Presentation Summaries:

Natural Beekeeping — Keeping colonies with minimal intervention by working with honey-bee biology rather than routinely manipulating the colony.

Horizontal Hives and Their Advantages — Comparing horizontal hive designs with conventional equipment and explaining their management advantages.

Getting Started in Bees — An introduction to the basic equipment, terminology, hive management, and seasonal responsibilities needed to begin keeping honey bees.

Sustainable Bees w/ Nucs — How nucleus colonies can be used to start, expand, replace, and maintain healthy colonies while building a more sustainable apiary.

Working with Mean Bees — Practical techniques for safely managing unusually defensive colonies and identifying possible causes of aggressive behavior.

Dealing with Deadouts — How did you get there, and how to clean up the mess. This talk outlines reasons hives die, how to do a necropsy, and how to recover for next season.

Planting for Bees — How to select and establish plants that provide bees with useful nectar and pollen throughout the growing season.

Bees for Tax Purposes — An overview of how beekeeping may relate to Texas agricultural land valuation and the management requirements involved.

Medicinal Value of Texas Honey — A look at research into honey’s antimicrobial and wound-care properties and what is—and is not—known about potential health benefits.

My Journey w/ Topbar Hives — A beekeeper’s experiences, lessons, successes, and challenges using horizontal top-bar hives.

Splits — How to divide a strong colony to increase hive numbers, control swarming, replace queens, or create backup colonies.

Collecting Swarms — How to locate, capture, transport, and establish honey-bee swarms safely and successfully.

Beekeeper Ethics — A discussion of responsible beekeeping practices involving bee welfare, neighbors, other beekeepers, property owners, and the surrounding environment.

Moving Hives — Methods for safely preparing, securing, transporting, and relocating honey-bee colonies while minimizing stress and bee loss.

Avoiding Wonky Comb — How hive setup, spacing, leveling, and beekeeper management can encourage bees to build straight, manageable comb.

Drones & Varroa Sampling — An examination of drone biology and practical methods for monitoring Varroa mite levels to guide colony-management decisions.

Treatment-Free Beekeeping — An examination of philosophies and management strategies that avoid chemical Varroa treatments, along with the challenges and risks involved.

Building Better Queens for Texas — How queen selection, breeding, mating, and local adaptation can be used to develop productive colonies suited to Texas conditions.

Bee Venom in Apitherapy — An overview of the use of honey-bee venom in apitherapy, including proposed applications, current evidence, and significant allergy and safety concerns.

Queens — An introduction to queen biology, mating, colony function, and queen raising.