Foothills Learning Center (FLC)
3188 Sunset Peak Rd, Boise, ID 83702
The FLC provides space for our club to maintain several hives for hands-on demonstrations of beekeeping in the Treasure Valley. We try to meet once a month on the fourth Saturday of each month following our club meeting. You can check out the monthly goings below.
If you plan to attend a hands-on session, be sure to bring: A full suite or veil with long sleeved shirt and pants and close-toed shoes. If it's hot, bring water. Optionally, bring gloves, your hive tool and a smoker. You will also be required to sign a liability waver during your first visit.
If you plan to attend a hands-on session, be sure to bring: A full suite or veil with long sleeved shirt and pants and close-toed shoes. If it's hot, bring water. Optionally, bring gloves, your hive tool and a smoker. You will also be required to sign a liability waver during your first visit.
Hive Inspection - April 19, 10am-Noon
Meg and Jon Boi joined FLC lead beekeeper Benoit Lafon to inspect the hives. All hives were checked to be queen right, mite tested and given an overall assessment. One booming hive was split into a nuc. Here are some pictures of he activity.
FLC Spring Work Weekend - March 22 and 23, 2025
Thank you to all the volunteers that came out this past weekend to help our club's learning hives thrive. Ben led the group in reconstructing the FLC apiary boundary with new posts and fencing material. New hive boxes were replaced with older hive wooden ware. The bees were in great shape, successfully overwintering with queen rightness in all five colonies. See the Facebook link for more pics. Thank you to Brian Fischer who graciously donated the materials to give our club's learning apiary at the FLC a more secure boundary for this upcoming season. Come up and check out next month's hive inspection where Ben will be demonstrating how to do a mite check.
2024 FLC Activities
October 27 10:00 Tuckin' 'em in - FLC leads Benoit Lafon and Shanna Burbank was assisted by club member Brooklin Gore and one guest. Our goals were to check on the effectiveness of the Oxalic Acid vapor treatment for mites after our last inspection and to prepare the hives for winter. Our mite test revealed a single mite in 300 bees sampled, so we agreed the treatment had been effective and no further action was needed at this time. We added entrance reducers, closed off screened bottom boards and added a foam insulator under the top cover. All hives looked busy and healthy. It was a beautiful day to be in the Apiary. Some pictures to prove it will be added shortly.
September 28 10:00 Hive Inspection - FLC lead Benoit Lafon was assisted by club members Ann Cochran, Garrett Hannah and Brooklin Gore. Three adults and two young and aspiring beekeepers joined us for this hive inspection. Our goals were to ensure all hives were strong, well fed and healthy. We weighed each hive, recorded their weight and added 2:1 sugar syrup to all hives but one, which had ample honey stores. We added a pollen patty to each. We started strengthening one hive with an FLC nuc. That activity will be completed over the next week. We performed a mite check on one hive and recorded a mite percentage of 3%. Ben felt this warranted three treatments with Oxalic Acid vapor spaced five days apart commencing on Sunday, 9/29. All hives will be treated. Here are some pictures of the inspection. It was a gorgeous day for beekeeping.
August... Our beekeepers in charge of the FLC Apiary have been busy this summer. They have been diligent about mite testing and treatment and ensuring the hives are in good shape going into the Fall. Below is the latest update with Ben, Garrett and Shawna doing inspections.
| flc_august_inspection_report.pdf |
April... We are very excited to have a new FLC Apiary Manager. Please join us in thanking Benoit Lafon for stepping up to this important role for our community. We would also like to thank the following individuals for their contributions of hive hardware, live hives and swarms to get our FLC Apiary back to full strength:
- Dick Knapp
- Paula Pratt
February... The winter of 2023-2024 was a tough one for our FLC Apiary. We lost all of our hives there and due to a change in personnel, the bee yard fell into a state needing some TLC. On Saturday, March 30, after the OSU Apprentice Beekeeper class, several mentors and student embarked on a work party at the FLC. Jeff Bergland was joined by Ben Lafon, Bill Terry, Terry Fackrell, Katherin Montgomery, Paula Spratt, Jim McMahon and Robert Fisher. They spent around two hours at the Foothills Learning Center cleaning. All of the hives had a lot of bridge comb, propolis, and Burr comb that made it very hard and difficult to break the frames apart. One hive had a mouse living in it with a nest that was cleaned out. There was lots of mouse poop, wax moth damage, and still some honey lift on many of the frames. There were no dead bees on the bottom boards of any of the hives and only a few bees on a couple of frames that had died. After getting all of those frames cleaned up, the team turned their attention to the storage building which is shown in some of the pictures below. The team emptied all of the equipment out of the shed. Some of it had wax moth damage, but most of it was covered in mouse poop. It was all cleaned and replaced. Our next goal will be to repopulate the apiary with bees. More to come on that...Here are some pictures from the March work party.
