Landowners who host bees get sweet rewards

On a knob of land surrounded by Heart Mountain area farm fields, a few dozen beehives stay busy during the warm months.

Linda Sweet, who owns the land beneath those hives and some of the surrounding ag fields, enjoys letting the small but mighty livestock roam her land.

The bees are the property of Joliet, Montana beekeeper Noah Graber, who repays the Sweets each year with a whole bunch of that fresh, raw honey the bees make while pollinating the fields.

"We get 6 gallons of honey a year, we love it," she said, adding that as much as she will eat, there's still plenty to give away to family and friends. "I'll feed his bees anytime. I'm always happy to see bees on my flowers.

Landowners like the Sweets are a key piece in the world of large scale beekeeping, whereby beekeepers ask for permission to place hives on land where the bees can readily access flowering plants, and generally repay the landowners in some of the honey collected.

Sweet said Graber had gone to them five or six years ago to see if he could put hives on their land, and she jumped at the chance.

"When he contacted us I was more than happy to do it," she said.

The only requirement was that the hives be more than a 2 mile radius away from the next large group of hives. With that established, they were good to go.

Sweet said Graber really likes what is in the surrounding fields for the bees to pollinate, which right now is alfalfa, although the Sweets have also recently put some hay nearby.

"He was ecstatic when we decided to put hay close to them, because they do really well with hay fields," she said.

And at the end of the season, before Graber takes the bees to California to pollinate almond orchards over the cold months, the Sweets receive the, well, sweet rewards of fulfilling their part in the bee business.