Bees and Queens

All the bees at Two Brooks are reared in our apiary from our own stock of consistently successful Varroa resilient, localised, near-native dark bees. The breeding apiary is reasonably isolated so it has been possible to gradually improve the breeding lines.

The breeding program is relatively small-scale and has an emphasis on quality not quantity.

Our breeder queens are selected from colonies with a good history of calmness, Varroa resilience and overall vigour, as well as for the traits of queen longevity and productivity.

These breeder colonies are chosen early in the spring and are divided into ‘drone mother’ and ‘queen mother’ colonies.

Other colonies are chosen for their strength to be ‘starter/finisher’ colonies and are given the task of building queen cells from given selected larvae. These colonies are set up using the ‘queenright’ method.

This method minimises stress on the colony and produces good, well fed queen cells. It allows for a number of rearing cycles in each season.