Products for sale (contact us for availability)
  • Bottled Honey at Blacksburg (formerly Heavener) Hardware, Eats Natural Foods, Akke's Yoga Place, Glade Road Growing, Smithfield Plantation, and Annie Kay's Main St Market in Blacksburg, VA
  • Bees wax and Propolis
  • Queens (mated, virgin, and cells) in season, generally from late May through early August.  See below.
  • Nucleus colonies in season from late April through mid June depending on weather and availability.  No nucs in 2018. 

No Nucs for sale in 2018.

2017 Nucs
For 2017 I will start my nuc list on Jan 1.  First come, first served.  $30 nonrefundable deposit required to get on the list.  Do not send a deposit before you contact me at  rkereid@comcast.net  and I respond to verify that there are still nucs available.  Please read all the details on this page concerning the nucleus colonies that we sell.  If you have questions contact me. 

We will have approximately 60, five frame, overwintered, medium frame nucs for sale in the spring of 2017. We do not have any deep frame nucs for sale. You can use medium frames to start your colony even if you use deeps for brood boxes. Just install them into a medium honey super, if you use them, or if you don't, install them in a deep brood box and eventually move the medium frames out of the hive as the bees fill your brood boxes.

Genetically, our bees include VSH Carniolans from several sources (including Mike Palmer, Glenn, VP Queens, and Harbo), several sources of Russian and hybrid Russian (Walter Whole Goods, Velbert Williams, Chris Hewitt, Honey Bee Genetics, and Kirk Webster), and several families of local bees. Our local bees come from swarms caught, cutouts from structures, or in our bait hives. Many of these have been very prolific, and good survivors. The Carniolan and Russian queens tend to be dark colored, and the locals tend to be more yellow. In the spring of 2016 we had 18 different known sources of bees represented in our production colonies and nucs.  We raise queens from the colonies that show the best characteristics of varroa mite resistance, honey production, and gentle temperament. In July 2016 we had 85 production colonies and 140 nucs to select from.

Each overwintered nuc includes the marked queen, her worker bees and brood, and consists of a mix of brood on 4 frames and more than one frame containing some pollen and honey. I make my nucs heavy on brood and bees because nectar is usually coming in by the time the nucs are ready. This gives you a quick increase in population which is ideal in the spring build up. Frames may be Mann Lake PF120 plastic, wood with standard drawn comb from foundation (or Ritecell or Pierco plastic), or foundationless comb. Each nuc will include at least 4 full frames of bees.

Our nucs are available only after the overwintered nuc colonies have built up to adequate strength.  You are assured that you will receive a colony that is expanding well.  There is no set date as the weather will be different every year.  Cold or wet spring weather will mean later pickup dates.  Over the past 5 years the nucs have been ready over a period from the last week of April to the third week in May.  Most are ready early to mid May.  I will contact you approximately a week ahead of pickup time.  Also my list is compiled by date, so first come, first served.  Later requests will be later pickup.   

We only sell strong, healthy nucs that show high potential. These are the ones that we would be happy to keep ourselves.

Nuc prices are as follows-

-Mid April through May, overwintered nucs with marked 2016 queen- $     including cardboard nuc box
-Late May through June with marked 2017 queen- $      including cardboard nuc box (will have only a few of these available as I shift focus in May to queenrearing).
-$     Non-refundable deposit for each nuc.  Contact me for verification before mailing deposit.

2018 Queens
All mated queens for sale are open mated at our nuc yards just outside Blacksburg, VA.   In 2018 we will be grafting from a VSH Harbo breeder queen and our own best selected queens.

The mating yards are surrounded by more than 40 strong production hives, in several yards, within a 2 mile radius. These production hives are our drone producers. This ensures a wide diversity of mating for our queens.

Mated queens are available in season from late May through early August most years, depending on the weather. $35 each marked with this year's color.

I will also have virgin queens and queen cells available this year.  These are an excellent way to get some good genetics and have them mated with your local drones.  All you need to do is make up queenless splits (ideally in nuc boxes) and introduce the virgin or the cell.  The virgins and cells will come from the same lines, either VSH Harbo or my best selected local bees.  Virgins- $18, Cells- $9 each.  Virgins will be in a queen cage with attendants.  For queen cells you need to bring an insulated container (like a small cooler) with padding inside and a heat source to keep the temperature between 82 and 94 degrees F.  They are placed into the queenless nuc as soon as possible.

Local pick up only at this time.  I will be out of town for about two weeks in July.

Our bees are inspected by Virginia Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspectors every spring before sales begin.