Dark Bees

[grumpy]

I have a hive of Italian bees with the gold bodies with thin black stripes. I have noticed at times that bees with black bodies and thin gold stripes entering and leaving the hive. The hive is strong, but am I experiencing robbing? Or, has a superseeded queen cross bred with a darker strain?

Thanks

[dragonfly]

If it's a strong hive, I doubt that robbing is actually happening, and you would see the guard bees prohibiting the dark bees from entering, usually. One of my hives has multi-color bees, which I assumed was from differing genetic traits contributed when the queen mated.

[Michael Bush]

If there are a considerable number of darker bees it's probably from one of the drones the queen mated with. If there are very few, and they aren't being challenged or fighting, then they are probably strays that wandered in when they couldn't get back to their hive on a bad day or their hive was doing badly and they drifted.