FiddleBee Co. is a honey bee removal and relocation service based in New Braunfels, with primary operations in Bandera County and coverage across multiple counties surrounding San Antonio and South Central Texas.
Because honey bees are vital pollinators, a live-removal beekeeper relocates the colony — bees, comb, and honey — to an apiary rather than treating it as a pest to exterminate. Few Texas removal services can match the family history behind this one. Owners Richard and Karen Helsley are former professional musicians and orchestra directors (hence the fiddle in the name) who built the business around a shared beekeeping passion. Richard represents the sixth generation of Texas beekeepers in a line tracing back to Wilhelm Bruckisch, who brought European bees from Silesia to the Guadalupe River Valley at New Braunfels in 1853 to help pollinate fruit crops. The family has been keeping bees in this same stretch of Guadalupe River country for more than 170 years.
Ag valuation hive leasing
Beyond removals, FiddleBee offers agricultural valuation hive leasing, which can help qualifying non-homestead properties of five to twenty acres in Texas earn an agricultural tax valuation when bees are managed commercially on the land — a popular option for small-acreage owners in the Hill Country.
A member of the Texas Association of Professional Bee Removers. Spring swarm season, roughly March through June, is the busiest stretch for removal calls; when you phone to schedule a visit, describe where the bees are, how high up they are, and how long they have been there.
