September 27th Meeting – Winterizing
Don’t forget about our in person meeting at 6:30 Tuesday night at the Flathead County Health Department on the second floor. See you there!
August 30th Meeting with State Entomologist
This month our meeting will have a guest speaker! Alyssa Piccolomini, our official bee inspector and state Entomologist, will be here from Helena to talk about bee health. Get some benefit out of the annual dues you pay to the state for her time and efforts helping us with our bees! Please join us at the Flathead County Health Department 1035 1st Ave W (Second Floor) at 6:30 this Tuesday night!
July 26th Meeting for 2022
Don’t forget about our in person meeting at the Flathead County Health Department in Kalispell Tuesday the 26th at 6:30 pm!
Need Volunteer to Lead June 28th Meeting
Angela will be on vacation for the June meeting and she needs someone to be the point person to stream the in-person meeting on Facebook on June 28th from the Health Department. You don’t have to have all the beekeeping answers, just call the meeting to order! And have a smart phone or device to stream it on Facebook. Send her a text or email: 406-871-6551 or [email protected]
May Meeting Tuesday 24th 6:30 pm
Don’t forget our in person meeting at the County Health Department is this coming Tuesday the 24th (NOT May 31st) Bring your questions!
Advanced Beekeeping Course FVCC in June
Angela will be teaching a non-credit course at FVCC this June for advanced beekeeping techniques. Only 20 spots are available for this class and require either any Beginning Beekeeping class completed or one year beekeeping experience. You can register at this link
Description: THIS CLASS MEETS ON TWO DATES June 4 and June 11, from 12:30-3:30pm both days. Learn advanced techniques about beekeeping like splitting, queen rearing, queen grafting, second year beekeeping and much more. On-site inspections and grafting on second class requiring protective personal equipment. Students who complete the course will receive an official Certificate of Completion. Prerequisite: Beginning Beekeeping or at least one year of beekeeping.
April Meeting Tuesday 26th
Don’t forget about our in person meeting at the Flathead County Health Department Tuesday night at 6:30 pm. We will also stream it on the Association Facebook page.
Agenda:
1. Installing packages & Nucs and first month of care
2. Making splits & Queens
3. May meeting will be the FOURTH Tuesday of the month on 5/24 due to a schedule conflict with the meeting site.
Bee Informed Partnership Loss Survey
The BIP Loss survey is up for the 2021-2022 year until April 30th. Please consider taking this survey (at least the short version) to help collect data about our colony losses and the reasons for such. Thanks for contributing!
Take the Survey Here
March 29th Meeting In Person/Zoom
This in-person meeting at the Flathead County Health Department at 6:30pm on March 29th will also be conducted on Zoom as we have a special guest speaker from Great Falls Montana, Amy Grisak, talking to us about her beekeeping experiences including her work with a local Montana honey producer! The author of the Nature Guide to Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks and Found Photos of Yellowstone, author Amy Grisak enjoys sharing what she loves with her readers. This includes anything to do with recreation in Montana, along with gardening and homesteading topics, including beekeeping. She began keeping bees over 25 years ago, and has learned a lot, mostly through mistakes, over the decades. Her books, articles and gardening videos are found on amygrisak.com
Open to anyone to attend even if not in our Flathead Valley! We will also be discussing April To Dos as well as Building Traps for swarms. New or aspiring NW beekeepers welcome as well as your questions! Showing up in person gets you free gently used Beekeeping magazines 🙂
Meeting Info:
Location:
Flathead County Health Department (Second Floor)
1035 1st Ave W #5607, Kalispell, MT 59901
Time:
March 29th 6:30pm
Zoom Link Click Here
Further Information About Great Northern Honey Co Bee Packages
I spoke with Amy at GNHC and have more details to give you about their local bee packages:
- Packages will be at least $150, maybe slightly more depending on the queen cost
- They will be ready for pickup within the first 2 weekends of May, First come first served at pickup
- Taking orders now. Deposit of 50% required in the next few months after final cost decided. Balance due on pickup
- These are their own Montana bees that overwinter in warmer climates and are bursting and ready to make packages after pollinating the Washington apples and cherries.
- 3 pounds of bees with a Russian VSH (Varroa Sensitive Hygiene) queen!
- Russians are very winter and disease hardy
- They are considered the most defensive of the commonly used bee races. Have your suit and smoker ready! 🙂
- They provide instruction on how to make sure the bees accept the purchased queen
- Understand that if you are brand new to beekeeping you will have to feed these packages aggressively with 1:1 syrup to help them build comb from scratch. Providing them a LOT of room as they build up to make sure they don’t swarm. Beekeepers with comb already have a strong advantage with packages.
- Contact Amy at 888-660-0031