The Columbia Valley Dispatch

Wenatchee, Washington  ·  Vol. I, No. 1  ·  May 2026  ·  modernbees.farm/dispatch

Spring bloom came ten days late this year. The Yakima Valley hit 40°F the week the Gala started opening — and we held the hives on pallets an extra forty-eight hours, waiting for the cold front to break. It did. The blocks set. This is what we saw.

The Gala blocks at Stemilt ran hot this spring — and the seed-set numbers may show it.

Dennis Chidester  ·  Peshastin, WA  ·  Published May 4, 2026

Four weeks ago I pulled 40 colonies off Stemilt's Block 14-B Gala. The final inspection showed an average strength of 8.2 frames — above the 8.0 floor we guarantee on every apple contract. The cold hold on April 9th cost us five hours of foraging time, but the bees made it up the following two days when the weather broke.

Pollen loads came in heavy on both recovery days. I walked the block midmorning and the bees were working the flowers consistently across the entire canopy — not just the sunny corners, not just the edge rows. That kind of uniform coverage doesn't happen by accident: it's a function of colony density, timing, and landing the hives at the right moment in the bloom window. We placed on April 6th, three days before the hold, and the bees had already oriented to the block before the temperature dropped. When the weather opened, they knew exactly where to go.

Disease pressure was clean across the board. Standard Varroa monitoring before placement showed mite loads below our treatment threshold on every pallet. One colony — Pallet 7, Row C — showed signs of early brood stress during the hold and we supplemented with a pollen patty to carry it through. By the time I did the exit inspection, it had rebounded to 7.8 frames: still solid, still earning its place in the count. We file a receipt for every block — frame count, pollen load observation, mite data, supplementation notes — and you can see the full 14-B report at /receipts. Dennis hands the printed version to the field man. The numbers are there if you want them.

Notes from the Field

Stone Fruit

Cherry window opens early in Chelan

The Bing and Rainier blocks in Lake Chelan and Peshastin are tracking ahead of the historical average this year — we're watching for first bloom by the third week of May, which would pull the placement window a full week earlier than 2025. Stone fruit timing is less forgiving than apple: cherries bloom fast, drop fast, and hives placed late miss the window entirely. We're planning to move twelve pallets from Ephrata as soon as the forecast holds above 55°F for three consecutive days. Rainier is the priority — it needs cross-pollination from Bing, and the timing alignment between varieties is everything. We'll post an update when the blocks are placed.

Seed Contracts

First seed contract: Precision Seed, Ephrata

The same hives that worked the Stemilt apple blocks this spring move to carrot and onion seed fields in Ephrata starting late June. Precision Seed runs contract production across the Columbia Basin, and the June-through-August pollination window fits cleanly between spring tree fruit and fall preparation — the bees stay working, the contracts stack, and the mileage is short. Seed crops pay on a different rhythm than orchards: longer in-field time, different forage pressure, but reliable. We're starting with a trial run of eight pallets on carrot this season and expanding to onion if the relationship holds. It's the same operation, two contracts.

Honey

Spring Pour 2026 is ready

We pulled the Spring Pour from the same hives that worked Block 14-B — the same colonies, the same bloom, the same forty-eight-hour cold hold. The honey that came out is light gold with a clean apple blossom finish: not floral-sweet, not cloying, but warm and round in the way the Gala bloom tends to produce. It's limited to what the hives actually made this spring, which means when it's gone, it's gone. No second run, no blending from another source. We jar in small batches and label by block and season. The Spring Pour is available now at /honey.

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