Jersey-bred Queens & Nucleus Colonies
"Jersey Bred Queens" and "Jersey Bred Nucleus Colonies" available for purchase!!!. Nucleus colonies include a small started 5 frame colony complete with a laying queen, eggs, larvae, and hatching bees
I want to focus on our development of raising Jersey bred queen bees for local beekeepers, and why it is also important to buy locally bred bees. This past winter, I've completed building 50 queen mating boxes which are
mini hives where each queen hatched is separated and put into her own mini hive to go out for mating flights, return, and begin to lay eggs.
We want to sell "proven" queens, that is queens that have been hatched, mated, and then laying eggs long enough to see her laying pattern on the comb, and if she and her offspring are exhibiting those quality behaviors we are specifically breeding for. We will be selecting stock from certain hives that exhibit specific positive characteristics.
As a beekeeper, we can control the quality of the queen, from the egg to the egg layer. We can breed for gentleness, cleanliness, productivity of pollen and nectar collecting, survivability from Varroa mites and disease,
overwintering, food consumption, etc. These are just a few traits to consider. We can also control to a large degree, which drones she will mate with by allowing only the drones from the best colonies to exit the hives and mate with the queens, as she goes about her week or so of mating flights. We use front entrance hive excluders to disallow any drones from sub par hives, from exiting and mating.
By selecting the stock of the Mother (queen) and Drones, you can stack the deck in your favor by producing better quality colonies, gentler bees, and better honey production. Buying queens from mass produced suppliers has always been a crapshoot and a disappointment for me, at best, as only a small percentage of those queens were super queens. We hope to change that here in New Jersey, at Birds & Bees Farm!
mini hives where each queen hatched is separated and put into her own mini hive to go out for mating flights, return, and begin to lay eggs.
We want to sell "proven" queens, that is queens that have been hatched, mated, and then laying eggs long enough to see her laying pattern on the comb, and if she and her offspring are exhibiting those quality behaviors we are specifically breeding for. We will be selecting stock from certain hives that exhibit specific positive characteristics.
As a beekeeper, we can control the quality of the queen, from the egg to the egg layer. We can breed for gentleness, cleanliness, productivity of pollen and nectar collecting, survivability from Varroa mites and disease,
overwintering, food consumption, etc. These are just a few traits to consider. We can also control to a large degree, which drones she will mate with by allowing only the drones from the best colonies to exit the hives and mate with the queens, as she goes about her week or so of mating flights. We use front entrance hive excluders to disallow any drones from sub par hives, from exiting and mating.
By selecting the stock of the Mother (queen) and Drones, you can stack the deck in your favor by producing better quality colonies, gentler bees, and better honey production. Buying queens from mass produced suppliers has always been a crapshoot and a disappointment for me, at best, as only a small percentage of those queens were super queens. We hope to change that here in New Jersey, at Birds & Bees Farm!
For more information on purchasing your very own Jersey-bred Queens and Nucleus colonies, contact us directly! After all, you can't have "Jersey fresh" without Jersey-bred bees!
