GOALS OF THE SIOUXLAND BEE IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

• To develop bees that can survive local Iowa winters, are non-aggressive and can produce acceptable honey crops.

• To develop bees that show resistance and tolerance to varroa mites and can survive with minimal varroa treatments.

• To develop bees that show the ability to survive with minimal chemical or antibiotic treatments.

• To make these bees available to local beekeepers via queens sold at a fair price.

How different would your beekeeping be if you did not need to rely on southern bred queen bees?  Can bees whose genetics developed in warm climates really adapt and thrive in northern climates?  How can a hive of bees from a southern raised queen correctly time the nectar flow in Iowa or survive a cold winter in Nebraska?  We kept asking ourselves these same questions and the answer that kept coming up was “They can’t”.

They can’t time our nectar flows or survive our winters as well as we would like them to.  So we decided to try to do something about it.  We decided to raise locally adapted queen bees in the Sioux City IA – Sioux Center IA area.  This website gives you a place to track our progress and see the steps we are taking to reach our  goals.

Please use the Contacts section if you have any questions or want to see if any queens are available for sale.