Let me guess, the banded ones are the carni and the solid black ones are the Russian, right.
What happens if you added the AMM into this mix?

 

These girls all came from the same queen. The queen is a russian/carni mix and many of the workers are solid black.

 

I had thought the Russian and Carni honey bees were closely related? Someone with more experience will hopefully chime in. From my limited experience with Carnis, they are my favorite to work with.

Shane

 

Russian bees are a naturalized hybrid between Italian, Carniolan, and Caucasion bees from what I've read. They do well in all the colder areas, and put away pretty good amounts of honey. They do like to swarm if not given enough room quick enough. They normally will keep a viable queen cell in the hive and do so just in case they have to swarm or the queen has a problem and must be superseded. They are gentle most of the time, unless cross bred with buckfast bees. They always turn out mean crosses then according to Hubert Tubbs.

So to answer the question, yes they are related. lol..

 

Hi Marti, I could be totally wrong but after taking a close look at your photos it kinda looks like CPBV ( http://www.beediseases.host-ed.me/Bee_diseases/CBPV.html ) to me. When I see a hive of my own like this I cross them off my grafting list. Fortunately I dont see it often and it comes and goes. Most of the time they survive, sometimes they dont survive the winter. Again, I may be way off base but its something to be aware of. Good Luck.

 

MJC417, looks like CPBV....

 

The only way for sure is to test the bees out. Is there a lab you can send them to?

 

http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=7473
The USDA will test bees but, "We do not analyze samples (bees, wax comb, pollen, etc.) for the presence of viruses or pesticide residue".

https://www.ars.usda.gov/is/np/honeybeediseases/honeybeediseases.pdf

Also according to the USDA "Ideally, the diagnosis of this disease is made using serological techniques.
Since this is beyond the capability of most laboratories, diagnosis is
usually made by observing symptoms in individual bees and, when
possible, colony behavior".

So far, they do not exhibit or appear to tremble uncontrollably and are still able to fly. They are at least isolated from other bee hives.