Bees Making Their Way Back to Lake County

The old saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers.” And while it’s true that flowers need their water, what is often forgotten in that mix is the humble honey bee. 

As temperatures rise and the flowers start blooming, bees are making their way out of their hives and onto the blossoms. This also means that the apiaries in the area are bringing their bees back for another productive year pollinating flowers and other plants in the Mission Valley. 

Arlee Apiaries, located on the west side of Arlee, began its bee season just a couple short weeks ago when they brought back their bees from California after a season of pollinating almond trees. 

Keegan Fluke helps his father Bill run Arlee Apiaries. He’s been doing it since he was 12, making this his thirteenth year at this business. 

Fluke’s favorite season is spring, when growing the hives and helping prevent disease are at the top of his priority list. This means that Fluke and his beekeepers are working with their hands in the hives, spraying chemicals to help control mites and disease. But Fluke is especially fond of helping the hives grow. 

“This time of year, the natural bee cycle is to swarm,” Fluke said. “So we’re manipulating them so they don’t swarm.” 

The way it works is simple and interesting. The bees begin swarming, meaning they prepare a portion of the group to leave the hive and establish a new hive in a different location. To prevent the swarm and manage the growth of the bee population, Fluke removes portions of the hive and the brood, or the youngest stages of the bee’s life-cycle, and moves them into another bee box. He also removes many bees from the group, making it seem as though the colony is smaller than it is. After removing the portions and part of the population, Fluke can easily manage his hives and ensures that the bee’s population keeps growing and within the control of his beekeepers. 

But it’s still a business and isn’t all fun and games. Aside from spraying and hive control, spring-time work also consists of transporting hives around the area to help pollinate and gather honey.  

Fluke has around 600 hives in the Flathead Lake area alone, with most of them in the Blue Bay and Yellow Bay areas. This means that many of the Flathead cherries that are enjoyed throughout the valley were made possible by Fluke’s bees. 

As the year goes on, the hives will be transported to plots of land in the Mission Valley and beyond that Arlee Apiaries leases from the land owners. When September hits, Fluke will be out to all of those locations to gather up his hives and bring them back to Arlee and gather up the wax and honey. 

Around November, the bees will be boxed up and put together in a large, temperature and light controlled building to keep them in a hibernating state. Then around January 1, the bees are packed up and shipped back to California where they will start their pollinating season all over again.