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Earlier in this year I lost a queen in one of my hives and to decrease potential after swarms, I split the parent hive up into 2 nucs and the parent hive. With 3 separate colonies in the end.
The two nucs were moved to another property. The queens emerged, both looked rather under sized but of Italian blood lines since that's the parent hive was an Italian package at the beginning of this summer.
These two nucs are building up much faster than the parent hive is which had more bees in it at the time of the split.
I noticed one of the nucs has two colored bees. One is the black and yellow (Italian-looking, see picture below) and the other is a black and white. Any thoughts on what other breed the queen might have mated with? This nuc is about 50% of each colored bees.
But the black and white bees are incredibly calm and gentle which is a big plus.
Any thoughts?
(What I'm refering to as black & white is the bee on the left. The black and yellow is on the right.
The two nucs were moved to another property. The queens emerged, both looked rather under sized but of Italian blood lines since that's the parent hive was an Italian package at the beginning of this summer.
These two nucs are building up much faster than the parent hive is which had more bees in it at the time of the split.
I noticed one of the nucs has two colored bees. One is the black and yellow (Italian-looking, see picture below) and the other is a black and white. Any thoughts on what other breed the queen might have mated with? This nuc is about 50% of each colored bees.
But the black and white bees are incredibly calm and gentle which is a big plus.
Any thoughts?
(What I'm refering to as black & white is the bee on the left. The black and yellow is on the right.
