Apicoltura La Fenice, relying on the previous experience inherited by Giacomo Acerbi with Tenuta Ritiro, can be considered a reference for quality queens in the international market. Specialized mainly in Buckfast genetics, we collaborate with the best breeders of the European scene and we have been active for years in the development and selection of lines resistant to varroa.

The breeding is located in the heart of Salento, near Lecce, a territory that can count on early blooms that, together with our targeted stimulation program, allows us to have mature and selected drones already in mid March.
The work is done by an high, specialized team. Under the coordination of Luca Consigli, the operations involve maniacal care in the grafting and preparation phases of the breeders, to obtain well-nourished royal cells perfectly of the same larval stage. Queens collection takes place in several apiaries with a large number of drone banks. The parameters that our beekeepers must respect are rigid. They never collect mated queens if they didn't find at least two wide Apidea's combs of brood. For this reason our collection averages hardly exceed the 65%.

Another important detail: during the final stages of the previous season we choose the two male lines to be adopted for the following season, and then we produce several nucs, all with selected sister queens.

Only from these nucs we will withdraw combs of male brood for the creation of "drone banks" that will be placed in the mating stations.

in sufficient quantity to ensure that all the virgin queens gonna get mated comfortably all over 4 weeks. Despite all the areas surrounding the mating stations are saturated by our certain genetics hives, and although we can not define 100%, genetically controlled matings, we trust in this demanding work of saturation of the area, purposely planned.

All our mother breeders are selected for: health, productivity and docility and we test daughters for 1 years in our hives before using them for grafts.
The customer will receive cages on which indicated queen's genetic origin code , in order to facilitate him at the time of order if he had particularly enjoyed a specific line.

For us, the customer is in the first place either a hobbyist or a big company professional. We know that there are a thousand different ways of keeping bees, different needs, and different territories and climates. Precisely because of all this, we never stop to travel in free time to search for the best genetic material to bring to our headquarters to test it.

To safeguard our genetic heritage over time, we organize annual meetings with expert inseminators who will cross the material we have indicated to fix the desired genetic characteristics.