel a shortage of stores, nectar or pollen, and remove drone brood in order to conserve for their future workers. Some bees may even detect varroa mites on the pupae of their brood and remove those developing bees as a hygienic response. Either way, your hive should be ok.