We are a beekeeping business;
Master beekeeper Slavko Venčeslav Lešek , wife Romana Klinar– certified beekeeper and beekeeping apprencie Zala Lešek.
We started beekeeping as a hobby a few decades ago. Today beekeeping is our lifestyle.
Away from urban noise, industry, traffic and intensive farming we manage several hundred colonies. Our yards are located on the altitudes between 400 and 650 m above sea level in the surrounding of Laško. We have been producing queens for 20 years, for the last seven years intensively for the foreign market. Our breeding technology is based on mimicking the natural reproduction of queens.
The forage at your beeyards begins in April. The honeybees are adapted to both nectar and honeydew forage.
We have been breeding 100% pure Apis mellifera CARNICA QUEENS intensively for the last 30 years and we are proud of several hundred honey bee colonies, which enable us to have a large quantity of first-class breeding stock . Our breeding technology is based on mimicking the natural reproduction of queen bees. This is why we use natural wax cups. Starters receive no more than 20 young larvae each. Larvae are not older than 12 hours.
With at least 80 % alle ptance each starter has 16 – 18 queen cells which is simillar to swarming. Minimum length of queen cells is between 38 and 41 mm. After the emergence we can still find a lot of unused royall jelly at the top of the queen cell. Following these standards the weight of a young mated queen when it starts laying eggs is at least 220 mg. We use adapted Cloake method. The starter has a fully popullated Langstroth hive body full of young bees and emerging brood. Not a single cell of open brood is ever present. The starter is always heavy on fresh nectar and pollen.
Our breeding material comes from collonies that have passed a two year testing process. After that 50 – 100 bees are taken from the colony and inspected by the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia. We receive an analysis of the cubital index and nosema spores. The colony must follow the criteria of 2,4 – 3,0 for cubital index and no nosema. In the second year pin test is also admininstered to all the candidates. The potential breeder must clean at leat as large as possible % of the pinched cells in the period of 12 hours.
Potential breeders should also posses the following characteristics:
Only selected candidates are approved and listed into the herd book with the neccessary zootechnical documents. The whole proccess is managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, The Agricultural Institute of Slovenia and The Beekeeping Association of Slovenia.
Every approved queen breeder must have the neccessary national qualification prior to the breeding license . All of the breeding stock is inspected by the state veterinarian before the start of the queen rearing season. If the veterinarian inspection and the inspection by The Agricultural Institute of Slovenia and The Beekeeping Association of Slovenia are passed queen breeder is allowed to rear queens for the following season.
GALLERY
We keep the bees according to the guidelines of good hygienic practise in accordance with the principles of the HACCP system. Bees colletc honey in unspoiled nature, far away from industry, cities, intensive farming and busy transport roads. The nearest larger settlement is Laško.
We breed colonies, production and purebred CARNICA queens.
Apiary is under strict veterinarian control.
Lešek Apiary breed our own bees and produces production and purebred CARNICA queens.
for BEE QUEENS: | May – August |
for PACKAGE BEES: | April – July |
for FRAME NUCS: | April – July |
for HONEY AND POLLEN: | all year |