From: Erik Osterlund <honeybee@elgon.se>
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 00:13:55 +0100
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@egroups.com
Subject: Re: Observations.

Thanks Dave for your input

It's always interesting to know the way you are working in different areas.
As I understand Lusbys, one important factor linked to the yellow color
where they live is the size of the bee and the ability to draw 4.9 mm sized
foundation correctly.

Big sized bees have been popular now for at least a century and selection
has no doubt also been in favor for big size. Today in Sweden the biggest
bee is the yellow bee, bigger than Carniolan and the dark native bee. Many
observations confirm that. I found an interesting note the other day in an
old Danish bee book, "Forer in biavl", published 1950, which was a reprint
from a 1887 original, which was a translation from the English "Beekeeping"
(I suppose the English name was) by Thos. W. Cowan, the editor of the
British Bee Journal at that time. There it is stated in the description of
the different races, that the Italian bee is smaller than the Carniolan and
the Dark bee. So during these more than 100 years a successful selection
has been made for a bigger bee. Though with the disadvantage of having more
difficulties in drawing small sized foundation. I hope though that with
hard selection work it is possible to reconstruct the Italian bee back to
what it was.

Myself I havn't bothered about the color in my breeding. I breed what I
call Elgon, which is a Buckfast type of bee, a combinatioon between mainly
the East African mountain bee Monticola (which is a black bee) and
Buckfast, but also with some of the yellowish Marockoan oasis bee
Sahariensis. Over the years, in average, the bees have turned darker. I
have newly, through the work of Lusbys been aware of the importance of the
size of the cell and the bee itself in this connection. I have this summer
checked what bees from different colonies have built, without foundation,
in mini matingnucs. Those with most yellowish appareance built the biggest.
Those with most theoretical Monticola heritage built the smallest.

Best regards

Erik
-----

At 18.56 -0800 0-12-29, David Eyre wrote:
>From:- "deelusbybeekeeper" <deelusbybeekeeper@excelonline.com>
.....
>
>>We believe that beekeeprs should look for and select honeybee
>>breeder/drone hives based on a whole bee theory of field
>>characteristics. Since we select to the black side, because we have
>>found more beneficial characteristics on this cold-weather side of the
>>spectrum, I will therefore list basically, what we look for to offset
>>the characteristics, of the yellow hot-weather side of the spectrum:
>
>The findings of Dee are diametrically opposite our findings here in
>Canada. Colour has little bearing on winter abilty regarding survival or
>general hive quality in the yards I have contact with.
>We prefer a lighter golden bee, Italian in extraction, my neighbour has
>a darker Carniolan and I've just recently made contact with someone who
>has what we believe is descendant of the original dark European bee.
.....
> Just an alternative view.
> Regards Dave.....