Monthly beekeeping meetings hosted by TNBA are always open to all and fun.
Join us at the Dripping Springs Distillery the 2nd Thursday of each month (except rescheduled) to listen to our free educational presentations while networking with other beekeepers and enjoying tasty food or drink creations. The Menu is amazing!
Have an idea for a meeting topic or a speaker? Please drop us an Email at:
TexasNaturalBeekeepers@gmail.com
Dripping Springs Distillery
5330 Bell Springs Road
Dripping Springs, TX 78620
Next Meeting dates are:
March 27, 2025 Starting @5:30PM - Steven BRACKMANN
April 10, 2025 Starting @5:30PM - Rex SMITH (Splitting Hives)
May 08, 2025 Starting @5:30PM - Garett SLATHER (Queen Rearing)
June 12, 2025 Starting @5:30PM - Ryan GIESECKE (Drone Diversity: Why It Matters)
July 10, 2025 Starting @5:30PM - Ryan GIESECKE ()
see below for more details and guest speaker information!
March 27, 2025 Starting @5:30PM
Steven BRACKMANN
Successfully growing your apiary without any treatments
Join Steven Brackmann as he shares practical insights on successfully keeping bees and expanding your apiary without treatments. Learn sustainable, treatment-free beekeeping methods that support resilient colonies and long-term success. Steven might even share some tips and tricks on how to raise treatment-free queens!
Steven was born in Colorado 65 years ago, and was adopted at the age of 2. He was raised on a dairy farm in Illinois before moving to Texas in 1984. His journey into beekeeping began in 1994 after remodeling a home for a beekeeper in Houston. He started by helping with bee removals. Because his mentor didn’t like heights, Steven took on all the two-story jobs. After his first year and more than 50 colonies, bee removals quickly became a daily routine. Eventually, he left his 16-hour-a-day job as a facility engineer at Memorial Hermann Hospital to pursue beekeeping full-time. Over the years, he’s completed more than 2,400 removals, and has endured thousands of stings.
Tired of defensive bees chasing him all the way home, Steven sought a better way. At a field day at the Baton Rouge USDA Bee Lab, he met Dr. John Harbo, who helped him develop a queen breeding program to improve the genetics in his apiaries. Today, Steven is a successful queen breeder in Texas. His apiaries are inspected by the Texas Apiary Inspection Service, and he receives queen tags with a clean bill of health, allowing him to sell queens commercially and to hobbyists in several states.
FEBRUARY 13, 2025 MEETING
Steve BUTLER
Swarms & Simple Removals -a path to "almost free” bees!
Steve Butler will be sharing his best tips and tricks for attracting swarms, removing bees from simple settings, and ensuring they stay in our hives once caught. With his wealth of experience, he’ll cover effective baiting techniques, strategic hive placement, and key methods to prevent absconding. Whether you're looking to expand your apiary or help relocate wild bees, Steve’s insights will give you practical, tested strategies to improve your success in swarm catching and retention.
Steve Butler is the owner of Company Bee, a professional bee removal company based in Franklin, Texas, and a small bee supply store in Calvert, TX.
With years of experience as a beekeeper, Steve has successfully removed thousands of colonies from structures, trees, and countless unique situations. Widely respected in professional circles, he’s often regarded as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) when it comes to bee removals. Depending on the season, Steve maintains over 100 treatment-free colonies and focuses on breeding resilient, locally adapted survivor stock.
In addition to his beekeeping expertise, Steve is a licensed master electrician and a skilled hobbyist woodworker, showcasing his talent as a true jack-of-all-trades
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January 09, 2025
Les CROWDER
The Long Term Relationship with Varroa
Breeding Mites to Fight Mites
Data is emerging that shows varroa can develop as a co-tolerance to our honey bees and honey bees have developed traits that give them mite resistance
Les Crowder
Les is 55+ year veteran of the beekeeping world, and a widely recognized expert in natural beekeeping, who now works for Nathalie B. at Bee Mindful. Throughout his career as a beekeeper, he has always looked for ways to eliminate toxic inputs in the hive, starting with antibiotics and now miticides. He has been keeping bees in Langstroth and Top-Bar Hives his entire life, both as a hobby and as a business. Earlier in his career, he worked for a business with 4,000 hives in New Mexico, and was the President of the New Mexico Beekeepers Association multiple times. He also was a honeybee inspector there for 5 years. A true honey bee expert and whisperer, he has been teaching highly popular natural beekeeping classes domestically and abroad for over 35 years (both in English and Spanish), and has written the world-renowned book “Top-Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health”, which has sold and continues to be sold all over the world - Les has a degree in biology from the University of New Mexico.
