5.21.24 Pickup in Millington, MI.
VSH Virgin Queen Pre-Order from Stevens Bee Co. SBGMI Pays Shipping For Michigan Beekeepers.
From the Stevensbeeco.com Website: These virgin queens are daughters from our top instrumentally inseminated breeder queens. The breeders have proven themselves to be productive and thrive in an untreated apiary, and have top scores on Harbo’s VSH assay (zero % mite reproduction).
Helpful instructions on the virgin intro process here:
Stevens Bee Co: “How do I introduce virgin queens?”
SBGMI FAQs: “How do you introduce a virgin queen?”
Video Discussion on Virgin Info from Cory Stevens
What is the significance of VSH?
A valuable feature of VSH is that bees will express a high level of mite resistance when a colony contains as little as 50% of the alleles for VSH. A simple way to produce such a colony is to raise daughter queens from a VSH breeder and allow the daughters to naturally mate. This is good news for queen producers. They can rear VSH queens, mate them to any drones, and those queens will produce colonies that require no chemical control for varroa. Another benefit is that beekeepers can have mite-resistant colonies without destroying their existing bee populations –populations that may be well adapted to certain locales or have desirable beekeeping qualities. (Taken from: https://www.harbobeeco.com/vsh/)
Please note, there are no refunds on purchases. With due consideration, replacement of queens in mitigating circumstances may occur on a case by case basis.
Please note, with all things honeybees and queens there are no guarantees in mating success on virgins, emergence of cells, or acceptance of mated/virgin queens. Purchaser assumes risk!
Mite resistance is also not a guarantee, but a strong projected potential outcome with VSH stock. Please monitor your mite loads and make decisions concerning your bees accordingly.