A nice looking queen of ours.

Mated Queens for sale: We are still growing our own populations and would like to sell some queens locally in the next couple years. Maybe 2014. If in desperate need please feel free to give a call. Shipping from our area is iffy. Count on an extra day for mail to be sorted in Prince George. Although lots of queens have been shipped through the mail, I believe it is hard on them and we do not encourage it.

Virgin Queens for sale: This is an appealing option for us. If there is enough interest we would like to sell virgin queens. They can be offered at a lower rate with less risk to both us and the purchaser.

Ripe Queen cells: Again shipping is a problem, but we are happy to supply cells locally. Please call.

Good brood pattern and never treated, ideal when choosing breeder genetics.

Genetics: We use a mix of stocks. Two BC lines that have been maintained without treatments since 2008 and some Russian stock from 2009. Recently we acquired some Saskatraz queens to mix in with our own in order to increase diversity. We have yet to see if they will overwinter.

Winter plays a large part in our selection criteria. Since we do not use any treatments, our aim is for the bees to gain resistance to varroa and other diseases.

Strength of starter/finisher

Queen rearing is one of my favorite parts of beekeeping and I try my hardest to raise the best queens possible. I use a mix of systems, but rarely do I use the swarm box technique. I use a full hive and sometimes a queenless/broodless starter/finisher system and sometimes a Cloake board system. I insert a frame of uncapped larva about to be capped over the day before the queen cells are capped to get varroa out of the queen cells which is one of Kirk Webster‘s ideas.

We dip our own queen cell cups with our own clean wax.

I will try to include more of our queen rearing system in the future as it evolves and as time permits.