A couple of us are shipping our bees out of Texas at the moment.  The driver with the purple semi has hauled for us for nearly ten years, and this load just got back to Iowa recently.  It feels good to be winding up the last step of our new adventure to the south!  It has been interesting to embark on the bee life in a new ecosystem after decades around bees.  We operated in California during the winter for the last several years, and we will likely send some of there again.  This winter we just learned about the Texas life.

Other than 10-20F higher temperatures than we usually saw in the California spring, the biggest difference so far has been the relentless flow of pollen in East Texas.  We always spent a lot of money on pollen substitute to ramp up the bees for almond pollination in CA.  In TX, we have to feed sugar a lot harder because the nectar flow is nothing compared to the pollen flow.  Luckily, I'd heard many tales of TX bees starving to death raising brood on fresh pollen amid a nectar dearth, so we were prepared to feed them their carbohydrates to keep them developing safely.  Indeed, the pollen flow has been incredible for months, so we totally removed pollen patties from our expenses for 2025 so far.

Here is some of the beautiful brood from our second round of splitting a few weeks ago.  Note the healthy ring of pollen around the broodnest.

There were a few advantages we sought in Texas.  A couple of years ago, it looked like the superdrought in CA might shrink the almond industry, so it seemed unsafe to bank on that way of life.  The rains resumed in CA and saved the industry, but we made the move anyway.  Regardless of the role that CA plays in our future, we wanted the warmer weather from December through February, the natural pollen supply, but especially spaces we controlled for splitting in March and April. We will still send bees to CA for almonds when the situation seems favorable for us, but we don't want to be locked into that route as our sole winter option anymore.  Splitting in warmer weather allows us to use queen cells at much lower costs than buying mated queens.  We had quite good success with the cells, averaging a little over 80% success, and then we followed up with a second cell in the ones that didn't take.  On the third round of inspections in Iowa, we will use mated queens to get the hives on track in time to pursue a honey crop.

Here is Alex with a nice frame of cells:

All told, it has been a favorable experience in TX.  We've learned a lot in the course of observing the bees, weather, and learning the terrain.  Things will be arranged a little differently next winter to improve efficiency, but overall it feels wonderful to have healthy bees to send back to Iowa after the phenomenal losses that many competent beekeepers suffered over the last several months.  Now we advance to the rush of distributing bees and getting honey supers on the hives.  Away we go!