[challenger]

I have a hive that I let raise its own queen. I do this a lot and have had generally good luck. Recently I let one do this and the queen I got is a great size queen but it is solid black which I have never seen before. She is laying wall to wall so I am not complaining but curious about the color. I've read some posts about "Cordovan" queens but I understand they are more of a dark brown.
Thanks-Howard

 

[Joseph Clemens]

This is a photo of a Cordovan Italian queen -->

Some may consider her "dark", but I consider her light, at least lighter than queens not carrying the Cordovan genes.

I have seen photos of queens on Michael Bush's website that appear all black or nearly so.

 

[concrete-bees]

the color change is normal when your queen that layed the egg of the new queen is of unknown mating.

if for example you have an Italian queen that mates with 10 Itailan Drones and one Russain Drone and 2 New World Drones .... most of the offspring will be of italian colors, some will be dark, some will have more hair, less hair..ect

now when you do a split with no queen just eggs - you take a chance of having a Dark queen raised from those eggs - since there is no way to tell genitics from a egg or a larvea

so now that you have a Dark Queen - and your other hives are Italians id say that your Dark queen will breed with Italian Drones and so her offspring will be light colored bees

hope this helps you out

Seth

 

[concrete-bees]

the Very nice pic of the Cordovan Queen is a great pic

i have several breed of them !!!! im switching over to Dark bees - all black -- mass wax builders !!!! as im finding out

i like the Cordovan's for the fact that you can inspect the hive near naked!!!!!

 

[KQ6AR]

The NWC package I bought this year has a black queen. She is also an egg laying machine. Filled 20 frames with bees in the last 2 months, & is threatening to swarm on me.

What a queen, I hope I can keep her from leaving.
She came from OHB.

 

[Jeff G]

Here is my Carniolan, she is not black but dark carmal.

 

[baldwinbees]

I caught a swarm in April that had a solid black,huge queen.The deep box is wall2wall brood.All frames.The next 2 meds. have 5-6frames brood.The next 2 meds. have2-3 frames of brood.The next med. is capped honey&the top med. is almost capped.whatever frames in the 4 lower meds. that don't have brood is capped honey.I've a beekeeper here been in it for 80yrs.&he is totally impressed that it has grown like it has.I will DEFINATELY make a split[or 2] from this hive as soon as our flow slows down in a clp of weeks

 

[challenger]

Someone told me that Russian queens are often black?

 

[Fred Bee]

I don't know about Russian Queens, but I have had New World Carniolan Queens that were big black and beautiful. Layed a great pattern and were some good bees.

 

[Hambone]

Here is a pic of a Bweaver All Star from a couple years ago that is almost black. She was awesome!!

 

[Batman]

I have a dark queen, nearly black, she flat out rocks! I took her down in a VERY large colony that had only showed up a few days before I was called onto the scene. It took 2 deeps to house the entire colony, in 2 weeks they blew up to 20 new deep frames and wanted to swarm. It took over 1 hour to find her in all those bees, she's an absolute egg laying machine. I ended up making 2 extra hives from that one colony and I sure hope that her daughters are just as great as she is, if they are, it's gonna be a sweet year! Which reminds me, its been 2 weeks, I guess I better go check em again.

Craig

 

[challenger]

I will try and get a picture. The weather has been too rainy for messing with bees but this girl is jet black and large.

 

[Parke County Queen]

My best hive has a black Carniolian queen. I call her Black Betty and she is an egg laying machine. Wall to wall brood.

 

[earthchild]

Black Betty!!!:lpf: I love it.

 

[earthchild]

I forgot to mention that one of my queens is dark brown/nearly black and I call her Queen Latifah.