Hive Jive: News & Workshops

Find out about upcoming workshops and events, queenbee and product availability, and more.

Our Survivor Queenbees

Queenbees from Zia Queenbee Co. produce colonies of excellent varied traits. When selecting bees, honey production is our primary concern followed by hygienics, pest and disease resistance, gentleness and longevity. Honey production is a great indicator of a good colony but hygienics and pest monitoring are vital to establishing a colony’s overall lifetime merit.

About Us

Zia Queenbee Company of New Mexico and Superior Honey Farms of Michigan are collaborative companies dedicated to producing the highest quality beekeeping products and services through sustainable and conscientious care of their hives and the surrounding landscape.

Father Time Tested ~ Mother Nature Approved: Quality through the Seasons

It is our goal and promise to provide you with the highest quality Survivor Queenbees available—Honeybees chosen by Beekeepers for Beekeepers. We are committed to conscientious beekeeping, From the shores of Lake Superior to the banks of the Rio Grande…and Beeyond!

We ensure this by practicing sustainable beekeeping management techniques. We encourage healthy and considerate queen mating by allowing our queens to mature for an extended period of time (21-28 days minimum) in a larger mating nuc than most queen producers do. By doing this, we can verify our queens full brood pattern instead of just a few eggs. Saturating mountainous pockets with diverse survivor drone stock also promotes genetic cross-stocking. Well fecundated (mated) queenbees that have mated with a multitude of drones from a diverse pool (queenbee promiscuity) are found to be more attractive to their worker bees. Research evidence shows that having colonies with various sister and sub-sister families promotes an overlapping network of hive health and pest/pathogen resistance. Our conscientious protocols of extra time, space, and ample saturation of diverse genetic strains, guarantees that the Survivor Queenbees you receive from us are well-mated, proven layers with solid brood patterns and desirable genetic traits.