HELENA — When you think of Montana you may think of gold mining, but how about liquid gold?
For Nate Gray, bees and their honey are his life, "Without them, we wouldn’t have anything.”
A key part of honeybee protection comes from winter care, especially in Montana where snow and below-zero temperatures are not uncommon.
Gray and his team at Bee Haven Apiary started commercial operations five years ago and have raised their bees to be citizens in two states.
“We only shut our bees down to hibernation for a month and a half then we ship them back to California for them to start building again,” Gray says.
When the bees vacation in California they pollinate blueberries and other Californian crops.
Although winter beekeeping is not a complex process it is a time-consuming one, especially when you work over 1,000 colonies in a year like Bee Haven Apiary.
Gray focuses on mite inspection, giving his bees plenty of food after foraging season is over, and not sealing the bee boxes too tight to prevent condensation.
In addition to Gray’s help, the bees have their own tactics.
"As it starts getting colder the bees are going to start clustering and they are going to move to the top of the hive because that is where the warmth is at in the hive,” Gray says.
Bee Haven has also started another winter technique called mountain camping which ensures the bees will have food if they run out of syrup and will also take all of the humidity out that the bees create.
Through Bee Haven’s winter practices and beekeeping experience, since he was a freshman in high school, Gray believes that the honeybee is a vital species to Montana.
“Without the honeybee pollinating everything we eat and that cattle eat we wouldn’t have anything," Gray says.
Bee Haven sells both their honey and wax products at the Helena Farmer’s Market every Saturday.
