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-type breeder queen. Breeding selection criteria is: abundant laying potential and brood viability, 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 is 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 mated queens for spring 2024 and 2025!
(September - over wintered)
$70
Spring-mated queens (October onward)
10+ $60
<10 $70
*minimum order $100
-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-type queen, housed in a capped queen cell. Cells are capped six days after grafting and hatch 12-13 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. Beekeepers are required to collect cells themselves, meaning an incubator or incubator-hive is usually required for effective transport of the delicate cells.
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.