Beekeepers

We have always worked closely with beekeepers. Bee Alert! started in the early 1970's as a study of the bioenvironmental impacts of coal-fired power plants on prairie and pine forest ecosystems. Three commercial beekeepers (Robert Talcott, Broadus; Timothy Fortner, Ashland; and George Simpson, Forsyth) provided us access to more than 6,000 bee colonies. Bob taught us beekeeping.

Since then, we have worked with hundreds of beekeepers in Montana, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Maryland, Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas. We consult with studies in Croatia and Guatemala.

Beekeepers and Bee Suppliers

We often need bees and bee equipment on short notice. The quality of the bees and equipment are critical. We also need the help of local beekeepers in order to adjust our bee management practices to the weather and floral resources of each area. You can locate beekeepers and businesses via the Internet, in trade journals such as the American Bee Journal, Bee Culture, and the Speedy Bee, and through beekeeping associations and clubs. Many of these are listed by BeeSource.Com at http://beesource.com.

Bee Partners

We have long-term working relationships with some beekeepers and businesses.

• Jim and Rita Jaques, Morgan Honey Company, Hot Springs, Montana. Every May, we go up to Hot Springs and shake out more than a 100 pounds of bees for our research projects. The Jaques rent colonies for pollination in California, Oregon, and Washington, and harvest honey in Montana. Jim's sons attend the University of Montana.
• Danny and Binford Weaver, B Weaver Apiaries, Navasota, TX. We are working together on mating queens in a 1 acre tent in Texas and on ways to provide new technologies to beekeeping. The Weaver's sell queens and packages and harvest honey in Texas and the Dakotas. They have a web page at http://www.beeweaver.com.
• Fred and Ann Rossman, Rossman Apiaries, Incorporated, Moultrie, GA. The Rossmans sell queens, bees, and bee equipment, made mostly from Cyprus. More than once, they have provided us with queens and bees on short notice for our projects in the eastern states. Their web site is at http://www.gabees.com/
• Dick and Rick Molenda, Western Bee, Polson, Montana. Western bee provides the pine woodenware marketed by Dadant & Sons, Inc. Its great having a bee equipment manufacturing company right here in Montana. Dick has provided us with many custom orders, especially frames and boxes for 1/2 frame mating/research nucs (small or nucleus hives). Western Bee can be contacted at http://www.westernbee.com.
• Pat and Russ Heitkam, Heitkams' Honey Bees, Orland, CA. Pat and Russ supply bees and queens.  Pat was one of our first queen suppliers to acknowledge that we were no longer going to have "mite-free" bees and started working on the problem. He is a member of the New World Carnolian Project and has worked with Marla Spivak to produce queens selected for hygienic behavior. He adopted and has encouraged other queen breeders to use the liquid nitrogen fast-freeze assay for hygienic behavior that we developed several years ago.