VSH-Italian Queens

VSH-Italian Queen Bees

Wildflower Meadows produces VSH-Italian queen bees for sale that are gentle, easy to work with and build up abundantly for pollination and honey making.

Thank You! We’re Sold Out for the Season

We appreciate your incredible support this year! Due to high demand, we’ve sold out of all VSH-Italian queens for the 2024 season.

Queen Honey Bee Pricing:

(All Prices Include Complimentary Queen Marking)

	*Mar-Apr*	*May-Jun*	*Jul-Sep*
100+ Queens	$34	$33	$31
54 – 99 Queens	$37	$35	$33
27 – 53 Queens	$39	$37	$35
11 – 26 Queens	$41	$39	$37
1 – 10 Queens	$43	$41	$39

Estimated Shipping Charges*

(Orders 1-6 Ship JZ-BZ Cages; Orders 7+ Ship CA-Mini Cages)

10 or More Queens	Free Shipping
7 – 9 Queens	$35
1 – 6 Queens	$25

* Exact amounts are based on destination and are calculated at checkout. We currently accept orders for delivery within the United States only.

Wildflower Meadows offers free UPS Next Day Air shipping

Queen Honey Bees for Sale

Whether you are a seasoned commercial beekeeper, or just beginning and discovering the thrill of backyard or urban beekeeping, Wildflower Meadows’ queen bees are perfect for you! Wildflower Meadows’ mated queen bees will take you through the season with improved vitality, excellent honey production, and maximum disease resistance.

VSH-Italian queens are shipped weekly via UPS Next Day Air. When you buy queen bees from Wildflower Meadows, you will receive UPS tracking information and updates on your order, from the time your queens are shipped until the moment they arrive.

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Wildflower Meadows invites you to stay in touch so that we can notify you of the availability of our VSH-Italian queens, as well as any special offers that take place from time to time.

WILDFLOWER MEADOWS BEEKEEPING BLOG

Did you know that Wildflower Meadows has a bi-monthly beekeeping blog? With over 200 posts and counting, Wildflower Meadows’ Beekeeping Blog features beekeeping tips and information, as well as insights into the exciting (and sometimes unusual) world of queen rearing and beekeeping.

VSH Queens

Wildflower Meadows’ VSH-Italian queen bees are bred exclusively from instrumentally inseminated VSH breeders, and are selected for mite resistance, gentleness and rapid spring buildup. VSH stands for Varroa Sensitive Hygiene, and is one of the keys to keeping healthy, mite-resistant colonies. The VSH trait was originated from USDA stock in Louisiana, and later developed commercially by a number of US commercial queen breeders.

Bees exhibiting the VSH trait interfere with the reproduction of varroa mites by detecting and removing bee pupae that are infested with varroa mites. This VSH activity slows the spread of varroa, and keeps mite populations below damaging thresholds for long stretches of time, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for chemical treatments. Bees that are bred to have high VSH traits are not only vigilant in their resistance to varroa mites, but they are also super-hygienic in general, which gives them excellent natural resistance against American Foulbrood and Chalkbrood. By selecting for the VSH trait, most VSH breeders, including Wildflower Meadows, have developed mite resistance to such an extent that they do not need to treat their VSH breeding stock with any chemical treatments whatsoever.