#1 ER - Ellen Ripley
This colony is New York survivor stock and named after the character Ellen Ripley from Aliens (1986). As we learned about the parasitic mite during our first year, the name seemed appropriate. This is our preferred line since the bees are extremely gentle and calm. They are a real pleasure to work with.
#2
Colony two is a Carniolan package of bees. This 3lbs package of bees had a rough start. They were purchased in the spring of 2020 and unfortunately arrived mostly dead. The seller gave us a second package and hoped they would make it. It took all year, the colony eventually re-queened itself, and they finally built up substantially by the fall. They are calm - until you open the hive. They really don’t like inspections.
# 3
These gals started out as a replacement for a #2. The queen developed the colony with haste. By the end of spring 2020, this colony was huge. Unfortunately, the Queen began to fail, and she ended up being a drone laying Queen. As a result, the colony became ANGRY. They stung anything within 50 feet of the hive. The Queen was removed and replaced with an ER daughter. Within a few days, the colony’s behavior dramatically changed becoming similar to ER’s calm nature.
#4
This colony is an ER daughter as well. These bees are just as sweet as their sisters and mother. They are a pleasure to work with and our preferred stock
#5
This colony is Oregon survivor stock. This colony originally was a split from another hive, with a Queen from Ol’ Sol Apiaries out of Oregon State. We noticed that many bee breeders sell the same thing, so we branched out to diversify our local stock. This is a dark Queen; almost a charcoal color bee. Again a very calm hive.
#6
A Swarm colony (Thanks Jennifer). These bees were clustered in a Lilac bush in June of 2020. A small cluster but they were free, and free is good. These bees a very blond - likely Italian bees. They are calm and produce a good amount of honey.
#7
Our final queen is a Caucus Mountian Bee. This Queen was purchased from Ol’ Sol Apiaries as well. By choosing this bee breed, we were looking to diversify our stock and introduce genetic traits that would help our local gene pool. These bees are a charcoal gray. They are just as calm and gentle as ER. They seem to build up colony strength quite a bit late in the season, booming by the fall.
Name Choices
Our Queens get a name when they are able to survive a winter. As winters can be tough on bees, we only want strong and hardy stock. Once the spring comes, hopefully, we’ll have 6 new names. And yes, Newt is on the shortlist of names. Our names come from strong SciFi female characters.