New Braunfels beekeeper gets TV show
‘Charlie Bee Company’ is to air on PBS nationwide in spring
NEW BRAUNFELS — Charlie Agar is a beekeeper. He moves honeybee hives to safer locations. He is no stranger to stings and unique workplaces.
And he's coming to a TV screen near you.
“Charlie Bee Company,” a show titled after Agar's business of the same name, will begin airing on Austin PBS, KLRU-TV, starting Saturday. In the spring it will air on public television nationwide.
The New Braunfels-based company generally serves clients along the Interstate 35 corridor from San Antonio to Austin. But for the show, Agar tackles jobs from San Antonio to Louisiana. Each of the eight, hourlong episodes follows Agar on bee-removal duty but also picks the brains of other bee experts.
Although the underlying theme of the show is protecting bees, “we don't deliver a lecture; we have a lot of fun,” Agar said.
“We tell the story with our adventures, and hopefully share that passion for bees,” he said.
Agar started beekeeping as a hobby in 2013 and did his first bee removal for a friend in 2014.
At that point, he was hooked. So he turned pro.
Now, Agar spends his days removing hives from trees, boats and buildings. He rehabilitates dangerous bees so they can be rehomed. He collects honey to sell in New Braunfels.
Many honeybees in hotter Texas climates are Africanized to some degree, Agar said, which can make them more defensive of their hives. When he removes a hive for a customer, he takes it to be rehabilitated at a ranch in the Hill Country.
If a hive proves overly defensive, he purchases a new queen for the hive, which calms the bees down. Eventually the rehabilitated hives end up on various people's land. Agar said he leases out property from people who want to have an agricultural tax exemption.
Each year, Agar harvests between 1,000 and 3,000 pounds of honey from the approximately 150 hives spread across northern Bexar County, all of Comal County, western Guadalupe County and southern Hays County.
Conversations about starting this reality show began in 2017 between Agar and Iniosante Studios CEO Ashley Scott Davison, who is now the showrunner. By 2019, the team had a pilot that went on to win several awards.
They secured a private grant in 2020 and were just about to start filming when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They moved forward with producing the show, but filming took about six months — double the amount of time the team had expected — largely because of pandemic related delays. The pandemic also meant that two of Agar's friends and colleagues who were originally going to be regulars on the show were not, largely out of concern about catching COVID-19.
But the challenges also ended up leading the crew to filming more than they initially set out to, Davison said, leading the program to become a one-hour show rather than 30 minutes as they originally planned.
Though much is dependent on how the show is received when it airs this year and how funding shakes out, Davison and Agar are hoping for a second season that could even include some international travel.
This past summer, the show was aired in Eastern Europe, Russia and Australia. Agar said the show was well-received overseas.
“I want people to be entertained and really get interested in the smaller aspects of life that sometimes we miss,” Davison said.
“I'd love for people to think the next time they see a bee or a beehive, ‘Let's get it removed instead of exterminating it, and instead of swatting this bee, let's leave the bee alone and let her do what she needs to do,' ” he said.
KLRU-TV will air the show Saturdays at 4:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. starting this weekend.