PLAINS — The end of 2025 brought destructive weather to Western Montana, impacting everything from bridges and roads to farms and ranches.
Intense winds knocked out most of the beehives at Peacefield Farm, outside of Plains, but did not knock out the farmers’ spirits.
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“You just grin and bear it and you start again. And so that’s kind of how we look at life and we look at farm life,” said Kimber Lucier, owner of Peacefield Farm. “That’s what we’ll do with the bees. It’s not the end. It’s a restart.”
In 2023, Kimber Lucier moved back home to Sanders County with her husband, Mark, to buy her mother’s farm.
“My mom, Paula, owned this lavender farm over 20 years. It was one of the first commercial lavender farms in Montana,” Lucier said. “We definitely want to kind of continue that legacy and the legacy of the lavender and then we want to add new things. We have cows and goats, so we really want to kind of expand into those areas. And we have eggs and, of course, we're expanding with honey.”
Bees are big for the couple and their business. Mark Lucier is a master beekeeper and Kimber Lucier, who also owns a spa, makes her products with their honey.
Concerns over declining bee populations spurred them to start keeping bees in Maine six years ago. When they moved to Montana, they brought the hive with them.
“We just love them,” Lucier said. “They were flourishing and doing well and we were splitting hives. Just really loved them, just they're part of our everyday life.”
They had four hives and plans to expand the business with the bees. Then, in December, high winds blew in while the couple was out of town, rocking the farm.
“We had our farm keeper watching the farm and the windstorm came and he sent pictures that it had devastated all of our hives,” she said. “I rushed back from Missoula and my husband had to fly back from back east and we started looking at what we were left with.”
When they returned, the damage was clear. The hives were blown out into the cold. Fences were contorted and siding was ripped off of some of the outbuildings.
“Our poor goats,” she said. “We have a male goat hut. They had a little bit of a ‘Wizard of Oz’ moment, where it was picked up and thrown up on its roof with them inside, but they're all fine.”
Most of the bees were lost, but the couple never lost hope. Part of their hive might have hung on too.
“We got back and we heard a little bit of humming in a couple of the boxes. So, we're hopeful we might have some, but we'll have to wait for summer, warm weather to see what we have left and if we have any queens,” she said.
Now, they are picking up the damage and looking to the future.
The Luciers have big plans for the family farm. They have been hosting events, like a winter market, and are working to re-start the farm stand that Luciers mother built at the farm’s entrance.
“A lot of agricultural lands are getting built on. This has been in my family 30 years and we want to keep it in agriculture. We want to restart the farm market up front,” she said. “It's carrying on with tradition and then adding some new things that that we want to bring into it and just really have this for our children and our grandchildren.”
While the windstorm was a setback, it is nowhere near the end of the farm. The family plans for it to continue on for generations.
“This is starting over, but anybody who does farm life knows that Mother Nature gives you a lot of restarts and you just put your boots back on and you start over,” Lucier said.
