Hours: Currently closed for winter. We will begin taking orders for bees and workshops on Feb 1.
Store will open Tuesday from 4-6 from March 17-Sept 15.
Bee Days will be Friday, April 24 from 2-6, and Saturday April 25 from 9-1.
Straw Maze and Pumpkin Patch will be open M-Th 3-9, F-Sat 10-9 from Sept 18-Oct 30. We will be open 10-6 on Oct. 31.
Farm is physically located at 1250 S Park Ave W in Twin Falls. Our mailing/shipping address is 1150 S Park Ave W.
Are you a wanna-bee?
We have classes, beekeeping equipment, and even sell bees to get you started!
Tubbs Berry Farm sells beekeeping equipment and supplies, teaches beekeeping classes, and even sells the bees! If you need bees, beehives, bee suits, or tools, we’re here to help!
Bee Days is an annual event that is open to the public and features beekeeping information, hiving demonstrations, petting zoo animals, local honey, gift shop, and more! There is no charge to attend, however if you plan on picking up bees that day they must be pre-ordered!
Bee Days is scheduled for the last Friday and Saturday in April. Hiving Demonstrations will be at 2 and 4 on Friday, and 10 and noon on Saturday.
Gourmet Seed Garlic grown in Idaho! Certified White Rot Free!
We will begin taking garlic orders June 1st, 2025.
Tubbs Berry Farm is one of the largest producers of gourmet seed garlic in Southern Idaho’s allium quarantine zone. This means that our certified white rot free garlic can be legally shipped to and planted anywhere in Idaho. Our quality seed stock is sought after across the country!
Tubbs Berry Farm grows 8 varieties of gourmet seed garlic inside Idaho’s allium quarantine zone. If you are wanting to know where you can legally get garlic to plant in Idaho, we can help you out! We start taking orders on June 1st, and start shipping seed garlic the first of September. Click on the button below to find out more about our amazing garlic! Get on our email list and we’ll remind you it’s time to order!
Straw Maze and Pumpkin Patch!
Will open September 19 - Nov 1, 2025!
This is a fun-for-the-whole family annual event that you don’t want to miss! Giant straw maze, great food, apple blaster, and more! Come early and come often! Click on the button below for more information.
Registered White St Criox Hair Sheep
Farmer Tubbs made the transition to St. Criox hair sheep a few years ago, and we have been slowly growing our flock and learning about these amazing animals! Sheep are important to the grazing and crop rotation cycle on our year round family farm. We have been impressed with the ease of caring for this breed of sheep and are excited to connect with others who have or are interested in St. Croix Hair Sheep. 
Check out our Beekeeping Blog
Is my hive queenless?
Sometimes something happens to the queen, generally the bees raise a new one and it isn’t. This shows you what it looks like if things go wrong and they don’t raise a queen. This is a queenless colony that is dwindling. Kirk shows the frames, bees, and gives options for dealing with a queenless hive! […]
Splitting a Colony with Queen Cells present – Follow up
When we make a split we try to use the natural biology to our favor. We did this by moving the old queen into a new box so she thinks she has swarmed and will stay. The original colony went through the queen rearing process as if they had swarmed. We split this particular colony […]
Fall crowding in bee hives.
It is fall, we’re harvesting honey, pulling honey supers, and taking our bees back down to 2 deep 10 frame boxes. We want them dense and full going into winter. In the spring overcrowding is a problem, if the bees don’t have room they may decide to swarm. In the fall, overcrowding isn’t as bad. […]
Spring Lottery for Honeybees
The spring time dance of bees, they survived the winter but what influences spring survival and success. I’m writing this April 12, 2022. We had a week of 70 degree days, today it is snowing and 22. I’m writing this from my perspective and experience of keeping bees in Southern and South Eastern Idaho. Our […]
This is what robbing looks like!
Here is a hive in the process of being robbed by strong colonies. You can see the fighting and the frenzy. What to do? Keep strong colonies, if you catch it you can put a sprinkler on top to discourage bees from coming in. Robbing screens and reducing the entrance can help. On this hive […]
Is robbing going to be a problem for my bees?
If there is limited nectar available, bees can start robbing other colonies! Here is some information about how/why bees rob other hives and how you can help prevent it! Don’t feed outside the hive in the summer/fall!!! Top feed or us a division board feeder if you are feeding during a nectar dearth. Summer is […]
June 22 Hive Check 1st Year Package
This week we see hives full of bees but they are not yet putting a lot away in the honey supers we added last week. The top deep box is full of bees, brood in almost every available cell, the population is really taking off! If we get a nectar flow they have the population […]
Tips for Starting a New Colony
Keys for success with your new package! (Based on the mistakes we see new beekeepers make!) Feed, feed and more feed! New colonies have a lot of work to do and the more resources they have in the form of food, the quicker and more efficiently they can get it done. Don’t worry, about making […]
Making Splits with Overwintered Hives
If you have a strong colony that made it through the winter, splitting in the spring is a possibility! You want to split during the time of year that colonies are naturally looking to swarm. The biology is that by taking the old queen and moving her to a new hive gives the hive the […]
Hive is struggling to grow and produce, and has a bad attitude.
This short clip walks through one of the common causes of a hive that fails to grow and seems extra crank.y! Also note, it was only the one hive that seemed to be bothered by the skunk. The colony was also short pollen which limits the ability to raise brood. This hive check was preformed […]
Fall Varroa Mite Discussion
Varroa is enemy number one! Kirk discusses the what, why, and when of our successful mite treatment program!
Getting a deadout ready for new bees
So, you’ve gone out to check your hive in the spring and discovered they didn’t make it. What do you do now? The beeswax and honey stores in a deaddout can be a wonderful resource for a new package of bees. If it is a winter dead out and there was no sign of brood […]
Top Bar Hive Inspection 1 Week After Hiving Package
This package went into a colony with established comb so we didn’t have to remove or repair comb, they are already building straight. Have fun, we had trouble finding evidence of a queen, but we finally did find it! This is a week after hiving.
June 4th New Package Hive Check
1st year package hived on April 24 and 25 2021. We will be getting ready for honey supers in these hives. First big nectar flow is starting in our area, bees are just hitting exponential growth. These packages went into hives with drawn comb, if your bees are in new hives or in a colder […]
May 11, 2021 Hive Check
This past week things are really starting to take off, It has been warm enough that bees have been out and busy. Dandelions are in full bloom, the fruit trees are blooming as well. some of the mustard in our cover crops on the farm is blooming as well. This next week some of the […]
August 1st Hive Inspection, Getting Ready for Winter!
It is still pushing 100 degrees during the day here in Twin Falls, Kirk walks through a hive inspection and what we should be seeing and doing this time of year! 2 Part video.
May 14 2022 New Package Hive Check
It’s been 2 weeks since we hived these packages! Here are a couple videos to give you an idea about what we are seeing and what bees should be doing. Recommendations, check hives in the middle of the day when it is warm. You can learn a lot just by watching the entrance! If they […]
Package Bee Hiving Demonstrations
If you want to see how we recommend hiving package bees in Idaho, here are links to our videos!
What is Bearding?
We have experienced some really hot days! You may see something like this and wonder if the are running out of room or just hot. Either way its easy to fix it.
July 27 2021 Overall Conditions in Southern Idaho and What to Do About It.
What a fun year! We have the most honey supers on some of our hives in Twin Falls than any other time in the last 2 decades, yet our hives in Malad Valley aren’t going to produce any surplus honey. We are in a dearth, there has been no rain so non irrigated areas have […]
What to do if you find a supersedure cell
We can’t stress enough that hive inspections should be about looking for evidence of a queen, not about finding the queen. Look for eggs, larvae, and brood. What do you do if you find a supersedure cell? These are typically on the frame in the main brood area. As a general rule we leave them […]
Bearding or Out of Room?
This video shows what bearding looks like. During warm weather bees will often beard on the outside of the hive, especially in the late afternoon. One easy check is if the bees go in at night. If they don’t, then that is a good indication they are out of room. Kirk gives some suggestions on […]
Easy Queen Rearing for Small Apiaries
*Not recommended for 1st year hives* There are lots of ways to raise queens and we’ve tried most of them. This is an easy way to raise and bank a queen for people who only have a few colonies but want to keep a queen on hand just in case. (Keeping a queen on hand […]
Mite Treatment in Hot Weather? July 27 hive inspection
People keep asking what they can do for mites during hot weather. Powdered sugar is really one of your best options! will still need to tackle your fall mite treatment, this won’t save your hive if it is all you do, but it will help! More effective on a screen bottom board. Can be done […]
Mites on drone brood, hive too light for early September.
Checking for mites in drone brood is a great way to get a feel for what is coming as far as mite loads. If you have trouble seeing mites, they show up on the white larvae. Ideal is purple eye stage for seeing mites. This hive also has a lot of brood but is going […]
Getting Bees Ready for Fall To Do List
Kirk walks through the biology of what is going on in the fall and what will need to be done in the next few weeks to get bees ready for winter!
Why don’t we recommend insulating hives in Southern Idaho?
Why don’t you insulate your hives? If the hive is strong, has low mites, health bees and plenty of food, it’s a non-issue. Insulation works by resisting heat flow. It also works both ways it can prevent a hive from warming naturally on a warm day. The ebb and flow of daytime and nigh time […]
What to do about a queenless hive
What do you do when you don’t see evidence of a queen in your hive? Whether you smashed her during an inspection or something just happened to her, what are your options? This is a new package that ended up queenless as evidenced by no larvae or brood. Kirk walks through options, and decides to […]
July 21 Hive Check
Checking on the hives started on Bee day the end of April.
Why didn’t my bees make it through the winter?
This is a question we are asked multiple times in the spring. As a result, I have had the opportunity to not only observe my own hives, but to also look at a lot of hives belonging to other beekeepers confused and saddened by what they think is the sudden loss of their bees. Was […]
Package Bees 2 Days after Hiving
We hived packages on our bee day 2 days ago. Going in to see if queen has been let out of her cage and how they are doing. It has been cold and rainy here with intermittent moments of sunshine.
Why did my bees die this winter?
This is a great video showing very common causes of bees not making it through the winter in southern Idaho. Many people think that starvation, lack of insulation, or moisture in the hive are the main causes. Kirk shows you that these are usually symptoms of a bigger problem, varroa mites. He walks you through […]
January 2022 in the Bee Yard
Hi fellow bee enthusiasts, I haven’t posted too much this winter, when its this cold you should be leaving them alone. I know its hard! I do expect winter losses to be high. A warm Oct, Nov and December is hard on overwintering bees, allows lots of mite migration. In the past this type of […]
Should I treat a new package of honey bees with Oxalic Acid?
Should I treat my package Bees with Oxalic acid? Short answer is we don’t recommend it. Now for the lists of pros and cons. First off, O.A. is a great mite treatment when no brood is present. (we like it as a late season treatment) We also know that it is important to start with […]
Our 10 year old explains swarms
Our 10 year old spotted a swarm in a tree and he tells a little about it and how to capture on in this video! We don’t show the actual capture in this video, to be honest this one didn’t go as smoothly as most. A swarm high in a tree over a stream as […]
Varroa Mite Check in Drone Brood
Checking drone brood is a great way to get a handle on what the mite load is on your hive.
Overwintered Hive, Do I Super or Split?
The million dollar question! If we don’t need the bees for a split we tend to choose supering for honey production when they have the workforce to take advantage of nectar flows. If we find that the colony has run out of room and already decided to start the swarming process (swarm cells in use […]
June 15, 2022 Hive Check
Hive check on new packages hived on Bee Day this year. They went into boxes with drawn comb. Nectar flows are on so they aren’t taking sugar water. Some are ready for honey supers! Kirk walks you through hive checks on 4 colonies. Some patchy brood due to the cold rainy weather we’ve had. He […]
Options for Getting a Honey Bee Hive Started This Spring
With spring around the corner, a question we are often asked is, “What is the best way to start a hive?” Most hives will be started in one of 3 ways: A Package, A Nuc (nucleus hive), or a swarm. Here are some of the pros and cons of each, and some information about what […]
Some favorite late July blooming plants !
Two plants that bloom in late July and really help the bees out,. Nectar and pollen flows can really vary depending on the moisture received.
Do my bees have enough food for winter?
Checking hives for weight, this hive is not heavy enough. We just pulled 2 supers full of honey off this hive, so lets see what is going on! A couple of things we see. There is lots of brood, no pollen stores, bees are just starting to back fill. This colony lost their queen mid […]
Plant Now to Feed Bees for the Whole Year!
That’s right, it’s time to plant your bee food. This week at Tubbs Berry Farm we are currently frost seeding cover crops, and adding more bee friendly plants to our pastures and waste areas. Frost seeding is broadcasting seed and allowing the natural freeze thaw action work the seeds into the soil. The spring snowmelt […]
Pulling Honey Frames for Extracting
So, the bees have done well and it is time to harvest honey! How do you get the bees out of the honey supers so you can extract them? Bee escapes work great if you plan ahead, there are several different options, they essentially create a one way door so that the bees can exit […]
Is it time to add another box to your hive?
Our general rule is that you add another box when the colony is covering 60-80 percent of the frames in a box. (Kirk says 80-90 in the video but don’t let them get that crowded if you can avoid it). This is a new package started 21 days ago in drawn comb from a deadout. […]
Top Bar Hive Check Feb 18, 2022
Our daughter’s top bar hive is still alive! Good information on what is going on in all hives this time of year!
Checking Hived Packages
HI everyone, For us its been a cold windy couple of days. here is some footage of the first hive checks, These are the very hives that were hived as part of the demonstrations. Sorry for the wind noise in the clips. Key steps for new hives is providing food in the form of sugar […]
July Varroa Mite Check with a Screen Bottom Board
July is a good time to start watching for mites in new colonies. This is a quick way to see what is going on and can give you a heads up if you need to do more in depth hive sampling. We will periodically put the trays in during the summer just to get a […]
Overwintered Bees Hive Check March 26, 2022
Hooray! The bees made it through the winter, now what! When should I start feeding them, should I feed them, how long should I feed them, what should I feed them? Spring weather is unpredictable in the spring, so the answer to that question is based on what the weather is doing. If it is […]
Daniel’s May 19 hive check
Daniel (age 5) started his first hive this year, he is getting to do his first big check since hiving his package. He is proud of the desert camo pattern he painted his boxes. This package went into drawn comb on April 24. We see good brood pattern, population is getting ready to grow exponentially, […]
Honey Flow and Nectar Dearth in June and July
What is going on as far as nectar flow in the area and what does it mean for honey bee colonies. Should you be adding honey supers or feeding them? Depends on where you are and what is blooming. Here is some information to help you interpret the nectar flow in your area!
May 19 2021 Hive Check
Here is the hive check on the package bees we hived on April 23 and 24. We will also walk you through how we do a hive inspection, what we are looking for, and what is happening season wise as it relates to these 4 colonies. Hive check part 1 https://youtu.be/ymvNAPLnOzc Hive check part […]
Last week of October 2021
Here is a look at what is happening! We are having an abnormally warm October, this isn’t great for the bees!
July 7th Hive Check
Quick check of first year hives that were started on bee day. We are currently dealing with hot weather and are starting to experience a nectar dearth. in our area because there hasn’t been a lot of rain and natural bloom. This generally happens each summer when the heat really hits. Depending on your location, […]
Available in our farm store!
Grown and ground here at Tubbs Berry Farm from our own gourmet garlic
If you’re looking for a great locally made in Idaho gift then you might want to pick up some of our gourmet garlic salt or powder. You’ll probably want some for yourself as well.
Announcing: Volunteer Opportunities!
People have asked if they can come help on the farm, we’re putting together a few opportunities you can do just that! Whether you want to come out for a little peace and quiet, or to visit and work with some new people, we’ve got an activity for that! Join us here at Tubbs Berry Farm to get your hands in the soil, maybe learn a little something and have a little fun on the farm!
Saturday July 5 6-9 pm Garlic Harvest! No cost to attend, family friendly (kids under 14 must be accompanied by an adult).
Upick raspberries generally available September through 1st frost.
Raspberries: Generally come on the end of August or first part of September. Plan on picking during our Pumpkin Patch hours this fall! Our red berries are large and flavorful, freeze and jam well. U-Pick raspberries are $3.79/lb + tax.
Blackberries: Generally come on the end of August. No Blackberries for 2025. Large and flavorful berries. Blackberries don’t get sweet until just before they fall off the cane. The flavor is amazing but they don’t keep very long. If you have never had a ripe blackberry you don’t know what you are missing! U-Pick blackberries are $4.49/lb
Raspberry Picking will be open during our Pumpkin Patch
this fall!