Gritty Bees

About Us....

We are located in central Oregon with hives in multiple locations around in Bend, Tumalo & in eastern Oregon.

We are also available for assisting & mentoring with things such as hive checks, mite counts, treatments (if needed), questions etc. There is always something to learn from bees.

And yes, we do sell HONEY!

(above) California almonds are one of the largest crops requiring bee pollination in the US. Every year millions of hives are sent down for the almond bloom. Almonds are considered a winter crop & each year we start loading & sending hives down shortly afterthe new year to set in almonds.

(above) Each spring (after almonds) we need to relive pressure off the hives as their populations become extreme. This is where building nucs comes in. We build our nucs out of our own bulk bees that we shake from our hives, we prefer to have them draw out brand new comb & add a new (current year) commercially bred laying queen. Above photo shows one of our nuc yards as we are building nucs & getting them ready to sell in spring.

We sell hive equipment and woodenware, hive set ups, frames and tools. we have nucs of bees available for sale each spring. We also offer mentoring and hive check assistance.

(above photo) Yes, that's me, with a swarm of bees, no, the bees do not scare me & no,I did not get stung:)

Bees are actually quite docile when thy are in a swarm clustered up like this.

My son, Cal, & I started officially keeping bees in 2016, however I have had a life long love and appreciation for nature, animals, birds, insects, and bees. We are a small local business located here in Central Oregon. We currently have just over 100 hives & hope to continue to expand.

(above) My son, Cal, getting ready to help do mite counts using powder sugar method (2017)

(below) a few of our hives from a couple of years go. We have grown & expanded considerably since then....

(below) We have hives, bees, queens, & equipment available for sale (local only).

(above) My son Cal (several years ago), clearly thrilled about his awesome birthday gift from me.... What 13 year old boy wouldn't want awesome matching bee shirts with his mom!?! Too cool right!? Hahahahha.... Gotta have fun!Crack myself up sometimes....

(above) Honey bees aren't the only ones... We love all types of bees & pollinators. Seems every year our mason bee house (MBH) collection grows....We have several dozen mason & nativebee houses set up for the native bees.