I decided to move my bees on June 11 in the morning, so I called my other young beekeeper to give him a chance to learn about moving bees. We made arrangements to meet at his house in Seminole, AL. about 7:30 in the morning. Along with Ed and his son, we piled into my Ram and went to an apiary about 45 miles away.

We looked at the bees and decided that only two of the eight hives could be used. We drove another 8 miles to another yard and found four hives we could use with ease and that had a good number of bees. After smoking the bees, we put screen wire in the opening of the hives and duct taped the holes and lids on. Then, using a two man hive lifter, we picked the first hive up and moved to truck. Upon setting the hive down on the tailgate, Ed said that there was a lot of bees flying around. Yikes!! We had picked all of the hive up except the bottom board. We had to go back with the hive and reset it on the bottom board then moved away so the bees would settle down. While they were doing that, we decided to strap all of the hives just in case.

After we had loaded the four hives, we went back to the first location to get the other two hives. Wouldn’t you know it!–one of those colonies decided to be cantankerous. After getting stung several times each (the son stayed in the truck), we finally got the hives loaded and strapped down to the truck.

The trip was uneventful and the off loading went without any more stings. I have never tasted Palmetto honey. I have been told it has a nutty flavor. I hope that I can collect some so I will know what to expect.

This is how you would go about getting specialty honey. Move the hives to the target area, make sure that the only honey they have is in the brood box, put supers with empty comb on them and wish the bees good luck! And good luck to you too. Have fun!