From the founders
Most of the customer stories that reach us start with someone who was already convinced.
This one doesn't. Dan Reppen read our website, decided it sounded too good to be true, and bought a hive mostly to find out for himself. He spent the season running his own comparisons and checking what we say against other sources.
He still thinks we're wrong about one thing. Just not the thing he expected.
— The Primal Bee Team
He ran the comparison himself
Dan Reppen lost all three of his colonies in his first year. He went looking for what he'd done wrong, found our website instead, read every word of it, and didn't buy the claims.
"There's no way someone hasn't come up with this before," he remembers thinking.
So he bought a hive anyway, on the logic that the only way to settle it was to run it himself.
The package he installed absconded, which was predictable, since he'd put them in during August with no forage and nothing to do. He took the hive apart expecting his doubts confirmed and found they'd built a significant amount of comb before leaving. "This should not be happening in August," he says. "There's something to this."
Fifty hives, six apiary sites outside Milwaukee, a first season that was supposed to produce nothing. His harvest just last week came in at 2,100 pounds.
The number that convinces other beekeepers isn't that one, though. It's the test he set up himself, unprompted. Three hives on one pallet: a new wooden hive on bare foundation, a wooden hive from last year already drawn out, and a Primal Bee. Same packages, same day. By midsummer the Primal Bee held two full deep supers of honey. The drawn-out wooden hive had most of one medium. The new one was still building its brood nest.
He does still disagree with us on one point. He reads these emails and agrees with most of what's in them, with one exception.
"It says time and time again, this is not a magic box. You still have to take care of your bees. That I am going to call on, because this absolutely is a magic box."
What he's basing that on is a mite check. Two mites in his worst-performing Primal Bee hive, no treatment applied. 93 in a wooden hive at the same site.
The full story covers the three colonies that started it, the three-dollar Facebook post that found him six apiary sites, and what he's bracing for this winter.
🌡️ NC State's August checklist: put water out, watch the beetles, and store those supers before the wax moths find them.
🍯 Organic certification demands four pesticide-free miles around a hive, which is why almost no US honey qualifies. Cornell found bees actually forage about 750 meters.
🦠 USDA found bees can smell deformed wing virus in their food and drink it anyway. Given the choice, they picked the contaminated syrup.
🔧 A swarm moved into an abandoned propane tank on a paintball field. The rescue involved a saw.
We're highlighting the photos beekeepers in our community have been sending in from around the world this year.
Got a hive of your own? We want to see it! Drop a photo in the Primal Bee Facebook group or tag us. We're collecting them for a global gallery 🐝
Until next time
If you're pulling supers this month, deal with them the same week. Empty drawn comb sitting in a shed is a wax moth invitation, and drawn comb is worth too much to lose to carelessness.
Dan's next test is the one he can't control for: Wisconsin winter starts in a few months, and he's told us he'll have real numbers on the other side of it.
Speaking of the crop, that's what our next live is about: pulling supers, extracting, and what to do with it all once it's sitting in buckets. Dr. Jason Graham hosts, same as always, and we build the hour around what people send in. Wednesday, August 19 at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT, in the Facebook community. Reply with your questions here and we’ll make sure to get to them!
Happy beekeeping,
The Primal Bee Team 🐝