The first Friday Fling last week was busy. People lined up at the food trucks for their burgers, hot dogs, burritos, and other goodies. Sergio Adam sang a Tom Petty song on the Fling stage. About a dozen fans cheered him on. Vendors sold their wares in the pavilion.
Among the vendors was a man with a Santa Claus beard and a blue and gold hoodie. His table was lined with jars of honey and bee pollen. In case you didn’t get the point, the words on his hoodie say it all: “The Bee Guy.”
The Bee Guy’s name is Jim Nelson. And he doesn’t just sell honey to the public. He distributes live bees wholesale to beekeepers all over Alaska including Sitka. Bethel. Juneau, and Ketchikan. Anywhere a plane will go, he’ll deliver. He sells his bees in four-pound-packages. That’s about 12,000 live bees. That’s enough to start a hive. By the first of July, a hive should grow to 50,000 to 60,000 bees.
Nelson came into the bee business sideways. He started an apple orchard about 12 years ago. He needed the winged workers to pollinate his trees. He expected honey to be a side-hustle. Not so. The liquid gold overtook apples in both sales and attention. Honey is his main job now though he still sells jars of apple butter.
Nelson joined the South-Central Beekeepers Association. The Association sells members’ honey at the Alaska State Fair. He says that’s a help, especially for new beekeepers. Producing honey is relatively quick. Developing a market takes longer. Nelson says that State Fair sales are a boost for new vendors.
Honey is a large and growing business in Alaska. There are about six distributors of live bees in the state. They sell around 15,000 packages of bees each year.
A lot of those packages go to repeat customers.
Only about 30% of bees survive the winter in Alaska, Nelson says. Our winters don’t sync with the honeybee life cycle.
Bees live and fly for 5 to 6 weeks before their wings give out. They can survive for 5 or 6 months in the hive when they’re not flying. That’s fine for the shorter winters down south but not here. Most bees can’t eek out the Alaskan winter.
Nelson looks forward to meeting the public each Friday in Palmer. He met some returning customers at the Fling last week. He expects to meet many new and returning customers each week at Friday Fling.
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That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Monday May 18, 2026.
Photo credit: David Cheezem