PICKUP Bee Packages for 2027 (River Falls, WI + NEW for 2027 Additional Pickups in MN, MI, and IL- locations coming soon)
2 lb Italian × Carniolan/ Italian Hybrid Honey Bee Package – VSH Pol-line 2.2 | 2027 Spring Pre-Order

🔥 Pre-Order & Save 20% — NO CODE this year, automatic discount at Checkout (Expires Febrauary 1, 2027)

$214.95 → $179.00

─── The Best-Selling Bee Package in the Upper Midwest —

For Good Reason If you've spent any time asking experienced beekeepers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, or Iowa what bee package they run — this is the answer you'll hear again and again. Our 2 lb Italian × Carniolan hybrid honey bee package has sold out every spring since we started offering it, and we turned away 100+ orders last year alone. This isn't a generic bee package (≈ 10,000–12,000 bees + mated VSH Pol-line Hybrid 2.2 queen).

Every colony comes with a mated VSH Pol-line 2.2 queen — genetics developed in collaboration with the USDA Honey Bee Lab in Baton Rouge and refined over 26 years of selective breeding, and inline with our mite resistant mission.

We also run a complementary Latshaw queen line in our operation, giving us one of the most genetically diverse, proven-resistant programs available in the Upper Midwest. Latshaw + Pol-line 2.2 ⭐️───

Why VSH Pol-line 2.2? Here's What Makes It Different Most "mite-resistant" bees clean out dead mites. VSH bees stop mite reproduction before it starts. Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) is a specific behavioral trait — bees with full VSH expression identify and disrupt mite reproduction in capped worker brood aged 4–6 days post-capping, targeting mites exactly when they're most vulnerable. They do this by recognizing the destress pheromone the brood give off. This is a well documented reaction to colonies with Mite-Resistance.

In a colony with strong VSH, the bees find capped brood that mites are feeding on and pull it out. The young mites die with that ejected brood, so the population does not get the runaway generations that take a hive down. These bees do part of the work that used to fall entirely on treatments. You still check mite levels.

The trait was developed at the USDA Agricultural Research Service bee lab in Baton Rouge and carried forward with instrumentally inseminated breeder queens. Breeders are chosen with the BEST protocol: the best colony from every location, selected for the traits you actually keep bees for, then tested without mite treatments.

What that delivers in your hive:

• Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) — bees remove brood that mites are feeding on, breaking the cycle instead of chasing mites after the fact
• Selected without treatments — resistance measured on untreated colonies, not assumed from a label
• Strong spring buildup — chosen for the population you need when the flow starts
• Honey kept in the selection — mite resistance was not bought by giving up a crop
• Winter-tested — our candidates carried through northern winters before they are used as breeders in WI
• Workable temperament — calm enough for a backyard, steady enough for a commercial yard