Barnett Apiaries

5 Frame Nucs

AVAILABILITY

BOOKED for 2010 SEASON


2009 was a very successful season for us. We take great care and pride in our bee operation and take customer feedback very seriously.

Due to popular demand, we will be offering medium frame nucs for the 2010 season.
Your nucs will have had their 2010 Russian queen with them for atleast 3 weeks. This is better for the bees and also you, as it allows us a longer time to examine the queens' laying pattern and general behavior of the nuc.

We are a small scale operation and do not yet meet all the criteria set forth by the Russian Honeybee Breeders Association RHBA and thus are not official members (yet). Your Russian queen is the daughter of a RHBA production queen purchased from an official member of the RHBA, and therefore IS considered to be Russian.
She will be open mated, and therefore her offspring will more than likely be hybrids.
It has been our experience that their is not a significant drop off in mite resistance with these colonies and are very pleased with our 'miticide' free operation.

NUC MAKEUP: Each nuc will have atleast 1 full frame of honey and 2-3 frames of brood, with the remaining frames consisting of pollen/brood frames.
All frames will be fully drawn. These nucs are 100% chemical free and come with a Georgia state inspectors' certificate which certifies them as disease free.
Nucs have about a 4 week head start on package bees. Be sure to have your equipment and plently of feed ready prior to receiving your nuc in order to optimize their growth.
The nucs will come in a wax coated cardboard nuc.
COST: $85 per 5 frame DEEP nuc.
COST: $75 per 5 frame MEDIUM nuc.

PAYMENT TERMS: Orders less than $500 must be paid in full at time of ordering. All others require a 25% deposit (10% of which is Non-Refundable if order canceled due to no fault of Barnett Apiaries) at time of ordering and the balance is due upon NUC pickup.

Russian Queens

Now taking or the 2010 SEASON
AVAILABILITY
MAY BOOKED
JUNE 50 Shipment on or about 12th June
Quality Control: Each queen that we cage is heavily scrutinized before she is deemed worthy of shipment. If at anytime, during her early life, she fails to meet our stringent standards, then she is discarded. The following is just a sample of our quality control measures:

• 1-Day prior to cell capping: Does the cell have an excessive amount of Royal Jelly?
• Cell capping: Is the cell well formed?
• Queen Emergence: Is the queen active and have a long uniform abdomen?
• Mating/Egg Laying: Is the queen vigorously laying eggs? Using the Allele test, does the queen show atleast 92% viability?

If the answer is "NO" for any of the above selection criteria, then the queen is culled. Your Russian queen comes from pure Russian stock as noted above, from the the Russian Honeybee Breeders Association and is open mated, therefore her offspring will more than likely be hybrids.
COST: 1-19 $20
COST: 20-99 $19
COST: 100+ $18
MARKING $1 CLIPPING:$1

TERMS:Orders less than 50 queens must be paid in full at time of ordering. All others require a 10% Non-Refundable deposit (if order canceled due to no fault of Barnett Apiaries) at time of ordering and the balance is due two weeks prior to shipping.

For questions, email, write, or call us at: sales@barnett-apiaries.com

Barnett Apiaries, 209 E. Alden Ave, Valdosta GA, 31602. PHONE:229-232-5154

Characteristics

- Varroa Mite Resistance -

Proof is in the photo!

HISTORY

Apis mellifera is not native to the Primorsky Territory on Russia's Pacific coast, but was first moved there in the last century. At that time, pioneers from western Russia took advantage of the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway and moved bees from European western Russia to the Primorsky Territory in Asian far-eastern Russia. This far-eastern area of Russia is within the natural range of Apis cerana, the original host of Varroa jacobsoni. Thus A. mellifera was brought into the likely range of V. jacobsoni even before the parasite was scientifically described in 1904. This probable long association of V. jacobsoni and A. mellifera in the region has engendered one of the best opportunities in the world for A. mellifera to develop genetic resistance to V. jacobsoni.

The USDA-ARS Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics & Physiology lab, Baton Rouge, LA, explored whether such resistance might be found in Primorye populations of honey bees in the autumn of 1994. Data were collected showing that colonies in the area did have Varroa infestation, but that the levels were lower compared to U.S. colonies.

In June 1995, a test apiary was established in Primorsky. Queens from a variety of sources in the territory were introduced into 50 colonies. Mite levels were equalized among colonies, and thereafter no treatments for mite control were undertaken. Between August 1995 and September 1996, monthly infestation rate data for worker and drone brood were collected. For comparison, we ran a test in Baton Rouge, collecting similar data.

Worker brood infestation remained quite low in the Primorsky bees. Even 15 months after the last treatment, the average infestation was only 7%. In the U.S. , 12 months after treatment, the average infestation was 33% and many of the colonies were collapsing with "parasitic mite syndrome". In the summer of 1996, the average infestation in the U.S. colonies rose substantially, but did not rise in the Russian colonies.

A similar difference occurred on drone brood infestations. In colonies in both areas Varroa infestations were higher in drones. In Russian colonies, the highest average infestation of 39% occurred in June 1996 and average infestations declined after thereafter. In U.S. colonies, infestation rates began at 37% and continued to rise to an average of 76% in August 1996. At this time the colonies were treated with Apistan in order to keep them from dying.