Golden West Queen | Imported | California | Olivarez
Olivarez has been raising queens for more than 50 years in Northern California, where the low humidity; warm, gravelly soil; and rich, natural food supply create optimal conditions. Shielded from the wind by trees and surrounded by thousands of acres of blooming clover, mustard, and other nectar-producing plants, their mating yards give their queens a strong start in life.
Golden West Queens
Randy Oliver and his sons Eric and Ian run the successful migratory beekeeping operation Golden West Bees in the California foothills, taking their hives to almond pollination each year, and then selling a thousand nucs each spring.
While monitoring their hives for mite infestation in 2017, they discovered a colony that maintained mite counts of zero, without any treatments. Sensing an opportunity to free their bees from the plague of varroa, Randy decided to begin a serious selective breeding program, starting with daughters grafted from that “Queen Zero.”
Each year, they split and requeen all their 1500 hives, solely with daughters of queens that headed the previous season’s most mite-resistant colonies.
Starting with only a single resistant colony out of 1500, over the years, they’ve slowly increased the percentage of their hives that exhibit complete or partial mite resistance. In the first years, heritability was frustratingly low, but by the 2023 season, in some yards, over half their colonies maintained infestation rates below 2% over the entire course of the season, right in the middle of crowded apiaries with plenty of mite drift – without the application of any miticides.
The Olivers don’t select for “looks” and use their queens’ variation in color patterns as an indicator that they are maintaining enough genetic diversity in their stock. But they do select for performance.
They breed only from queens whose colonies are very gentle and healthy, exhibited above average honey production, and prove strong for almond pollination.
Keep in mind that there’s no such thing as a mite-resistant queen – it’s the workers produced by the queen and the drones that she mated with that confer resistance. That said, the Olivers want to make clear that they have not yet “fixed” the genetics for mite resistance into their bloodlines, so they do not yet make any claim that their stock is “mite resistant.” But it looks like you’ve currently got about a 50% chance that any of their queens might produce a resistant colony – a figure that is expected to improve each year. Keep in mind that even their “partially-resistant” colonies require fewer treatments.
To learn more about Randy and the development of the Golden West Queen, visit ScientificBeekeeping.com
Pick up:
You can meet us in Winnipeg when they arrive or pick them up shortly after we return to Dufresne. We will notify you in advance via email.
Queens need to be picked up 1-2 days after arrival to optimize survival and to avoid forfeiture of the non-refundable livestock purchase.
Arrival Notice: PLEASE WATCH YOUR EMAIL
Queen arrival times can often be outside of our control. Flights and connections change frequently. We'll keep you in the loop. Please add mike@dancingbeeequipment.com to your address book.
We generally email the week before arrival to notify you of the expected arrival schedule. If there are any changes, we will email you as soon as we know.
Pre-payment in full is required on all Queen orders.
For commercial orders, please call for pricing:
204-866-2402
OCCASIONAL DELAYS IN PICK-UP DATES MAY OCCUR DUE TO SEASONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. WE WILL EMAIL ABOUT ANY UPDATES OR CHANGES