Honey on the Whetstone

WAITSBURG – From the Isle of Dominica in the West Indies to a farmhouse along Whetstone Springs outside of Waitsburg, Mark and Eleanora Montgomery have been gardening and beekeeping together for 30 years now. These days, they market organic honey and hardneck garlic, while raising garden crops and flowers for their own enjoyment.

Mark grew up in the Seattle area and his dad raised bees as a hobby. He attended college at WSU where he earned a degree in agricultural economics. After graduation in 1986, he volunteered with the Peace Corps and worked as an extension agent with a beekeeper's cooperative in Dominica. While there, he met and married Eleanora.

The couple moved to the Waitsburg area 18 years ago and purchased their home on Whetstone Springs 12 years ago. Mark said the spring, fed from an artesian well located 180 feet above them in the draw, feeds the house and gardens and was a strong selling point for the property.

In addition to providing a ready source to keep the bees cool in the summer, the running spring water is also much less likely to carry disease than pool or pond water.

Mark works out of the Tri-Cities as a project manager in construction, and Eleanora works as a para educator at the Waitsburg School District. But they still find time to grow an extensive garden and raise bees. The fact that Eleanora has summers off is a help.

The couple grows a large vegetable garden, as well as currants, blackberries, and gooseberries for themselves. They recently began growing eight varieties of hardneck garlic for themselves, friends, and to market. Eleanora is especially proud of her flower gardens and grows over 38 varieties of heirloom and modern irises in the creek beds near the house.

The Montgomery's hand-harvested Whetstone Spring Honey is a local favorite and is sold in Dayton at the Blue Mountain Station Artisan Market, as long as they can keep it stocked. Mark said they normally run out in November or December.

"Our honey is taken off the colony by hand and is untreated, raw, and unstrained," he said.

Mark said the biggest threat to honeybees is mites and he takes several precautions to protect their bees, even though he doesn't use miticides or antibiotics of any kind.

The Montgomery's raise Russian Honeybees from the Primorsky region in Russia, as opposed to the more commonly raised Italian honeybee. Mark said the Russian bees have been exposed to the parasitic mites that currently cause so much damage to commercial operations for over 200 years. They have developed hygienic grooming habits and are naturally aggressive to mites.

To prevent infestation and infections from other hives, the Montgomery's raise their own queens and only multiply from their own stock, as opposed to buying packages or queens from others.

They also keep their hives separated as far as possible. Wheareas most commercial operations house four hives to a pallet, the Montgomery's separate each hive to prevent bees from "drifting" to other hives.

"If one gets infected, we will just lose the one hive, without risking the others," Mark said.

His colorful green and orange hives are part of the anti-drifting protection as well. Mark said each hive is a different color combination. The bees key in on their hive and don't stray.

The Russian bees are also hardier than Italian bees in surviving tough winters.

"The average commercial operation can lose 40-50% of their hives in a hard winter. I may lose one or two, and then only because I took too much honey," Mark said.

One of the challenges of beekeeping is having enough space, especially when the Montgomery's prefer to keep each hive separate. They have hives near the house, and another set located two miles away on a friend's property. Mark said each hive will house 20,000 bees during peak season, and they currently have 22 colonies.

Mark said they keep the hives close to the house because that's where they are least likely to get hit with the fungicide dropped by crop dusters onto the wheat field that sits next to their property.

As Mark demonstrated the process of checking a hive he explained how smoke calms the bees.

"In the wild, when there is a wildfire, the bees react by quickly gorging themselves with honey so that they can take enough with them to evacuate and start a new hive. When they're filled with honey, they can't bend enough to sting you. The smoke also makes their defensive tendencies go way down," he said.

The Montgomery's said people enjoy being able to buy local honey that is treatment free. They use glass jars, as opposed to much cheaper plastic packaging so that customers can easily liquefy crystallized honey without worry of leaching plastic.

"It's a lot of work but we enjoy it. The money we make supports the hobby," Eleanora said.

She said their son, Mark Montgomery Jr., has used beekeeping as an FFA project and that they have used money from honey sales to help offset FFA expenses.

"It's a great hobby. It's fun, it's therapeutic, and it's relaxing," Mark said.