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I've kept bees since I was twelve

I'm Nathan Exley. I build and keep bee yards across Central Texas, help new beekeepers get their own bees started, and write habitat plans for the ground around them. Here's how I got here.

  1. 2005

    An essay and a first hive

    The Williamson County Area Beekeepers Association gave a scholarship each year to a young person who wrote an essay on why they wanted to keep bees. I was twelve. I won a hive, the equipment to run it, and Jimmie Oakley as my tutor. Nobody in my family had kept bees before.

    A teenage Nathan Exley, wearing a name badge, reads aloud from a sheet of paper at a beekeepers' meeting.
    Williamson County Area Beekeepers Association, January 2010
  2. 2008 and 2009

    Backyard hives in Georgetown

    The hives multiplied in the backyard. Harvest meant friends and family around the extractor, a tradition I've kept up with my own kids.

    A beekeeper in a full suit and veil smokes an open hive in a backyard bee yard, with a box of frames covered in bees standing beside it.
    2008
    In a kitchen, a teenage beekeeper and two friends lean over a white uncapping tank while a woman holds a frame of honeycomb above it.
    Summer 2009Extracting honey with friends.
  3. 2009

    Teaching

    In July I taught a beekeeping session at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. That summer I also brought an observation hive to the Williamson Museum's Pioneer Days at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock.

    A teenage beekeeper in a plaid shirt holds up a jar of honey beside an observation hive, talking to visitors under a stone building's overhang.
    Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, July 2009Teaching a beekeeping session.
    A teenage beekeeper stands behind a wooden observation hive with glass sides, talking to visitors at an outdoor event.
    Old Settlers Park, Round Rock, 2009Pioneer Days, put on by the Williamson Museum.
  4. Spring 2010

    The debate case

    In NCFCA team policy debate, my debate partner and I built a case on honey bees. It earned a reputation in the league as "that squirrely bee case." Our argument was that bees were short of protein because there weren't enough flowers, and our plan to fix the dearth was to reseed highway and road rights-of-way with wildflowers instead of King Ranch bluestem and cut mowing and clearing in half. The savings from reduced mowing would pay for the increased cost of seed. Our squirrely bee case won the New Mexico National Qualifier. Turns out I'm still making this case today: more flowers and less mowing for better ground.

  5. 2010

    The swarm years

    I collected hives and swarms when I wasn't mowing lawns. The local fire department and county extension had my number and called me whenever a swarm or hive needed relocating. It was an accelerated education in honey bee biology and hive dynamics. I've removed bee hives from everything from hollow trees to water meters, old barn walls and an old tractor gas tank. I don't do removals or swarm calls now.

    A beekeeper in a suit and veil hangs upside down by his legs from a tree limb, reaching for a swarm, while a second beekeeper beside a wire fence reaches up toward him.
    Georgetown, Texas, 2010This is my half of the arrangement.
    A teenager in a T-shirt, with no suit or veil, holds a cut branch with a small cluster of bees hanging from it.
    July 2010A small swarm, taken without a suit.
    A beekeeper in a suit and veil mists a swarm hanging in a tree with a spray bottle.
    Misting a swarm with sugar water before moving it.
  6. 2015

    Texas A&M

    I earned my B.S. in Rangeland Ecology and Management. That's the half of this work that isn't bees: soils, grasses, forbs, brush and fire, and how land changes when it's managed differently.

  7. 2016

    A June swarm with my mother

    A woman holds two empty frames beside a small tree where a swarm clusters on a low limb; a veiled beekeeper works on the far side, and an open hive box waits on the ground.
    June 2016
  8. Saturdays

    The booth

    My mother, Elizabeth, was one of the original vendors at the Wolf Ranch Farmers Market in Georgetown, and she has been there every Saturday since, including through the February 2021 freeze. She sells the family's honey.

  9. Now

    Exley Apiary LLC, Waco

    My kids are the second generation to keep bees. The first yards on other people's land are going in now.

Why

I believe the land was given to us to nurture, not exploit. That isn't a marketing position. It's why I'll tell you no when the answer is no.

Watch me work

I film a good share of my beekeeping. My YouTube channel has hive checks, swarm work and my free Beekeeping 101 videos. The Learn page puts it all in one place.

Exley Apiary rocking E

Request a site visit

Tell me what you have in mind, and we'll work out what fits.

The visit is free. If your place isn't a fit, I'll tell you why and what might work instead, and you'll still get a native plant guide written for your address.

Request a site visit or call or text (512) 298-1526