🐝 Let the Bees Bee: A Feral Hive Thriving in the Texas Heat

I recently brought home a hive from my friends at Shy Coyote Farm in Adkins, Texas—a small organic operation run by Josh and Maggie who grow beautiful veggies for the New Braunfels market. They’ve had this colony on their land for years. One deep box. No feeding. No mite treatments. Just bees doing what bees do.

The colony has swarmed and requeened itself several times over, which means it’s basically a feral line now—but in a Langstroth box. The bees got a little feisty and were chasing folks out of the garden, so Josh and Maggie asked me to help relocate them. Instead of just moving them across the property (which would’ve confused the foragers), I followed the “3-foot or 3-mile” rule: moved them to my bee yard for a few weeks so they can reset, then I’ll move them back to a quieter part of their land.

While they’re with me, I cracked them open to take a look—and they’re absolutely thriving. Lots of brood. Plenty of nectar and pollen. Calm behavior despite the heat. I added a second deep box for expansion and dropped in an old, wax-moth-damaged box just to show that bees can clean up a mess and make it their own.

It’s a great reminder: sometimes, the best thing we can do as beekeepers is less. These bees have had almost no intervention—no feeding, no mite treatments, just years of swarming and requeening on their own—and they’re doing just fine.

What’s even more surprising? They’re not overly defensive. In Central Texas, that’s rare. Most unmanaged colonies trend toward the spicy side thanks to our local Scutellata genetics. But this hive? Pretty chill, all things considered.

Josh and Maggie don’t mind a little spice anyway. They’re organic gardeners who understand the rhythm of the land, and their approach is simple: give the bees space, and let them be. We’re just relocating the hive to a quieter corner of their property so it doesn’t interfere with the garden.

That’s the same approach beekeepers use in South Africa—where the bees are Scutellata, but no one calls them “Africanized.” They just call them bees. If they’re spicy, you don’t requeen them. You just keep them where people aren’t.

Sometimes, working with the bees means just leaving them alone.