Virgin Italian Cross Queens- 2023 Stage2
What is a Stage 1 Virgin Queen?- We are breeding with a purpose and though we have been breeding our own queens for our use for the last 2 years. We now officially have a breeding program with 3 stages. 2023 is stage 2, where we will take what we have bee breeding in-house and introduce new VSH queens from other high-level VSH breeders throughout the USA for the next 2 years representing stages 2 and 3.
Stage 2 ismidway through our breeding VSH queens exclusively and we are offering them for sale as virgins so they can breed with your local stock and provide you with a hybrid of our apiary's best colonies and your colonies.
How to introduce a Virgin Queen?- As with most queens, they will show up in a queen cage with a candy plug. Place the cage in the queenless hive and allow the bees to release her. If after 3 days she is not released, then we recommend hand releasing her. She will then spend the next week or so getting to know her new home, colony, and mating with local drones. After that time she will be a fully mated queen and you'll have a fully operational hive.
Genetics-
Our Queens are crosses between Carniolan's known for their Spring quick hive build-up and cold climate tolerance as well as the Italian honey bee known for their honey production.
Italian Honey Bee Behavior
The Italian bee is the most popular and widely used for commercial and backyard beekeeping. This subspecies of Apis Mellifera is popular due to its adaptability and general workability.The book Breeding the HoneyBee- it states
“From the commercial and breeding point of view the value of the Liguistica lies in a happy synthesis of a great number of good characteristics. Among these we must mention industry, gentleness, fertility, reluctance to swarm, zeal for building comb, white honey-capping, a willingness to enter supers, cleanliness, resistance to disease, and the tendency to collect flower honey rather than honey dew.”
The Italian honey bee is also very selective in its nectar sources when able and are good at ripening nectar into honey over some of the other sub species.
The behavior of Carniolan Honey Bees
Carniolan bees are a favored bee among beekeepers in commercial apiaries as well as backyard beehives for several reasons, as they are quick to expand colony numbers in the Spring. But for this reason, they can also have swarming tendencies. They are great at defending their beehive from pests and robbers but are also known for their extremely gentle behavior towards beekeepers. This subspecies of honey bees is also resistant to some diseases and parasites that can debilitate some hives of other subspecies.The appearance of a Carniolan bee is similar in size to that of an Italian bee but has a distinguished dusky brown-grey color with stripes of a lighter brown color. Because of this the Carniolan can also be known as the “grey bee”. Like the Caucasian bee, the Carniolan has a very long tongue (proboscis) which allows them to have excellent foraging habits.
With this queen you’re going to get a bee that broods up fast in the spring, is gentle to work with, and retains its hardiness while also slowing brood production later on as it heads into the winter.
Shipping Gurantee
We do everything in our power to ensure when the queens leave us, they stand the best chance to make it to your possession alive and with vigor. However, as soon as we hand them off to the shipper, we cannot guarantee how they are treated, weather, unforeseen acts or incidences, or the speed at which they get to you beyond the 2-day guarantee we purchase. We cannot guarantee the queens if shipped, and we will do what we reasonably can in a case-by-case situation. These case-by-case situations are at our full discretion and are no guarantee to help in a case that results in dead queens or similar. Please reach out with your concerns or incidences, and we will see if we can help. By purchasing the product, you acknowledge you agree to these terms and our other terms located throughout our site and located in our footers.
Virgin Queen
This product is a virgin queen and must be mated at your hive, and to ensure she is properly mated you understand you need a fair population of drones near or you plan on artificially inseminating the queen. By purchasing you fully understand you are receiving a virgin queen and we make no guarantees she will be successfully mated at your location or hive.