La Center Gardens and Family Farm and neighboring Smart Bee Pollination have complemented each other perfectly over the years, but that’s not without its challenges.
For John Parsons, owner of La Center Gardens and Family Farm, a lack of volunteers for weeding, cleaning the garden beds and more farm chores makes the operation difficult at times. But for the health of Parsons’ flowering plants on his property, no volunteers are needed as masses of honeybees fly a short distance across the property line.
Smart Bee Pollination owner Viktor Plyushchev loves the partnership with Parsons as the La Center Gardens farmstand serves as a main location for Plyushchev’s honey product sales. But his bees pollinating plants within a 3-mile radius is not without its challenges/
Over the last year, Plyushchev experienced an 80% loss with his bee colonies, with varroa mites present, but Plyushchev believes there may be more to it.
“Just the weather changes; that plays a big role as well,” he said. “I mean, our winters are so, so mild, you know. They don’t allow the bees to go dormant like they should.”
Over the mild winter, Plyushchev said the bees leave the box but don’t return as they seek to forage. In previous years, Plyushchev shipped his bees to California in January, but this year he is moving that up to November.
To recoup after an 80% loss, Plyushchev said he had to work 10 times harder to build back his numbers over the summer. But Parsons’ flowers have continued to play a huge role in the bee-to-farm partnership.
Cloudy days this summer have actually been amazing for the partnership. The temperature not consistently in the 90-degree range has been a blessing.
“This season was probably one of the better ones as far as the summer goes temperature-wise,” Parsons said, adding that cloudy days made it to where nectar didn’t dry up on the flowers, which in turn helps Plyushchev’s bees.
Plyushchev will be sending his bees south to California in November, as meteorological fall is upon us now, so his bees won’t be without food to forage.
“We’ll keep going until the first frost,” Parsons said, adding that it is usually at the end of October. “That’ll take care of most of the annuals and things that we have blooming. We kind of slow down in November, December, and then I have to dig everything up. Pumpkins, flowers, eggs, you know, we have things year-round here, and so we never really slow down, just our line of work changes.”
Plyushchev will begin hive preparation work, which includes substitute pollen and treatment that is needed to get the bees ready for the winter and the long haul south.
La Center Gardens and Family Farm is located at 32110 NE 40th Ave. and can be reached at 360-852-3140 or by email at jtp98629@gmail.com.
Smart Bee Pollination can be contacted at 360-719-9630 or by email at smartbeepollin@gmail.com. Their products can be found at La Center Gardens’ farmstand or online at smartbeeco.com.
