It all starts with a good queen.
The queen is the mother of all the bees in the hive, you want a queen with good genetics and who has been raised properly.
Our queens are heavier than others. Why does that matter?
In recent research done this past summer at the University of Guelph, our queens weighed the most compared to 19 other breeders across ontario and internationally.
Our queens are represented by the furthest right green bar. Because this research was done without the consent of the other breeders to release their data the names are blurred on the bottom.
Queen Weights:
Queen #1: 265.0
Queen #2: 252.0
Queen #3: 240.4
Queen #4: 242.1
Queen #5: 247.4
Queen #6: 247.7
Queen #7: 254.3
Queen #8: 285.4
Queen #9: 250.1
Queen #10: 248.7
Average Weight: 253.3 mg
Queen weight is a metric for many things, the main ones being: queen longevity, likeliness of acceptance, ovary size and mating success.
Our queens were also found to have the largest ovaries of all the other queens. This is a huge factor in queen acceptance as well as egg laying capacity.
if you would like to read more about this here is a good reference below or a simple google search on the effects of queen bee live weight can show you much more as well.
2023 research in turkey
Purchasing our queens
We have been a member of the ORHBS program since 2018. All of our queens are currently pick up at the farm only. We have them ready most Wednesdays for pick up. We sell our queens marked with attendants in California queen cages.
Queens are available for pick up throughout the summer. Or we deliver queens weekly to Innisfil Creek Honey.
2025 Queens are priced as follows:
1 - 3 queens $55 each
4 - 15 queens $50 each
16 + queens $45 each
Purchasing our deep nucs
We are still growing our operation so we will not be selling any early Nucs this year. If you want some Nucs we will start to sell some mid June until Mid July
Our deep Nucs are 4 frame. They come with 1 frame of food (honey & pollen), two frames of brood, some open some capped, and a drawn frame for the queen to have space to lay. All frames will be fully covered with bees. The queen will always be the accepted queen from the hive, however she will be caged. We do this to ensure she does not get damaged in the Nuc during transport or while you are installing the Nuc. Once you install the Nuc you can release her from the cage or simply install it like you are introducing the queen and they will release her once they eat the candy away.
2025 Deep Nuc prices are $225. They can be preordered with a deposit please contact me by email.
Nucs are pick up only at the farm and available starting mid June.
Our queens
When you buy one of our queens you are buying a queen that we would be proud to use in our own Apiary. We never sell queens that have been malnourished in development. Nor will we sell queens that we do not think were able to mate properly (if there are many days of rain during her mating time). All of our queens come marked with the appropriate years colour on them. The majority of our queens produce a darker bee. Much of our stock we started with has come from other reputable bee breeders in Ontario. Our queens are bread on nine principles that you can read further about on our breeding page. They are:
- Hygienic behaviour
- Low Varroa Growth (LVG)
- Brood pattern
- Overwintering ability
- Spring build-up
- Gentleness
- Honey production
- Low swarming tendency
- Propolis collection
We feel that breeding for these nine traits encompasses breeding resilient bees that can survive in todays beekeeping environment.
We are consistently lower than the provincial average for winter loss and feel we are well on our way in breeding resilient bees that thrive.