Queens - fertalized this year

Reserve your queens as soon as possible --> limited quantities!

You need to come pick up your queens directly at the honey house, NO DELIVERIES.

Please select PICK UP. 

_

Since 2021, we have been selecting our bees to foster traits of docility, productivity, and resilience.

Honey bee genetics in North America are dominated by Italian stock (98.5%), and our own genetics are derived from this lineage. Since there is no truly natural honey bee gene pool—given that a colony cannot survive the winter without a beekeeper's intervention—genetics play a negligible role in your colonies' performance.

We have tested genetics from over 30 Quebec breeders and observed little difference between them. Nevertheless, we selected the highest-performing colonies and observed a 5–10% variation in survival rates and honey production.

Our stock outperforms the other genetics we tested in our local environment. In reality, "good genetics" is an ambiguous concept; performance depends heavily on the specific context in which the bees are kept. In ecology, the concept of "fitness" is often used to describe the relationship between genetics and the environment. Our stock is well-acclimated to the climate of the Eastern Townships for honey production.

Each queen is raised from our best colonies. We ensure genetic diversity by purchasing queens from other breeders every year. Finally, we supplement our breeder colonies with our myco-supplement; this improves worker bees' health, resulting in superior queens. We produce our queens in nucleus colonies, which ensures better care for the queen compared to standard mating boxes, where the number of worker bees is limited.