Welcome to the Kalamazoo Bee Club
We provide beekeeping education, support, and bee-related services to the greater Kalamazoo area. We’re an open club—anyone can be a member; no membership fee or dues are collected. We provide education through monthly programs, field days in season at the club apiaries, and our annual Bee School.
While it is less-than-fun working bees in the extreme heat, now is when mites can really gain a foothold. We recommend monitoring, and guidance from these two resource-rich sites:
www.honeybeehealthcoalition.org/varroa
Please (temporarily) set down your hive tool (where you can find it) and join us for a some upcoming events:
PIZZA (!!!!) — and bees! Our July Apiary Day is July 20, from 9:30 – 12:30 to try and beat the heat, with pizza to follow. This month’s is at the Delano Homestead location; further info under the Events tab.
Kalamazoo Valley Museum is all about pollinators this summer, and Bee Club board member Susan Rice is speaking at the Sunday Series on July 28 on Plants for Pollinators. Susan is an MSU-certified Pollinator Champion; you’ll certainly learn a lot about how you can help with this critical challenge of sufficient forage.
August Monthly Meeting – Wednesday 14th @ 6:30 pm at the Kalamazoo Nature Center. August bees are the VIBs – the Very Important Bees; they’re raising the bees that need to make it through the winter. August is also a very challenging time for the colony – mites, robbing, limited forage, drought, dearth – just to name a few. Charlotte Hubbard will outline practical steps for the next several months to prepare your bees for winter survival. (Having mites below threshold is critical.)
A big thank you to the following organizations, businesses, and individuals for their generous financial support of this year’s Kalamazoo Bee School:
