“Cougar Queens”

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    The IEBA/WSBA North Yard is a joint venture between this Assocation, the Washington State Beekeepers Association, and the Washington State University Entimology Department.

 

• Provide local (Eastern Washington/North Idaho) beekeeper evaluation of WSU stock
• Suitability of WSU Honey Bees for the Inland Empire area
• Evaluate Wintering ability
• Establish Honey Production
• Evaluation of [[Varroa Mite]] and [[Tracheal Mite]] Resistance
• Beekeeper Acceptance

Source of queens for IEBA members

• Beekeepers provide queenless 5 frame Nuc with feeder & feed
• Queen cells raised by IEBA members introduced into the Nuc
• Drones for mating maximized by Drone Frames in each of the 24 hives

Improvement of beekeeping skills within IEBA membership

• Field days for IEBA
• Training for novice beekeepers
• Training for Master Beekeeper course
• Queen grafting/rearing skills enhancement
• Record Keeping

Provide honey & wax for fair booth sales

Cougar Queens:

Queen Rearing:

• Utilize frame of eggs from WSU’s breeder queen
• IEBA members raise cells
• Introduce cells into participating members 5 frame nuc
• Raie queen cells in June
• IEBA Members amy ring nucs

Participating member:

• Required to spend time (Sweat Equity)
• Management of apiary
• Performing evaluations requested by WSU
• Assisting at field days
• Amount of time proportional to number of cells required
• Provides queenless 5 frame Nuc in June, July or August
• Provides feed for feeder
• Nuc remains at apiary until viable brood is present

Expansion of the WSBA/WSU Program:
    As part of the collaborative arrangement with WSBA member associations, Dr. Sheppard would also like to have each of the WSU genetic lines maintained by experienced WSBA members (one line per collaborating beekeeper). The expectation is that each regional association would provide up to 3 or 4 beekeepers that would be able to maintain queens in 24-30 of their colonies for the fall and winter. WSU would provide queens from the different lines to the beekeepers and they manage the colonies following normal beekeeping protocols. During each spring season 2 or 3 queens would be selected from each of the lines following a standard protocol or collaborative assessment and returned to the WSU campus for production use. Some training would be provided for each of the line beekeepers to provide the most consistent management and evaluation of line performance.