Whether you are growing your beekeeping operation or re-queening, Pyramid Apiaries can help you out with Italian-strain bees
MATED QUEENS
Pyramid queens start their life as an egg from a carefully selected Italian-line breeder queen. Breeding selection criteria is: abundant laying potential, placid temperament, hive hygiene and proven high-yielding honey hives. Eggs are grafted into a plastic queen cup and raised in hive before each cell is moved to a mating unit to hatch. Here they are open-mated alongside selected drone hives.
Mating success, temperament and hygiene are then evaluated prior to sale. Queens are marked and housed in queen cages with 10-12 escort worker bees and can be collected from Pyramid Apiaries base or couriered anywhere in New Zealand.
Availability
Get in early - secure your supply of over-wintered queens for spring 2023!
(September)
10+ $60
< 10 $70
Spring-mated queens (October onward)
10+ $50
<10 $60
-all prices are GST and freight exclusive-
VIRGIN QUEENS & CELLS
NUCLEUS HIVES
Queen cells are raised in specialised "cell-raiser" hives - packed with bees primed to raise a new queen. This results in a strong and healthy Italian queen, housed in a capped queen cell. Cells are capped six days after grafting and hatch 13 days after grafting - providing customers with a seven-day window between when they can collect cells and the latest date to get them into hives. Virgin queens are recent hatchings, caged with at least 10 escort bees. These can be couriered throughout New Zealand - whereas beekeepers will be required to collect cells themselves, meaning an incubator or incubator-hive is usually required for effective transport of the delicate cells.
Availability
September - March
Price with Quantity Breaks
Cells:
$7
Virgins:
< 20 = $20
20+ = $17
-all prices are GST and freight exclusive-
A "nuc" hive is a great way to get into beekeeping or to build up hive numbers. Pyramid five-frame nucs come strong & with new gear! They consist of a newly-mated and marked Italian queen, between four and five frames of worker/drone bees and sufficient stores of pollen and honey to support the hive. The nuc box itself is a brand-new Hive Doctor with vent and adjustable entrance. The frames are full-depth plastic Hoffman and all less than two years old.