twintrades, I just sent one back at ya.
Here is some background on these bees folks.
If you are looking for bees with at least some known northern background here is some background on the bees I am offering. These are all splits I made from swarm cells from last winters survivors. I like making increase from swarm cells because after much reading and some experience in the matter I believe I get much better queens and a lot less superseding. The mother queens of the nucleus colonies I am offering are (1) my best Olivarez queen from last season, (2) two mothers whos mother was my best last season, and (3) my best two queens from VP Queen bees I received last fall.
1- Purchased in a five frame nuc last season (1 of 6 olivarez queened nucs). This one took off faster than all the rest, made three or four mediums of honey if memory serves me correct. It Survived winter with flying colors took off fast, was two deeps, four mediums strong when swarm cells were detected.
2- I made small nucs last June or July of 2010 from my favorite and most productive queen last season. They both made some honey, wintered really strong, took off like crazy, donated to several nucs this spring, still packed three deeps, and one medium with bees, and had an amazing amount of brood when I split up queen cells into three colonies, finding old queen later.
3- I purchase 6 marked queens from VP Queen bees last year and wintered each in a single deep (8 frames and a frame feeder). Three of them superseded in August. Two of those three died over winter, one came out weak and is doing well now. The other three marked queens wintered like champs came out of winter with two to three frames of bees. Two took of really fast once they got going, filled three deeps with bees, lots of brood with great brood patterns. They caught me off guard when they filled a deep of foundation almost full of honey in 8 days and had started swarm preps. If any are swarmy it is these but so far I really am impressed with them, and they come from treatment free stock and are supposed to be mite resistant.
I have had no mean colonies this year at all. The VP colonies were a little fussy one day for some unknown reason but no stinging, just some angry buzzing. Of course I get stung from time to time when I squeeze a bee and there is always that one bee that has it out for ya from time to time but otherwise all very nice bees.
If you have any questions about them just pm me and ill give you my cell number. Many will be ready to go by end of next week.