blackish and Italian bee in the same hive

[ch.cool]

Hi,

I'm a newbee and bought one package Italians(Georgia) . Everything is fine and I hope they make it over winter.
My question is, I have now dark bees and the Italian colored bees since 2-3 months and couldn't see any interruption in the brood cycle. Doe's this mean they re-queened and the old queen is still there or just a black drone was involved?

Ch.cool

[billybwf]

Queen mates with hopefully many drones. Therefore there is a possibility of different characteristics within the same hive because part of them come from the drone.

[Joes_bees]

Hmm a few things here.

If you're talking about one or two dark bees they could have drifted from a nearby hive.

Most likely your hive swarmed or requeened and the new queen mated with one or more black drones giving a percentage of the hives population a dark appearance.

If you are fairly sure the same queen is still in the hive maybe they are bees from another hive robbing your hive. Is there a flying frenzy outside the hive?

[Mr.Beeman]

I have quite a few different colored bees that have "drifted" to another hive. I have noticed that the darker the bee the more defensive they are. Russian genetic bees perhaps?

[lazy shooter]

It's like, "Who is your daddy!"

[ch.cool]

Thank you, for all the answers. It's about a 1/3 of the bees since 2 months. I don't think it's drifting the next hive I know of, is a mile away, definitely not robbing. the hive didn't swarm but I could imagine requeen. I like the idea of the black sheep in the herd the most.
Thank you

ch.cool