We’re narrowing down our queen grafting and mating program for this summer. We still have some wiggle room, and things may change, but here is the general plan:
- Phase I – We will be grafting and mating queens, starting the middle of May. We’re starting early, because we think we have an opportunity to mate surviving queen daughters to survivor drones. This also gives us an opportunity to hone our grafting and mating skills. A second round will be done starting in June.
- Phase II – In this phase, we will be raising and distributing virgin queens to beekeepers around Alaska. We plan to distribute these in early July, to coincide with the beginning of the fireweed flow. This gives beekeepers the opportunity to create a brood break at the start of the flow, and end up with a new survivor queen daughter. It also gives you the opportunity to take the old queen and start a nuc, and allow it to build up at the peak of the flow. More information on this stage of the program can be found here.
- Phase III – We will continue to raise queens as long as the ambient supply of drones is adequate. We plan to run some side experiments to determine how late in the year we can requeen a hive, and still allow the hive to overwinter successfully.
If you are interested in hosting a virgin queen this summer, and you haven’t yet contacted us, please complete this form so we can keep you up to date on our progress.