Russian Bees

I have done an at length study of the Russian bees. What I have learned from input from other peoples experience the article that was posted is outdated and has a lot of discouraging information that flat out isn't true. If you will go back and research some of the threads in the past 3 months you will find a wealth of info. They are not nearly as hard to requeen in Italian hives as you will be lead to beleive by some people whom have ulterior motives ( such as not wanting to have to compete against the Russians with the superior traits that they have. ) Todays Russians are not the same as the ones that some of these folks are refering to in the past. These are the ones that have been bred to be superior by the USDA over several years for calmness and production, the survivability is there naturally. They are not by any means perfect, but they are good. The only problem that I have found is that they are very hard to obtain because the breeder network is limited because of the strict rules set by the USDA. Of which they must be kept almost entirely pure. I would suggest that you order early and hope for the best. I did and still couldn't get what I wanted. If I were'nt so old I would be trying to become a pure Russian Breeder. I've got one foot in the grave and the other on a bannana peel the way I feel dome days

Make sure you are getting the real thing from a member of the Russian Breeders association.

Not the hybrid queen which means that she is a Russian open mated to any drone in the barn yard.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Hey Valleyman,
Appreciate the info. Some of the info I have read was discouraging and you cleared it up. Perhaps I misread but my "understanding" of the Russian line now is that they are "Select Hybrids?" The breeder queens are artificially inseminated but their offspring that the RBA sells are open mated,,,,,,in a somewhat controlled environment. An area relatively devoid of feral bees and the breeder mass populates his area with his drones for obvious reasons.
I'm not sure what you wanted, as you did not specify,,,I read alot of good things about Dwight Porter and his Russian Queens,,,,on this forum. A RBA member. Perhaps Spring is a tougher time to get Queens from suppliers. I ordered two Queens from Dwight Porter on July 1st, I have conformation for delivery next week. Anyway, I just wanted to share that and if I am incorrect,, please correct me. It sounds good/better to say I have six years Beekeeping,,,,,,in reality,,,I have one year Beekeeping six times
Thanks
Rick SoMd

Just got mine from a breeder in the association. Picked them up the last week in May. Talk about hard workers. When I get up in the morning they are already outworking my others. When night falls they are still coming back to the hive, my others have already settled in for the evening.

I put a 10 frame super on June 26 they had filled comb on over half of the frames in 4 days. Not to mention when I moved the Nuc to a 10 frame, they had the extra 5 frames filled and going to work on it.

I bought these to try as this is my second year, and I was not happy with the Italians that I bought last year. I had two hives of Italians last year. One hive starved with huge stores all around the dead cluster. The other came out of the winter weak and diseased with EFB or Sacbrood or both. I requeened that one with the VSH line.

So all in all I'm givng these Russians a test for overwintering and mite/disease resistance. They are a little more defensive than my Italians but so are my VSH.