Our Stock
Our company has been beekeeping since the 1970’s, and over these years many things have changed in how we operate our hives. One thing has remained consistent since our company’s inception however, and that is maintaining lines of bees that require as little maintenance as possible. We recognize that the beekeeping industry has low margins for profitability, the beekeeper has little time, and that these challenges are not going to get easier. By maintaining and building upon genetic lines that are tough, we can save time and money. So what do we mean by tough?
Feeding
More than 30 years ago, our operation in Saskatchewan fed our hives gallons of sugar water every fall to ensure that each had enough feed to make it through the bitter, extreme cold of Saskatchewan winters. The cost of sugar, while not as high as today, represented a very large expense in our operation. To reduce these costs, we began experimenting with reducing feed and not feeding at all. Hives were certainly lost from starvation during this process but our clarity on what genetics we want to keep around improved. We reduced the amount and number of hives that were fed year after year to the point where we are now. We do not feed any established doubles that produced for wintering outside in Saskatchewan’s brutal winters and have not for 25 years (*except through 2021-2022 drought). Does this mean that we have absolutely no starvation in our operation? No. But if we do encounter a hive that we think perished due to lack of food stores over winter, we celebrate this loss, as this represents genetics we do not want in our operation.
*2021 and 2022 summer season were record setting droughts in our area. All of our hives had to be supplemented to make it through winter. We hope that the 2023 season will see us return to more “normal” conditions for our area. No rain for months makes our feeding philosophy not only hard but irresponsible.
Nosema
With the halt on feeding in our operation, our mechanism for nosema treatment also went. We do not treat for nosema, and have not for years. Does this mean our queens are nosema resistant? No. But it does mean that we do not treat for it… and we pay absolutely zero attention to what our nosema levels are. Our survivability is well within what is considered average in both provinces (SK, BC) without treatment. Having gone through so many years of not treating for nosema, we believe that some level of tolerance has built up in our populations, making them tougher, cheaper and easier to operate.
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With hive toughness as our priority, all queens available for sale are from lineages of proven Saskatchewan stock.
Wintering
We winter all of our hives outside in both Saskatchewan and on Vancouver Island. Many traveled Canadians are aware of the distinct climatic differences between these two regions, with one having a much milder winter than the other. The warmer climate experienced on Vancouver Island, while likely advantageous to a wintering hive, in our view “softens” the overall toughness/winter hardiness of a population. However, we believe with insertions of stock from Saskatchewan with proven extreme winter hardiness, our BC operation can enjoy increased overall wintering success. With hive toughness as our priority, all queens available for sale are from lineages of proven Saskatchewan stock. Queens of these same lineages are what head all of our nucs available for sale.
Diversity is a strength
There are many examples within agriculture where a singular advantageous trait is bred for in the hopes that production and ease of management improve with fantastic results. The beekeeping industry is no different - less advanced perhaps when compared to big agriculture - but traits have been identified within bee populations that radically change the characteristics of a hive. Susceptibility or resistance to a given disease or parasite can artificially be bred into or out of a bee population with amazing results. Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) is the perfect example of such a trait. It is the culmination of years of dedicated and hard work by breeders and scientists across many countries to discover and reproduce a trait that has documented proof of reducing varroa mite infestation susceptibility. It should come as no surprise then that many beekeepers across Canada rely on VSH as a tool to control mites. But can too much of a good thing become a bad thing?
“We don’t know what we don’t know.” This sentence guides the breeding efforts in our operation. We fully acknowledge that VSH has and will radically change beekeepers’ ongoing battle to control mites. Our operation incorporates VSH lines from reputable breeders on a semi-regular basis as well as monitors hygienic response in our existing lines but we are wary of an overreliance on this trait for a few reasons. The first stemming from an integrated pest management perspective: if every beekeeper in your province relied heavily on VSH, a behavioural trait in bees, could the mite evolve due to immense selection pressure to combat this by changing some aspect of its behaviour? What if every beekeeper in North America relied heavily on VSH? How long before a mite pops up that can elude VSH and spread this new gene/genes into the population? The answer to these questions can be simply put… we don’t know.
The second issue of an overreliance on VSH expression is rooted again in our company’s blissful ignorance of all the ailments that negatively affect a bee population or that could at some point in the future negatively affect a bee population. What traits are left behind if a breeder narrowly focuses on a single or a few desirable characteristics(s)? Could there have been a natural resistance to that next unknown, tolerance to an undocumented virus that was left behind in favour of something that we as breeders deemed more important? These questions apply not only to VSH but to all desirable traits including and not limited to honey production, gentleness, brood area size etc. Again, it is our belief that we don’t know the answers to any of these questions.
But here’s what we do know
Genetic diversity within hives and within an apiary helps fight disease. Higher genetic diversity helps in unexpected ways such as improved winter thermoregulation. Maintaining genetic diversity within a bee population hedges our risk for the next inevitable arrival of a new disease/virus/pest.
As a result of these conclusions or lack thereof (We don’t know what we don’t know): We must be humble in the face of nature and seek to continually increase our population’s genetic diversity. We graft from as many suitable families as possible each year to limit valuable traits being left behind. We are always evaluating and introducing new stock to build up our genetic base. A brutalist method (live and let die or letting evolution run its course) of breeding for mite resistance is probably the best bet to encourage diversity within a bee population, albeit financially unrealistic to an operation and its neighbours. A more gradual approach is applied in our operation where hives with higher mite loads are simply not included in the next graft.
Our queen characteristics:
- Moderately gentle. It should be noted we do not directly breed for gentleness for the above reasons. We certainly do not graft from the meanest of hives but we do keep them around. When working with our hives, our team will often work in shorts, a veil, and a t-shirt. That is not to say they are nice all the time, but if you are nice to them, they will be nice in return.
- Productive hives. Of course, we are in the business of honey and we do need our hives to produce, which they will if properly looked after. To maintain diversity, a heavy-handed breeding approach for high-yielding honey producers is not in our breeding strategy but we do not graft from poor performers (however, we do keep them around for possible desirable traits in the future). We do not see marked differences in production when compared to other marketed queens.
- Our hives are conservative on honey consumption over the winter months. We do not directly breed for this trait but do use a brutalist approach to determine which hives are not conservative. We do not fall feed hives that produced honey for us that summer.
- We do control for mites 2x annually with recommendations set by provincial apiarists. We are constantly incorporating queens marketed as more mite tolerant/resistant into our breeding program.
- We do not treat for nosema. It is our hope/belief that tolerance has been building in our populations due to our brutalist approach.
- Diversity is our aim and as a result, our queens are 100% mutts. We do not breed on the basis of colour, Italian or Carniolan. We want a mix of as many traits as possible.
- We do not breed for absolute maximum strength coming out winter as this has resulted in failure in the past with inclement early spring weather. Instead, we breed for a balance of a healthy population ready to grow quickly with the advent of spring.
Failure is a great opportunity
There is tremendous value in operations that have been hit by major losses. The greater the losses, the greater the selective pressure (their cause of death) on a population. In other words: high losses = increased resistance to said selective pressure. Even if it is the fault of the beekeeper, there could be tremendous potential in surviving stock. If your operation has been hit hard by losses due to any suspected reason, please contact us, and together we can build up our respective gene pools. We are very open to queen swapping with operations who know which hives are their real winners.