Since 1985 we had been operating a small apiary located in the challenging micro-climate of Washington State’s isolated North Olympic Peninsula: pollinating for family farms and supplying local specialty markets with pure raw honey.

… BUT in 1997 (when feral bee populations were thought to be near extinction due to varroa mites), the USDA Honeybee Stock Breeding Center sent out a universal call asking for “wild swarm” queens to be submitted to them …  we realized we were uniquely situated to capture any genuinely-feral swarms that may have survived unmanaged for decades in these harsh conditions.

We began by setting out bait hives in remote locations whose oral history reported that honeybees had been introduced by early  settlers in the 1800’s, successfully trapping several swarms.  We submitted samples of our early captures for DNA analysis to Washington State University, and received oral confirmation that their mitochondrial markers indicated they belonged to a “cluster of bees” that included Italians; Carniolan; two genera of Greek bees; and Caucasians.  The reliable history of the locations, and the color of the bees, confirmed our belief that they were most likely survivors of Caucasian stock that had been introduced to the area by those pioneer families … that was when our ORIGINAL WILD SURVIVOR BEE BREEDING-PROGRAM was born, and the real adventure began.

We continue to collect swarms; evaluate their resistance characteristics; and have gradually enhanced their performance with selective-inclusion of proven USDA Primorsky Russian; SMR/VSH; and WSU Caucasian lines to achieve a hardy feral-hybrid stock that continues to demonstrate genetics capable of withstanding many of the lethal pests and pathogens that are plaguing honeybees today.