Busy as a bee: Bay area beekeeper is committed to saving the bees

LAKE WALES, Fla. — While bees might not always give you that warm and fuzzy feeling, they have one beekeeper buzzing.

Bees are one of the world’s most important pollinators for food crops and Elisha Bixler, a Bay area beekeeper and entrepreneur, is committed to saving the bees.

Bixler operates a bee farm in Lake Wales.

A bee farm is known as an apiary, and we got to know when Elisha’s passion began.

“I started @howsyourdayhoney five years ago and started recording my beekeeping adventures along the way,” she said. “I do bee removal, we produce honey, sell at markets and festivals.”

Bixler said she wanted to make her own honey for her family because she is very committed to knowing where your food source comes from.

But she had a passion for making videos and documenting her work.

It was too sweet an opportunity to pass and two years ago, one video created a flurry of buzz on social media.

“This is one of the coolest thing’s I’ve seen,” said Elisha in her TikTok video showing what she described as Queen Balling or when the bees in a hive kill off an invading queen bee.

“I think that video is up to 32 million views on TikTok,” she said.

That video went viral and it launched a whole series of other videos of her removing beehives. Some videos show her doing the work with her bare hands and little to no protection. In late January 2024, a beekeeping adventure involved a hive removal at a Bay area school.

“All the county schools here in Florida just exterminate the bees. somebody will come out and spray them onsite, clean up and be done with it,” she said. “But these teachers wanted to save the bees.”

She removed the beehive and took it to her apiary in Lake Wales.

In video post after post, Elisha shares with the world, she is having close encounters with the bees.

In one removal on January 20, she traveled to a spot behind the Don Cesar Hotel on St. Pete Beach, and she goes up and down the Gulf coast and inland to do these bee rescues.

While she makes it look easy, she said sometimes it is anything but.

“I’ll take 20, 30 bee stings. They can be quite dangerous,” she said. “So, you just don’t know. You want to make sure when you’re dealing with bees you have some skill.”

But she said there is a greater reason for working with bees: “I’m saving the bees,” she said. “What could be better?”