Seven Hills Honey

Seven Hills Honey Small batch raw artisan honey, never heated or filtered.Each batch of honey is kept pure from each location the bees are located at. Michael Metz-Beekeeper

Urban, basswood, wildflower, clover, alfalfa and buckwheat honeys available. Part of the local foods movement is the ability to track the food on your table directly to a local grower. It is our vision that this page will take that to a new level. This page will allow people to follow us beginning at the stage where our hives are mere stacks of lumber. People can then join us in the journey of ass

embly to painting and placement of the hives, installation of the bees, maintenance and observation of the hives, harvesting of the honey, bottling and packaging of the honey and the production of other bee-products. It will enable people to watch their honey being made, and in the future, allow customers to look back and see what went into their jar of honey or their tube of lip balm. It provides a new appreciation for what goes into each bottle and opportunity for conversations/answers from those making the product and tending to the bees. In addition, times will be updated for opportunities to observe us in action in the hives, and if desired, the opportunity to get hands-on with the bees. This is going to be a learning experience for all involved, as this will be our inaugural year as Langstroth beekeepers. We have a top bar hive at our home for pollination and as a hobby, leaving all of the honey that they produced for the bees to eat through winter. So, get ready to learn all you ever wanted to (and more!) about honeybees and the honey-making process.

Good day....Awaiting an incoming swarm.These girls were sniffing around the empty honey boxes yesterday. Trying to get u...
06/08/2026

Good day....

Awaiting an incoming swarm.

These girls were sniffing around the empty honey boxes yesterday. Trying to get under the tarp. 😡😡 They would love to set up home in pure, fresh honeycomb that has never had brood laid in it.
So this morning I set up the whit and gray boxes. Fully furnished with new frames, older drawn out comb and 3 frames of honey just to make it even more attractive.
Hoping they will come drop in today sometime. I think they came from North Port yard. I went thru that one overwintered hive yesterday and could not find the queen. Lots of bees though and I had several virgin queens that were hatching out as I pulled frames.
So there is a swarm in a tree somewhere around Port today. 🫤 I am pretty confident they will find my box i have set up for them.

Will bee keeping you updated.

As soon as they come I will let them settle in and take them to the Lakeshore location.

Bee seeing you this weekend at Port Farmer's Market! First one of the year!
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Happy Friday to you all.On today's episode of Rescue Bee11 I did my first cutout of the season. Back to Whitefish Bay. D...
05/29/2026

Happy Friday to you all.
On today's episode of Rescue Bee11 I did my first cutout of the season. Back to Whitefish Bay. Down the block from the two previous swarms. Not sure exactly what day they moved in but best guess is 7-10 days. They built quite alot of comb in that time.
It was a pretty easy extraction. It was not drywall but OSB (strand board). Removed the screws and pulled them off. Colony was right there.
Vacuum bees, remove comb, repeat. Replaced panels and plugged up hole from outside.
I placed them right next to Swarm #1. So it will bee like an old family reunion. Once they start chatting and figure out the same beekeeper caught them it might get kinda ugly for me. 🤣
Hoping there will not bee any more cutouts this year. But it is early in season. Time will tell.
Have a great weekend. Bee seeing you!
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Good Day!Free to a good home. Quiet fawn. Requires milk. Doesn't like dogs. It's mama needs to find another yard to keep...
05/28/2026

Good Day!

Free to a good home. Quiet fawn. Requires milk. Doesn't like dogs.
It's mama needs to find another yard to keep her baby. My backyard is far from suitable. 🤣 My boy has never pulled so hard on the leash as he did this time.
If it is the same mama as last couple years she is a mean one. Being charged late at night and being cornered is not fun. 🤣

I don't think this is the one that was spotted(pardon the pun) by the church yesterday as this little one is much smaller.

Bee seeing you!

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Good Day! How about this fantastic weather! Heat with no humidity! Great days for hive work. It's still warm but not un...
05/27/2026

Good Day! How about this fantastic weather! Heat with no humidity!
Great days for hive work. It's still warm but not unbearable.
The hives that I found queenless yesterday, I decided to requeen in a faster way. The hive I split the other day had plenty of queen cells that are really far along. Hoping they hatch in 7 to 10 days. Maybe sooner.
That will allow the hive to hopefully recover faster to produce honey. These were new packages so as of now its about a $300 loss. Hard to say if they can recover losses or not. Lost many workers due to pesticide poisoning.
Those peanut looking things are queen cells. The workers prepare an elongated vertical cell and if the colony plans on swarming the queen will lay an egg in the cell and then the workers jam that cell full of royal jelly. A regular queen egg transforms in to a queen instead of a worker.
Hopefully these will take. If i have overpopulated hives I may steal brood and workers to give these a boost. Unfortunately these hives are at my furthest away hives so time and fuel cost definitely come into play.
This was about 70 minutes driving and total of about 30 min work time.

Bee seeing you!
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Good Evening All!Spent the better part of the day chasing out to hives putting the second honey boxes on them.i think i ...
05/27/2026

Good Evening All!

Spent the better part of the day chasing out to hives putting the second honey boxes on them.i think i placed 42 boxes on about 37 hives. Now not many really immediately needed them but we are to have some really dry weather for the next week. Along with that the hives I went into will have thousands of baby bees hatching out withing 2 weeks so they will need space.

I unfortunately found at least 2 with dead or missing queens so I am having to let them requeen themselves. I took frame of fresh eggs out of the other 2 hives at that yard but that could take up to 2.5 weeks for queens to hatch out. I may steal some queen cells from the hive I split the other day. There was about 10 or more in there. It would give the other hives a much faster boost of recovery.

The other picture of the grass is dead bees. Poisoned bees to bee exact. I have been seeing this alot this year. Not sure what the bees are getting into but it is not good. Angel Tello had bees stumbling out the front of his hive about 2 or 3 weeks ago. These bees were at Fillmore yard. The yard that had missing queens also had pile of dead out front as well..so it was most likely related.
Lastly. Not sure what is going on in Whitefish Bay but I got a call from an owner that has bees in the garage wall. This house is only about 250 address numbers south of the swarm tree house. So maybe 10 to 15 house away maybe?
I will bee taking that on in the next couple days. Not sure which day yet. I have been trying to cut back on doing cut outs. But unfortunately there is few of us who do removals. Doing deconstruction work in the heat in a bee suit has honestly become tougher as I get older. 🤣
Passing the torch has been basically impossible since most people don't want to do it either.
Will figure out which day I will do it probably by tomorrow. I need to get my equipment set up and readied. I am not sure if I even did any last year. I know I passed on quite a few though.
Bee seeing you!🐝

Today, we remember and express our deepest gratitude for the brave men and women who gave everything for our freedom. Fr...
05/25/2026

Today, we remember and express our deepest gratitude for the brave men and women who gave everything for our freedom. Freedom isn't free.

Swarm #2...again..Whitefish Bay. Same place as 10 days ago.
This was yesterday. The day started out with dropping honey boxes on hives and a couple inspections. I found one overwintered hive with a couple swarm cells so I split them up. Queen was located and moved to a new box and then relocated to Saukville yard.
While there is checked on swarm #1. The queen is a beauty! The colony took all the sugar feed in the pail and have already drawn out 3 of the 6 sides of the new frames. Swarms are usually ready to build comb, so I try to give them new frames to draw out.
Just as I was heading to next yard I got a text from the homeowner that I got the swarm from. Ironic. She says I have another swarm in the same tree. Now that is odd. What are the chances? I waited for pics and decided this was best to use vac system to suck them into hive.
The bees were clustered in two spots. Which was odd as well. Hoping there is not 2 queens but I put them in one box. My guess is they went to the outside branch, queen got tired and fell to ground. Then they moved her to the trunk. A couple of neighbor kids came with their moms and watched the whole process. No fear from those kids.
The bees were set up at Lion's Den yard and given a bucket of sugar feed. I will check them in a few days. Hoping they will work out as well.
Some keeper in Whitefish Bay or Fox Point lost two colonies now. That results in lower honey production as the bees don't always work as hard while a queen is being razed and there is a lull in eggs being laid. That period is about 5 weeks til new queen is laying eggs again.
That is all for now.

Bee seeing you.
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Good Morning Port Washington!Last Indoor Winter/Spring Market now until 12 p.m. today. Inventor's Brewpub down at the be...
05/16/2026

Good Morning Port Washington!

Last Indoor Winter/Spring Market now until 12 p.m. today. Inventor's Brewpub down at the bee-autiful Port Washington Marina.

Come on down and stock up on your honey!! There is no market until mid June.

Bee seeing you!!!!
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Swarm #1 for the year.. Whitefish Bay.This sweet little swarm was hanging in a tree at eye level. Easy capture. Snip a ...
05/14/2026

Swarm #1 for the year..

Whitefish Bay.

This sweet little swarm was hanging in a tree at eye level. Easy capture.
Snip a couple small branches off and placed them in the box. I didn't want a bunch flying since it was so late in the day.
Quick trip back to the Saukville yard to set them up. Bucket of sugar feed and home I go.

May bee one of those swarm seasons this year.
Bee seeing you!
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Good Day Everyone.Spent the better part of the day placing honey supers on the hives. I took a load of like 32 supers to...
05/14/2026

Good Day Everyone.

Spent the better part of the day placing honey supers on the hives. I took a load of like 32 supers to all of the furthest west yards. The hives are looking excellent overall. This yard at Fillmore was quite a bit bee-hind. The cold temperatures we have been having slowed the queens way down. When there is not enough bodies in the hice to keep the eggs and brood warm she will slow down or stop laying eggs. All installs were done on April 6th and 7th. It was warmer and the queens quickly started laying. Then about 2 weeks later it got cold again. Which resulted in slow downs at most yards. At times you don't want to give them too much space but I would rather get these boxes on now while it is nice and I have time where I just don't know what 2 weeks out will look like.
I had one overwintered hive in Newburg that was crazy full of bees and preparing to swarm. They had 2 deeps plus a medium super as the brood chamber. It took me about an hour to separate it all. Queen cells all in one box and hopefully the queen in the original hive. I did not find the queen. Quite elusive.
Will need to go back in a few days to make sure she is in the right box.
Gotta go...possible swarm to go get.

Bee seeing you!
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Good afternoon to all.Not bee related but it's always cool to see our Port Washington Fire Department practicing with La...
05/04/2026

Good afternoon to all.

Not bee related but it's always cool to see our Port Washington Fire Department practicing with Ladder 460. Will hate to see this unit disappear in a couple years when the new one comes in.

They are gone now, this was earlier this morning. Just been too busy getting hive work done in this warm weather. The cool temps we had really slowed many hives down, but second deeps are being added so the queens have plenty of comb to lay eggs.

Bee seeing you!!
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Address

136 E Van Buren Street
Port Washington, WI
53074

Telephone

+12625737802

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