OHB Carniolan or Saskatraz Hybrid Honey Bees

For the 2025 season, we are excited and pleased to offer three-pound packages of either Carniolan or Saskatraz honey bees from Olvariez Honey Bees, in Northern California.

We were introduced to OHB while doing our studies at the University of Montana, and have used their bees in over half of our own farm. This season as we expand additional colonies in our own apiaries, we are using our own bees along with OHB bees exclusively. We have found that the health, overwintering, varroa resistance, and honey production of OHB has been excellent addition to our own bees.

Six years ago, after 18 years of beekeeping in cold, dry, Wisconsin winters, our move to Olympia was a shift to the cool damp winters we enjoy here in the PNW. Our early "bee of choice" was the Carniolan, which we not only used in Wisconsin, but is a bee that will continue to forage in our PNW cooler damp climate when other strains of bees will not. Carniolan queens will stop laying in winter, and as the cluster decreases in size and activity, their consumption of honey reserves decreases as well. We have found they do very well here in PNW.

We were introduced to OHB Saskatraz hybrid bees, which have a genetic line that originated in Canada and have some of the same qualities of the Carniolan; overwintering well, foraging in a cool and damp climate, and queens that stopping laying in winter, but with the addition of varroa hygiene & disease resistance. Our Saskatraz bees did excellent last season and have overwintered well.

A package of bees is three pounds of bees, along with a mated & laying queen. After almond pollination, hives are shaken into cages where they are weighed out and put into a package cage. Each package is then given a mated queen in her own cage and have a can of sugar water to feed the bees in transit.

Packages of bees will be available in April. In March we will let you know your pick up date. Order early as we will have limited time that packages are available. 

Give us a call or shoot us a note if you have questions or would like to know more! (253) 381-0156. 

3 lbs Carniolan bees $155

3 lbs Saskatraz hybrid bees $155