Queen Bee Breeding for Varroa Resistant Bees
Our Sales & Services
Queen Sales
Bee Smart Breeding offers a limited number of VSH-tested breeder queens and honeybee queens grafted from proven VSH breeder stock. Our breeding programme focuses on maintaining strong, resilient genetics while preserving desirable production traits. Queen availability is seasonal, and numbers are limited.
VSH Tested Breeder Queens
Instrumentally Inseminated breeder queens
Open mated breeder queens
Breeder Queens
Instrumentally Inseminated breeder queens
Open mated breeder queens
Production Queens
Open mated queens
Queen Cells
Please contact Rae to discuss what will best suit your beekeeping outfit and region.
VSH Specialist Testing & Services
Tailored to suit any beekeeping operation, either on-site or at our Ashburton facility.
Testing
Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) brood frame testing
Mite monitoring
Insemination Service
Semen collection
Virgin queen inseminations
Single drone and multi drone insemination
Consulting & Training
Harbo Quick Test (VSH) - Training and implementation
Varroa-Resistant Bee Breeding - Getting started and developing a breeding programme
Instrumental Insemination - training and technical support
On-site Consulting - Tailored advice for commercial and queen breeding operations
Contact Rae for further information
VSH Breeding Programme
Importance of a Monitored VSH Breeding Programme
Varroa Sensitive Hygiene (VSH) is a behavioural trait of honeybees proven to assist bees in becoming resistant to varroa mites (Varroa destructor).
VSH colonies can offer the opportunity to delay the need for varroa treatments because the colony is able to keep the mite population below the need to take action threshold with varroa treatments.
Trees for Bees
Nectar & Pollen Sources
Not all flowers produce pollen and nectar or if they do it is very low in nutritional value to the insects that feed off them especially the honey bees.
The Trees for Bees initiative is designed to identify the good nectar and pollen plant sources and when they yield. Thus urban and rural beekeepers can plant for all year around food sources.
Honey bees obtain their nutritional requirements from the nectar and pollen of flowers and in some instances the honeydew off other insects.
VSH Trait
What is the Varroa Sensitive Hygiene Trait?
Rae Butler, Queen Breeder at Bee Smart Breeding
This is the first of a series of articles on varroa sensitive hygiene (VSH), a behavioural trait of honey bees proven to assist bees in becoming resistant to varroa mites (Varroa destructor).
Click here to download the article as a PDF.
This article was originally published in the August 2017 edition of The New Zealand BeeKeeper, vol.25 n.7, and is reprinted with their permission.
