Instrumentally Inseminated Queen Bee | First Season

Description

Instrumentally Inseminated Queen Bees for Sale

Instrumentally inseminated queen bees are available from June onwards. Both Buckfast (from Varroa Sensitive and Hygienic Stock) and British Black / Dark Queens available. Both types are selected from our own breeding stock.

This is for a first season II queen that is inseminated approximately 4-6 weeks before sale to ensure laying. Further selection will be needed. If looking for selected II queens, please check the overwintered proven II queen listing.

Availability

Instrumentally inseminated queens are available from June. Early weeks become booked very quickly so we advise if you are looking for an instrumentally inseminated queen for sale plan ahead and pre-order in good time.

Queens are caged on the same day as posting. Many producers will bank queens (ie cage for long periods of time in order to manage stock) we prefer to let queens lay fully up to the point of postage in this way you get a queen which is ready to get laying straight away.

Instrumental Insemination Methods

We use the schley instrument for the instrumental insemination of queens. Selecting mature drones and inseminating each queen with approximately 8-10 microlitres of semen. Drones are selected to ensure purity of line and these drones are hatched, marked and matured above an excluder to ensure that these drones are from the intended colony for selection.

Queens for the process are hatched in an incubator and inseminated on day 9, receiving a second dose of Co2 on day 10. Following this the queen is introduced into a full sized nucleus colony and allowed to lay, her brood to hatch and laying pattern to be established before being released for sale. Hence the earliest we can produce Instrumentally Inseminated Queens for. Weather depending.  All Instrumentally Inseminated Queens are supplied clipped, as they are clipped before introducing into their nucleus colony. The will carry either a coloured disc or multiple colour mark to trace lineage and will not correspond directly with the year colour code.

Postage and Collection

• Postage – Queens are only sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery as this is a guaranteed and insured service. It is too risky to send queens in the normal post by first class.
• Collection -if wanting to collect, please select this option. However please liase with us via e-mail or phone for a suitable collection time. Arrangements need to be made to ensure your queens are available for collection at a given time as we are a working bee farm we need to ensure plans can be made for collection that fit into our beekeeping schedules.

Marking and Clipping Queens

• Marking – Instrumentally Inseminated Queens will be marked with a numbered disc or multiple colours to help trace lineage.
• Clipping -All Instrumentally Inseminated Queens are supplied clipped as standard.

How to Introduce a New Queen Bee

QUEEN INTRODUCTION Guidelines see our Queen Introduction Guidelines Page

Terms and Conditions

• Queens found dead on arrival –  a photo should be taken and sent via e-mail to sales@northumberlandhoney.co.uk on the day of arrival. The queen must then be returned to us in the original cage and packaging with the contents intact for examination.
• Laying patterns and quality – all queens are checked before being sent, however rarely queens may become drone layers if mating with insufficient numbers of drones due to poor weather etc. Any queens that are reported to be drone layers should be reported to us within 21 days. If a queen is reported to be a drone layer we ask that the queen is returned to us alive for examination in a queen cage with attendents and fondant. Sent by royal mail special delivery. We will then assess the queen, checking the spermatheca and if found to be infertile within 21 days we will send a replacement. In the case of replacements of mated queens, the return postage cost will be borne by the customer, but the replacement queen will be provided free of charge . Queens will only be replaced once.

For full terms and conditions for bee purchases please see here