Inside The Hive

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Survivor Genetics & Queen Raising

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Nucleus Colonies

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Hey there, I’m Jeffrey Allan Shaw, a third generation beekeeper living somewhat of a nomadic lifestyle these days.

As a third-generation beekeeper, I currently manage over 300 hives in western Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan and serve as the President of the Pittsburgh-based community apiary, Burgh Bees. I work and teach to increase community awareness, educate beekeepers and promote beekeeping as a vital part of sustainable agriculture. I’m also part of a PA-based queen improvement program, facilitating a yearly educational program and queen distribution workshop. In addition to beekeeping, I’m an avid environmentalist and sustainable business owner. In 1997, I created SEEDS Green Printing and Design, a B-Corp certified green printing and design company located in Pittsburgh that serves clients worldwide.

Style & Philosophy

My personal style of beekeeping is pretty unconventional. In life, I have always questioned the norm and often find myself doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing – because I want better results. I decided early on that I was not “in it” for the honey and discovered the need for a new paradigm in beekeeping and protecting pollinators, which means that conventional methods must be challenged and, at times, avoided. To this end, I focus the majority of my work on raising the most healthy, happy, and resilient bees.

Not taking honey, enables one to provide a constant supply of resources to their managed honey bee colonies. By backlogging honey, I increase the health of my colonies, select the ones that show a high tolerance or resistance to varroa mites and other pests and diseases, then propagate daughter colonies from that stock. I have managed to minimize winter losses to less than 10% year after year, while significantly increasing my number of colonies each year and strengthening my line of genetic stock, which is not dependent on traditional treatment methods.

After years of experience, I’ve found the following methods bring the greatest success: keeping bees in smaller, more natural colonies for easier grafting and trait selection; transferring excess honey stores to splits and nucleus builds; and breaking brood cycles to minimize varroa mites.

If you’d like to learn more, consider taking one of my classes.