• Home
  • popular
  • Events
  • Submit New Event
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • News
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Home + Design
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • Innovation
  • Sports
  • Charity Guide
  • children
  • education
  • health
  • veterans
  • SOCIAL SERVICES
  • ARTS + CULTURE
  • animals
  • lgbtq
  • New Charity
  • Series
  • Delivery Limited
  • DTX Giveaway 2012
  • DTX Ski Magic
  • dtx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Your Home in the Sky
  • DTX Best of 2013
  • DTX Trailblazers
  • Tastemakers Dallas 2017
  • Healthy Perspectives
  • Neighborhood Eats 2015
  • The Art of Making Whiskey
  • DTX International Film Festival
  • DTX Tatum Brown
  • Tastemaker Awards 2016 Dallas
  • DTX McCurley 2014
  • DTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • DTX Beyond presents Party Perfect
  • DTX Texas Health Resources
  • DART 2018
  • Alexan Central
  • State Fair 2018
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Zatar
  • CityLine
  • Vision Veritas
  • Okay to Say
  • Hearts on the Trinity
  • DFW Auto Show 2015
  • Northpark 50
  • Anteks Curated
  • Red Bull Cliff Diving
  • Maggie Louise Confections Dallas
  • Gaia
  • Red Bull Global Rally Cross
  • NorthPark Holiday 2015
  • Ethan's View Dallas
  • DTX City Centre 2013
  • Galleria Dallas
  • Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty Luxury Homes in Dallas Texas
  • DTX Island Time
  • Simpson Property Group SkyHouse
  • DIFFA
  • Lotus Shop
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Dallas
  • Clothes Circuit
  • DTX Tastemakers 2014
  • Elite Dental
  • Elan City Lights
  • Dallas Charity Guide
  • DTX Music Scene 2013
  • One Arts Party at the Plaza
  • J.R. Ewing
  • AMLI Design District Vibrant Living
  • Crest at Oak Park
  • Braun Enterprises Dallas
  • NorthPark
  • Victory Park
  • DTX Common Desk
  • DTX Osborne Advisors
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • DFW Showcase Tour of Homes
  • DTX Neighborhood Eats
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • DTX Auto Awards
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2017
  • Nasher Store
  • Guardian of The Glenlivet
  • Zyn22
  • Dallas Rx
  • Yellow Rose Gala
  • Opendoor
  • DTX Sun and Ski
  • Crow Collection
  • DTX Tastes of the Season
  • Skye of Turtle Creek Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival
  • DTX Charity Challenge
  • DTX Culture Motive
  • DTX Good Eats 2012
  • DTX_15Winks
  • St. Bernard Sports
  • Jose
  • DTX SMU 2014
  • DTX Up to Speed
  • st bernard
  • Ardan West Village
  • DTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Taste the Difference
  • Parktoberfest 2016
  • Bob's Steak and Chop House
  • DTX Smart Luxury
  • DTX Earth Day
  • DTX_Gaylord_Promoted_Series
  • IIDA Lavish
  • Huffhines Art Trails 2017
  • Red Bull Flying Bach Dallas
  • Y+A Real Estate
  • Beauty Basics
  • DTX Pet of the Week
  • Long Cove
  • Charity Challenge 2014
  • Legacy West
  • Wildflower
  • Stillwater Capital
  • Tulum
  • DTX Texas Traveler
  • Dallas DART
  • Soldiers' Angels
  • Alexan Riveredge
  • Ebby Halliday Realtors
  • Zephyr Gin
  • Sixty Five Hundred Scene
  • Christy Berry
  • Entertainment Destination
  • Dallas Art Fair 2015
  • St. Bernard Sports Duck Head
  • Jameson DTX
  • Alara Uptown Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival fall 2017
  • DTX Tastemakers 2015
  • Cottonwood Arts Festival
  • The Taylor
  • Decks in the Park
  • Alexan Henderson
  • Gallery at Turtle Creek
  • Omni Hotel DTX
  • Red on the Runway
  • Whole Foods Dallas 2018
  • Artizone Essential Eats
  • Galleria Dallas Runway Revue
  • State Fair 2016 Promoted
  • Trigger's Toys Ultimate Cocktail Experience
  • Dean's Texas Cuisine
  • Real Weddings Dallas
  • Real Housewives of Dallas
  • Jan Barboglio
  • Wildflower Arts and Music Festival
  • Hearts for Hounds
  • Okay to Say Dallas
  • Indochino Dallas
  • Old Forester Dallas
  • Dallas Apartment Locators
  • Dallas Summer Musicals
  • PSW Real Estate Dallas
  • Paintzen
  • DTX Dave Perry-Miller
  • DTX Reliant
  • Get in the Spirit
  • Bachendorf's
  • Holiday Wonder
  • Village on the Parkway
  • City Lifestyle
  • opportunity knox villa-o restaurant
  • Nasher Summer Sale
  • Simpson Property Group
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2017 Dallas
  • Carlisle & Vine
  • DTX New Beginnings
  • Get in the Game
  • Red Bull Air Race
  • Dallas DanceFest
  • 2015 Dallas Stylemaker
  • Youth With Faces
  • Energy Ogre
  • DTX Renewable You
  • Galleria Dallas Decadence
  • Bella MD
  • Tractorbeam
  • Young Texans Against Cancer
  • Fresh Start Dallas
  • Dallas Farmers Market
  • Soldier's Angels Dallas
  • Shipt
  • Elite Dental
  • Texas Restaurant Association 2017
  • State Fair 2017
  • Scottish Rite
  • Brooklyn Brewery
  • DTX_Stylemakers
  • Alexan Crossings
  • Ascent Victory Park
  • Top Texans Under 30 Dallas
  • Discover Downtown Dallas
  • San Luis Resort Dallas
  • Greystar The Collection
  • FIG Finale
  • Greystar M Line Tower
  • Lincoln Motor Company
  • The Shelby
  • Jonathan Goldwater Events
  • Windrose Tower
  • Gift Guide 2016
  • State Fair of Texas 2016
  • Choctaw Dallas
  • TodayTix Dallas promoted
  • Whole Foods
  • Unbranded 2014
  • Frisco Square
  • Unbranded 2016
  • Circuit of the Americas 2018
  • The Katy
  • Snap Kitchen
  • Partners Card
  • Omni Hotels Dallas
  • Landmark on Lovers
  • Harwood Herd
  • Galveston.com Dallas
  • Holiday Happenings Dallas 2018
  • TenantBase
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2018
  • Hawkins-Welwood Homes
  • The Inner Circle Dallas
  • Eating in Season Dallas
  • ATTPAC Behind the Curtain
  • TodayTix Dallas
  • The Alexan
  • Toyota Music Factory
  • Nosh Box Eatery
  • Wildflower 2018
  • Society Style Dallas 2018
  • Texas Scottish Rite Hospital 2018
  • 5 Mockingbird
  • 4110 Fairmount
  • Visit Taos
  • Allegro Addison
  • Dallas Tastemakers 2018
  • The Village apartments
  • City of Burleson Dallas

    The Farmer Diaries

    North Texas farmer pleads the case for native bees

    Marshall Hinsley
    Jun 9, 2013 | 6:00 am

    Honestly, I grow slightly perturbed whenever anyone goes on and on about honeybees. They have been in the news a lot lately. Maybe you've seen the alarmed reports about the honeybee's declining population, colony collapse disorder and the mysteries surrounding their demise.

     

    But, for me, the honeybee is just part of the story, a mere scratching of the surface of the world of pollinators.

     

    My experience with honeybees goes back to when I started a hive at age 13. I learned everything I needed to get started from the book, First Lessons in Beekeeping, copyright 1917 by C.P. Dadant, checked out from Sims Library in Waxahachie.

     

     

      As a farmer, I consider how I can make sure our native bees stick around and pollinate our crops, especially if our imported honeybees do eventually die out.

     
     

    My aunt Doris Jean was with my mother and me when we returned the book on its due date. She was so impressed with my enthusiasm about bees, she gave me $50 toward whatever I needed to become a beekeeper.

     

    So I bought a hive, and the bees thrived. But after the first year, I could not bring myself to take the honey my bees had worked so hard to store. Drunk with honey, they flourished so much that, before I could divide the expanding hive into smaller hives, they split for better digs elsewhere. I ultimately failed because they had so thoroughly succeeded. By that time, almost two years had passed; two years of work had flown away.

     

    But the experience was not a total loss. I learned a lot. Most important among my lessons was that honeybees, despite all the feelings we have for them being "natural," are not natural to North America. They are imports from Europe, brought by the early colonists. To continue to make it in this new land, honeybees need occasional help in the form of antibiotics. To me, this was not a sustainable practice.

     

     Solitary bees
    Years later, I became acquainted with North America's humble native bees. Known as solitary bees because they don't form hives, our native bees are far more abundant pollinators than the imported European honeybee, and they do just fine without our pharmaceuticals.

     

    As a purist, I've become intrigued by solitary bees. And as a farmer, I consider how I can make sure our native bees stick around and pollinate our crops, especially if our imported bees do eventually die out.

     

    Étienne Normandin, an entomologist whose blog is devoted to all things insect, has spent a great portion of his career researching native bees.

     

    "People know about the honeybee, they know about the bumblebee, and that's pretty much it," Normandin says. "But hundreds of types of native bees are pollinating the majority of the plants in nature."

     
     

      Entomologist Étienne Normandin says not all flowers and crops do well by the honeybee. "Hundreds of types of native bees are pollinating the majority of the plants in nature," he says.

     
     

    Normandin says that, if the imported honeybee should disappear, we could still rely on our native bees for pollination. However, he warns that, "If the native bees should disappear, the whole ecosystem would collapse."

     

    Furthermore, not all flowers and crops do well by the honeybee. "For example, with the apple tree, the best pollination occurs with a combination of honeybees and native bees," he says. "But some are specifically suited for native bees, such as cranberries, blueberries and strawberries."

     

    Some crops even have specialized bees. "You have very specialized bees such as the squash bee, and they're very good at what they do: They pollinate squash," Normandin says.

     

    "Honeybees are not good pollinators of squash or pumpkin flowers. Honeybees are attracted to the color and can visit the flower. But the squash bees are the best pollinators for these crops."

     

    According to Normandin, many farmers and gardeners wrongly believe that honeybees are the ultimate aid in crop pollination, with little consideration for our native bees. That includes mowing or tilling the grassland around orchards and fields, which eradicates their habitat.

     

    "Seventy percent of native bee species are ground-nesting bees," he says. "When we turn the soil around, we destroy their nests. Native bees are vulnerable to fragmentation of their habitat from mowing, construction or any activity that disturbs the soil and reduces the resources available to them."

     

    One of the main threats to native bees is the new class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, neonics for short, which infuse every cell of the plants to which they're applied and can compromise the bee's immune system. Native bees have evolved over millions of years to deal with the parasites and viruses that can infect them. When these insecticides contaminate the bees, though, they die from otherwise mild illnesses.

     

    One other notable difference with native bees: They're less aggressive and therefore less likely to sting.

     

     A native bee how-to
    Normandin offers tips on how to increase native bees around the farm or garden and ensure that our crops have adequate pollination:

     
       
    • Don’t use insecticides — ever! We can't expect to spray insecticides and kill only the bad bugs. All are affected one way or another.
    •  
    • Let some land go wild. Mowing disturbs native bee habitat and reduces their nectar source.
    •  
    • Don't till the soil beyond what's needed for crop plants.
    •  
    • Plant a large diversity of flowering, native plants and make sure something is in bloom at all times. The smaller the flower, the better, because many native bees are small and need tiny flowers.
    •  
     

    Following his recommendation, I made a home for cavity-nesting native bees that usually lay their eggs in holes left by wood-boring insects in dead trees. I drilled 5/16-inch holes in a log, as deep as the drill bit but not deep enough to go through to the other side of the log.

     

    I spaced the holes at least an inch apart and filled up the log with as many holes as I could fit. My intent was to re-create a sort of dead tree limb full of bore holes. I attached it to a tree limb about six feet up from the ground.

     

    Normandin assured me that native bees will eventually fill the holes with chambers of offspring and plug the holes with a cap by fall. A new generation of bees will emerge the following spring, and they'll fill even more holes. During the time they fill the holes with bee brood, native bees visit flower after flower to gather nectar, thereby pollinating flowers far and wide.

     

    I felt like Normandin understood my misgivings about how much attention the honeybees get — hailed as the end-all, be-all of pollinators. Because their hives are mobile, honeybees can be trucked into orchards and farms when crops need pollination, then trucked out after they've done their job. Farmers pause their insecticidal practices just long enough to let the honeybees in and out. Native bees in the area don't stand a chance.

     

    I see our use of honeybees as a cog in the wheel of industrialized agriculture; its demise is a symptom of our food system's unsustainability. That's the real story about colony collapse disorder. It's not just the honeybee that deserves our attention. It's the whole ecosystem.

    Native North American solitary bees resemble their European cousins, the honeybees, but are often hairier.

      
    Photo by Étienne Normandin
    Native North American solitary bees resemble their European cousins, the honeybees, but are often hairier.
    unspecified
    news/restaurants-bars

    Taco News

    Family taqueria nabs Thunderbird Station space in Dallas' Deep Ellum

    Teresa Gubbins
    Jul 14, 2025 | 4:09 pm
    El Arquito
    El Arquito
    El Arquito

    A Dallas family-owned taqueria chain has opened a location at a historic Deep Ellum address: Taquería El Arquito, known for its trompo tacos and customer-friendly hours, has opened an outlet at 3400 Commerce St., in the space previously occupied by Thunderbird Station, which closed in 2023.

    Taqueria El Arquito opened in late June. It's a family venture from siblings Analí, Nancy, Martha, and Victor Hugo Reza, working with chefs Juan Diego Gutierrez and José Angel Avila, to recreate family recipes — particularly for their tacos de trompo, with a goal to spotlight their Mexican heritage by serving a strictly authentic rendition.

    They keep long hours, opening early at 6 am Monday-Saturday and 7 am on Sunday, spotlighting the key meal: breakfast, with classics like a breakfast taco with eggs and mozzarella cheese on a flour tortilla, with choice of bacon, beans, house-made chorizo, ham, potatoes, or sausage, for $2.89. They also do a breakfast sandwich and breakfast burrito, plus generous $10.39 plates such as migas, huevos rancheros, and chilaquiles.

    They're open for lunch and dinner with their bestselling trompo tacos, plus hefty torta sandwiches, in four "global" varieties that include Milanesa (beef with mozzarella cheese), Cubana (beef, trompo meat, salchicha, ham, American cheese, and mozzarella cheese), and Hawaiian, a clever twist on pastor with trompo meat, ham, and pineapple. Torta prices range from $12 to $14.

    They also have tamales and menudo on weekends, plus horchata, aguas frescas, and churros and elote for dessert.

    “We love to prepare the food with love — we call it magic flavors," Analí says. "We’re known for our tacos but we also have burritos, tortas, burgers, chilaquiles, breakfast, and refreshing agua fresca. Don’t even think about skipping the horchata here."

    They founded the concept — named for the many arcs in their hometown Taxco, Mexico — during the pandemic, opening their first location in a convenience store at 1909 S. Cesar Chavez Blvd. in 2020. They've expanded quickly, opening eight other locations, primarily in gas stations across DFW from Royse City to Dallas to Haltom City to Fort Worth.

    They put themselves on the map after opening a location at The Corner in Preston Center in 2024 — one of the few not located in a gas station.

     El Arquito Former Gulf station at 3400 Commerce St. Courtesy photo 

    The Deep Ellum location is special for a couple of reasons. Like Preston Center, it is not a gas station offshoot but is on its own, and it will be the first in the chain to serve alcohol. They've applied for a license which is pending.

    "We'll have some alcohol two frozen margaritas with a wine base, plus Michelada, Pulque, and three to four beers," Anali says.

    But there's also the synchronicity of the building itself. While it is not a restaurant-in-a-gas-station like most of their other locations, the building itself is a former gas station, and one with a venerable history: the former Gulf station at the corner of Canton Street that was built in 1957, and operated for decades as Riegel's Gulf Service. In a neighborhood being mowed down by developers, it's an exemplary example of preserving the heritage via re-use. The space boasts indoor seating and comes with an expansive outdoor patio.

    tacosopenings
    news/restaurants-bars
    CULTUREMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME
    Get Dallas intel delivered daily.
    Loading...