[HaplozygousNut]

Here is a video of a colony of mostly dark bees. They propolize little and are wide banded, so I was thinking that they were Carniolan, or maybe even Carpathian or Ukrainian bees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooJ4KtV_F6c

 

[Hogback Honey]

just watches a little of the video, they look like Carniolans to me.

 

[rwlaw]

Ya, looks like a queen w/ carnie linage.

 

[HaplozygousNut]

Thank you. I will see how rapidly this colony builds up this Spring (probably started already since we have an early Spring in the South). Carniolans are known to build up rapidly, from a small cluster to full sized colony.

 

[ruthiesbees]

my Buckfast queens have some dark workers like this, as do my Caucasian queens. (Both lines are from New River Honey Bees and were mated there in WV.)

 

[HaplozygousNut]

my Buckfast queens have some dark workers like this, as do my Caucasian queens. (Both lines are from New River Honey Bees and were mated there in WV.)

Yes, it is hard to tell between the subspecies, especially if they are the same colour. The different subspecies of honeybees are very similar in looks.

Did your Caucasian drones have dark thorax hairs and were they unusually large? Did your Caucasian drones have especially long thorax hairs? Those are traits that I have read Caucasian drones have compared to the other common subspecies of bees kept.

I think the bees in the video have similarity to the Carpathian bees in this Romanian website comparing Carniolans and Carpathians. Some of the bees in the video seem less hairy than Carniolans and more shiny, and I read here on this Romanian website that Carpathian bees are that way with thinner bands and darker thorax hairs: https://www.renastereastuparitului.c...ca-si-carnica/