The Northern Queen Initiative: Improving Value, Availability, and Production of Mite-Resistant Honey Bee Queens in Northern Climates

View the project report

Commodities

• Animals: bees

Practices

• Crop Production: beekeeping

This project will address the deficiency in Michigan market availability of honey bee queens bred for parasite and viral resistance. Michigan beekeepers depend on importation of honey bee queens from non-Northern suppliers and breeders that raise queens and bees that are not adapted to Northern climates. Along with the challenge of environmental stress, diseases harbored by the varroa mite plague beekeepers in hobbyist, sideline, and commercial capacities thus negatively impacting successful seasonal honey harvests.

The deficiency in locally adapted mite-resistant honey bee queens compounds the issues beekeepers face in every scale of beekeeping from 1 hive to 500. The agricultural industry is dependent on honey bees for sustainability in all facets of the food system. Large operations cannot dedicate time and resources to the processes required for selective breeding in honey bees. This project seeks to improve market availability and access to sustainable honey bee queens while incentivizing adoption of stock by reducing time and labor cost associated with adoption. This project will increase production of queens for all beekeeping operations by developing a network of capable queen producers. This project will directly and indirectly influence regional honey bee mating areas that benefit all beekeepers regardless of scale.

1. Establish a network of production for selected stock to improve Michigan honey bee mating areas and develop a sustainable reservoir of selected stocks.
2. Provide local/regional access to queen stocks through local pick up from producers, bee clubs, and overnight mailing.
3. Distribute media and conduct workshops for 400+ club members and 1000+ media subscribers.
4. Recruit additional queen producers to amplify project objectives and methods and improve regional saturation of viable honey bee queen stocks.
5. Breed lineages established as Northern queens producing offspring selected for mite and viral resistance, Northern winter survivability, and honey production.