An old retired commercial bee keeper came and went through my bees with me yesterday. I learned a lot from him. He was very impressed with the gentleness and calmness of my bees. He said he hadn't seen such nice bees in a long time. Remember I was asking you if they were a little too feisty? I guess what we need is to learn to live with them. And we are. Now with more food available they are not so much on edge. I was glad to hear his evaluation of them, which makes me still glad I got my bees from you. They seem to be in good health. Mite population seems to still be at the minimum with no medications. I find the plastic molded pull out trays under the screened bottoms real useful in observing the bees. Thanks again for the great bees, we even have some inside in an observation hive.

Thanks
Medgy

Lewiston, Idaho
 

Dear Dan & Judy:

Do you have any queens currently available? I need only one, provided all further inspections tomorrow go well.

Last year I purchased two queens from you and re-queened in late summer. I can't tell you how impressed I am with their performance. Both went into poorly stocked hives and both rebounded to survive very well over the winter. I run completely organic hives, so none had any medications/chemicals and have shown no sign for the necessity. In total I have found one, and only one varroa mite in all of my inspections, and it wasn't able to attach to ANY bee in the hive. It was crawling on the comb. I haven't seen one since. While other lines wanted to swarm readily in our damp spring, they didn't. They built up well, and quickly. They have been great to work with, with or without gloves. You produce an excellent queen.

Sincerely,

David
North Bend, Washington
 

I'm just a backyard hobbyist, but wanted to provide you with a little positive feedback on the queens that I bought from you last year. I tried them in three of my five hives. They wintered well, although the winter this year was mild in Eastern Washington. A few dandelions just opened up this last weekend and and the bees are on the job. They seem to believe that a 55F day with a few sprinkles of rain and some wind is paradise. I do not witness that kind of activity with queens that I ordered out of Southern states.

One of the requeened hives is surprisingly strong right now. Mites hit hard and reduced the bee population before I got the honey pulled off last summer. I knocked the hive down to a single deep hive body, replaced a Buckfast queen with one of your queens, treated it for mites, and started feeding. The population still seemed low going into winter and I almost combined it with another hive. I mentally prepared myself to find a dead hive in January. It is a very strong, active hive right now.

They are all being fed sugar syrup and pollen substitute since the end of February, so we'll see how spring buildup goes.

Kevin

Kennewick, Washington
 

(IN DEFENSE OF “DEFENSIVE BEHAVIOR”: This e mail is a good testimony as to one reason why defensive behavior is so important to the hive’s survival!! OWA)

Hi Dan,
The enclosed pictures confirm what you said about these bees defending against yellow jackets. This is one of two yellow jackets I saw dead on the hive’s front porch. What surprised me is seeing this happening so early in the season. I took this picture about two weeks after bringing the bees home, so this has been about 6 weeks ago, and I’m just getting around to downloading pictures from the camera.

(In response to our request for background information, Bill provided this following history of his experience with yellow jackets the previous year before installing our SMR/Russian/Wild Survivor queen stock. OWA)

Well to begin with I have been using Italian bees and it seems the last few years our winters have been mild, with the result that the Yellow Jackets seem to have grown in number come the fall. Last fall I was about two weeks late in installing my entrance reducers, about 1 and 1/4 inches opening versus the 16 inches a normal hive has. Restricting movement into and out of the hive is supposed to make it easier for the guard bees to stop the Yellow Jackets. Even so, I noticed Yellow Jackets were still getting in. I set up traps on the entrances for Yellow Jackets and caught three or four quarts of them. Still the Yellow Jackets were overwhelming the weaker hives of the eight I had. The Yellow Jackets seemed to know which was the weakest, and would just clean out that hive, and then move on to the next. This started in mid August and by the first week in October they had finished off my last hive. Another thing I notice, in the morning when cool, the bees were not active enough to defend against the Yellow Jackets and that is how Yellow Jackets seem to get a foot hold in the bee hives to wipe them out.

Billy

Coupeville, WA

NOTE: It has been observed that our stock is a bit more defensive after brood build up before a good honey flow. OWA
 

The queen you sent last year was wonderful. She corrected the disease in my hive and my varroa mite count dropped from a start of 19 to 0 during three separate weekly trials. Very strong and healthy! I have recommended your queens to others in our bee club. Thanks for the phone call. I'll stay in touch.

Dear Dan and Judy,

I just had to comment on the quality and taste of your wildflower honey. My husband and I were at the Whiskey Creek campground in August of last year and while out and about I bought some of your honey from a guy selling bread on the side of the road. I have Bees as a hobby and I like to taste honey from everywhere I go. Our last big vacation was to Hawaii and Wow the honey was exotic!!!

My husband and I both thought yours was the best of anywhere...no joke!! The color is what you picture in your mind when someone says, Honey and the taste was so full of other flavors, not just sweet.

I saw your add in the WSBA paper, recognized your logo first and found your website and E-mail address. Good luck in all your endeavors.

Sincerely,
Lynne