I have noticed that within one of my two hives the bees are of two slightly different colors - one more yellow around the stripes, the other more uniformly darker and greyer (not drones). Would this suggest that there are two different strains present( I suspect the hives I bought were fall splits) or could it be age related?
Victor Schrager
A queen on her mating flight will mate with as many as 20 drones. This will give her the greatest mix of genes to insure the survival of the hive. One of the drones might have been an Italian, hence the yellow color.
Dan
The only age related difference on color is newly emerged bees are fuzzy and look a bit light because of that. Most differences are from different fathers.
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