Queen bee availability in Santa Barbara?

[lauri...@gmail.com]

Sadly, Mark von Dollen, who was our local queen breeder, moved away to the east coast last year. Many of us are getting ready to re-queen our hives and we'd love to procure queens locally. Is there anybody breeding queens in the Santa Barbara area? If so, when might they be available? Many beekeepers want to know!

Laurie

[Nick Wigle]

We purchased much of Marks queen rearing equipment and over 200 queens from him last year while he trained us to raise queens.  We expect to be up and running about April 16th.  

There is also Jeramy Rose in San Luis Obispo, CA

[Laurie Rasmussen]

Thanks Nick! I knew you had purchased Mark’s stuff but didn’t know exactly when you’d be in production. Good to know, we definitely need a local queen breeder! I know that Jeremy might not have any queens available for sale outside of his own operation until around April, and it’s hard to know right now how many he might have. 

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Laurie Rasmussen

805.320.9337

www.laurierasmussen.com

harpsbythesea.com

[Cathie Sadler-Pare]

So glad you were able to keep the line going😀 please let us know when you may  have queens available 

Cathie

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[Nick Wigle]

I am glad everyone is excited about requeening as I believe that quality queens are one of the strongest influences on colony survival / ability to thrive.  We have really enjoyed comparing different genetics and currently are experimenting with the VHS line, Randy Olivers mite resistant bees and we are going to also get some of Hilo Queens.  We also compare the traits of the feral colonies we capture looking for the "Super Bee"

Queens pricing:

$65 each for 1-9 queens pick up on Saturdays in our queen mating yard - Order and payment due 1 week in advance

$50 for 10 or more - Order and payment due 3 week in advance

$75 for emergency queens available any time once we start production.  

We will announce availability on our Facebook and instagram page. 

https://www.instagram.com/superbeerescue/

https://www.facebook.com/superbeerescue

[Todd Squires]

Wow, Nick — 

Is that for queen cells too?  Mark used to charge me $5 for queen cells, which I always thought was shockingly cheap, but it’s all I knew.  Are the rates different for caged queens than for cells, or am I just totally miscalibrated vis a vis price?

Todd

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[Nick Wigle]

Todd thank you for the chance to address this issue

Since I started in beekeeping in Santa Barbara in 2009 I have found this economic issue that has really effected the services available to local beekeepers.  Locally there has always been a mismatch between high demand and low supply of beekeeping services.  But due to the low population there is not enough demand to support a commercial scale enterprise.  When I started everything was done by volunteers and hobbyists for low to no money.  This included bee removals, back yard beekeeping, classes, etc.  It is my belief that there has always been a need for a small high quality boutique company to help meet these needs.  I started with bee removal and moved the bar from free to now we charge $160 a hour with our average job being around $400.  Backyard beekeeping for others was done for free or even honey shares.  We now charge $110 a month for this service and now we are moving into queen rearing, nucs and selling complete hives.  The prices historically have been based on what the big commercial operations out of the Central Valley and Northern California price their services.  This is unsustainable to do in our area due to cost of labor and housing.  This has been proven by the number of great beekeepers that have needed to move out of our area or have recently retired without anyone to replace them at the same price point.  If you look at the current queen breeders prices for what they sell their queens for at low volumes and add the price of shipping you get to our price.  I love Mark, but he was so generous with his time, being willing to sit at Dennys for hours, just to sell a few queens to support local hobbyists , it was not sustainable.  Our goal has never to been to be the cheapest, but to be the best and meet the needs of our customers and create a Win / Win / Win in which the bees are loved and supported, the client gets what they need, and we make a fair wage based on our experience and quality.  We have found that over the years this has allowed us to continue to expand and we stay at the top of the market and others are able to start a business and compete with us on price.  We may offer queen cells in the future, it will likely be priced about $20 each - minimum order of 10 - 2 week in advance.    We value our time and due to all of the increasing costs / inflation we expect costs to continue to increase rapidly in industries such as beekeeping, that have very high input costs of labor, fuel, lumber, land, etc. 

[Todd Squires]

Hi Nick — 

Thanks for your response — all very reasonable and I cannot really argue.  As for queen-rearing, I had the sense that Mark made his money selling to the big guys, and viewed his work with the hobbyists / backyard beekeepers as a service, rather than where his money would come from.  FWIW, I never really “ordered" from him, but instead let him know that I was starting to think about requesting, and he’d let me know when his big orders were expected, nad he’d add a couple cups to the big batches he was making for the big guys.  So hobbyists were basically piggybacking off the economies of scale that demand from the commercial folks would provide.  

But, of course, you are well within your rights to charge whatever you see fit for your services.  As you say, you aim to be the best, not the cheapest, and I hope you’re able to keep it going at whatever price you decide to charge.  It’s too steep for me to re-queen with the frequency that I otherwise would want to, especially since I just give away my honey anyway, but I hope you can make it work, and I appreciate what you’re doing for awareness and for the bees.

Todd

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