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

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

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

We have added a new source for bee package purchasing from local company Great Northern Honey Co! While the bees do not overwinter in Montana, the company is locally based and makes honey from foraging here in Flathead County each year. Nucleus hives are more desirable for brand new beekeepers just starting out to get a jump on our season. However, if you have previous dead out hives full of comb and even some old honey to give them, packages can be a cheaper route. You can find their contact info along with other sources for bee purchasing under our Resources > Bee Purchasing Link.

For help installing Bee Packages, see his video from Bee Built.

Members, I apologize for the late notice but I have to cancel the February meeting tonight due to injuring myself this morning on the ice. I’m unable to walk and in a lot of pain. We will be having a special guest speaker for our March meeting, Amy Grisak. Please check out our website, flatheadvalleybeekeepers.club for links to purchase bees or Getting Started with beekeeping.

Don’t forget we have an in person meeting early because of the short month. Tuesday night the 22nd at the Flathead County Health Department. Angela will be repeating her ”How To Build and set Honey Bee Traps” presentation from last year and we will have a general Q&A. It will be streamed on Facebook. See you there!

We have had a local club member, Rachel Webster, offer to pick up any bee packages from Polson ordered from Western Bee by our Kalispell area members. If you are ordering packages from Western Bee please contact me by email or using the form below and I will get you Rachel’s contact number to coordinate this spring to pick up from her. Thank you so much to Rachel for offering to do this for our club members to save on gas. For those of you taking advantage of her offer, a thank you of contribution to her gas cost or a coffee card would probably be appropriate for her!

Due to the high peak of Covid cases this week in the Flathead, we will not be meeting in person at the health department for January. Angela will be streaming the January To Do’s from the club’s Facebook page page located here. I apologize for having to use Facebook but there is no budget for owning video meeting software like Zoom.

Agenda will be:

1. February To Dos for wintering bees
2. Reminder to order bees and resources for those
3. Reminder of resources page for equipment and books purchasing
4. Announcement of FVCC Beekeeping 101 Class
5. Q&A period watching comments on Facebook feed

Please remember as announced at our last meeting that we are on a break from beekeeping meetings until the last Tuesday in January. Happy Holidays!