Rational

We hope through our breeding and selection experience, to continue to shift our breeding population in a direction that produces queens to head productive, thrifty colonies that can be managed without the use of chemicals. We've been working toward this goal for almost a decade. We feel that the queens we use to head our honey production colonies, would be ones you'd also want to use in your colonies.

Evaluating bee stock for desirable breeders is a "numbers game". The more stock that can be evaluated and tested, the greater the chance of finding queens/colonies that show desirable traits. Since we don't run a 5000 colony operation, we choose to leverage a selection strategy where we use Instrumental Insemination to control matings with already established lines. We collaborate with bee breeders throughout the U.S.A. and by testing their stocks, and then using the most suitable in carefully planned crosses, we're seeing great results for Varroa tolerance and overall hardiness. We also provide breeding stock to other breeders. Collaboration moves us all forward toward our goal: to produce quality queens suitable for honey production in today's beekeeping world.

Twenty-five years ago, vegetable seed companies scoffed at open-pollinated and heirloom seeds. Seed-saving was for "granola-heads" or "back-woods" types. Nowadays, almost every commercial seed catalog offers a wide array of open-pollinated and heirloom seeds. They're an alternative that works extremely well. The market also demands them! We hope this same process will happen to U.S. bee breeding.  Survivor bee breeder associations are organizing and conscientious beekeepers are asking this simple question: "Why can't I have good bees that survive and produce honey without spending all my time treating them?" The survivor bee breeders/queen producers are answering simply: one MAY keep bees without depending on miticides and antibiotics-- by keeping healthy bees bred to be hardy and Varroa tolerant. This takes time and patience but is achievable!

Breeding Design

VP uses a mix of breeding stock. We're aware that producing hybrid queens makes for initial high-yield but they may then fall off in performance and express undesirable characteristics in the second and subsequent generations. We have used a line-combination breeding design, and are now moving our breeders into a closed population breeding design (Page-Laidlaw). We use Instrumental Insemination: the closed population model depends on controlled matings to function properly. Closed population bee breeding allows for steady improvement toward the ideal, without risking the perils that inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity pose to Honey Bees.

Our Stock

Currently, we collaborate with several other breeders, trading and evaluating stock. We received some of the first SMR (VSH) stock from the USDA @ Baton Rouge. Our lines contain VSH/SMR, Minnesota Hygienic, and stock from the HIP project. We're adding in some Carniolan to the population. We're continually testing others' survivor bees for potential too. Basically, we test queens from many different breeders. If they are productive, survive two Winters, build up well during our short, intense Spring and still manage to remain thrifty for the rest of our season, we consider them as breeding candidates. We do not treat any of our colonies. That's the final test. If they survive and are desirable, we incorporate them into our population.

Email: info@vpqueenbees.com

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