The nectar flow is on here in the southern Rockies. We are experiencing our glorious monsoon rains which are livening up the landscape. Though we are so grateful to have the rains, water indeed, can be a blessing and a curse….not enough and forage withers…too much and nectar and pollens are washed away.
Aye- Mother Nature does indeed keep us humble 🙂
We are focusing this summer season on building up our hive numbers. Summer is our most favorite time for rearing queens and making honey. In order to make bees and for bees to make honey, they need their populations robust. So, we have decided to keep our production queens for our own needs and share breeder queens with queen producers who would like to incorporate tested survivor stock into their apiary and management systems. We encourage queen producers to incorporate tested survivor stock and to further promote cross stocks between our breeder queens and their stock. Crossing out diverse genetics lends to hybrid vigor, and generational promotion of the hereditary trait of longevity along with promoting a better developed overlapping network of health both of individual bees and the hive organism as a whole.
Longevity is the umbrella trait that we use for selection as it encompasses productivity, demeanor, pest and disease resistance, and endurance. Healthy hives have healthy queens….and healthy queens make healthy bees which produce healthy products which we consume. We are what we eat….
VIRGIN QUEENS: available