From: scott.novinger@airborne.com
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 07:47:00 -0700
To: BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Russians: Queens, Drones, Swarms

Hello All,

Some good news. My bees have drawn out the 4.9 starter strips to the following
average dimensions: 4.8 mm horizontal, 5.2 diagonal. Yes, this is not
totally correct, but it's a good start. Would one average these measurements
and get 5.0?

Also, Joe Waggle asked about Russian bees (Carniolans). Here are my
observations since April 14th when I installed 4 - 3lb. packages of bees with
Russian queens. My queens came from Dave Miska in Florida. The bees were from
Stahlman apiaries in Blacklick, Ohio. I allowed the bees to go through one
brood cycle before making any critical observations of the Russian queens. I
wanted to observe their traits before deciding whether to requeen or not.

These bees are very gentle. I don't use smoke and would say that you don't
need to with these bees anyway. Occasionally, when a bee is upset, they will
"head butt" your veil. But they tend not to sting. They are very gentle with
almost a lethargic temperament at times. They tend to cluster on the frames,
hanging on to each other like you'd see in a captured swarm. I thought they
might be doing this to regulate their temperature and keep warm, but I haven't
seen this happen in my other colonies.

The queens have ranged in color from dark black to golden. These queens lay
lots of drone brood. One colony appeared to have more drones than workers.
Initially, the queens laid a fair amount of brood, both worker and drone.
Then there was a lull. This lull may have been induced by the large amount of
rain we had in May (21 days). I have only one colony that contains worker
brood of the quantity seen in a "normal" colony.

Another interesting observation - I have seen lots of queen cells in these
colonies. According to Dave Miska, whom I've corresponded with two times,
these queens are prone to having lots of queen cells "on hand". "The queens
tend to cut these down before the new queens emerge." He also said that "even
with more queen cells present, when the queen goes bad, the colonies don't
seem to re-queen any better than other stock."

As far as production goes, I'm not impressed with their ability to lay away
honey or pollen stores. Luckily, the bees originally shipped with these
queens drew out most of the comb which helped the colony get up-and-running.
Since then, both the brood and stores production has not been as vigorous as I
would have expected. In fact, there was very little capped worker brood and
almost no eggs in any of the Russian colonies. This may be due to the rain,
but my other colonies seem not to have been affected near as much.

At any rate, about a week ago I decided to requeen these colonies with the
Karnica queens from Ohio Queen Breeders. When I started to requeen, I
couldn't find any of the Russian queens. So I waited for awhile then "bam" I
found one right away. This happened in the next two colonies as well. All of
the sudden, there they were. I was able to find queens in three of the four
colonies. Last Friday, when I went out to requeen the fourth colony, I found
three live queens running across the frames - literally running. These
appeared to be virgin queens due to their smaller size. They were also quite
a challenge to catch. I was able to dispatch two to them, but couldn't find
the third. This situation made me wonder how many queens I missed when
requeening the other three colonies? I hoped that the Karnica queens will
dominate and survive. If not, then we'll see how this all plays out.

Yesterday (Sunday), I was witness to my first swarm. It was an awesome
experience. I had just read an article in ABJ about swarms and it was exactly
as described. I was mowing the lawn and noticed a lot of activity around the
"fourth colony" entrance, much more than the others. This was about 0930. At
1000, the swarm issued from the colony. It was a site to behold. I got off of
the mower and stood in the middle of it, just in awe. Shorts and a t-shirt,
and not one sting. I tried to follow their path, to no avail. I'm hoping
that they find a good home and continue to produce. I wondered whether or not
the new queen was the trigger than induced this swarm? At least I know that
one queen that I didn't find went with the swarm and will be one less threat
to the new queen.

Here are some closing thoughts. I would be skeptical about counting on the
Russian queens if you're expecting to produce a lot of honey. I think they
are a really gentle bee, but feel that maybe they're too gentle. There were
too many drones produced in my Russian colonies. I suspected at first that
this might be good as varroa supposedly prefer drone larva over worker larva.
A sort of natural defense against the varroa. However, when it reaches the
point of drones appearing in such large numbers, then in my opinion, it
becomes a drain on the colony.

This was a great learning experience for me and I hope this helps others who
are considering having Russian queens. I would appreciate any feedback or
observations made by others. This will help me to confirm or refute the
conclusions I have made.

Thanks,

Scott