Hi everyone, I'm the guy in the panhandle of Texas with the Russians. Let me start by saying this is my first year in beekeeping.
I live in an area that gets approximately 18 inches of rainfall a year. Cotton is the major crop grown here and most of it is irrigated. This past year has been a tough one. The spring started with a late hard freeze, temps down in the 20's. That pretty much killed the spring wildflower bloom. Then, we didn't get much in the way of spring rains(or summer and fall for that matter)which pretty well kept anything that bloomed suppressed. We are currently standing at a little over 11 inches for the year, nearly seven inches below average.
After I had my Russians installed in my single deeps, I learned they don't produce brood unless there is a pollen source. Let me say this again...NO POLLEN,NO BROOD...and they aren't kidding either. Remember, we had a late freeze..therefore no pollen for a while.
The next thing to try to bloom in our area was catclaw acacia and mesquite which started to show around the end of may. The bees did work these, but did not seem to build up very fast. Remember, we were very below our average on rainfall. I've seen other posts talking about how lack of rain affects nectar/pollen production.
Around the middle of June, the heat set in. All summer long, it seemd to hover between 96-102 degrees...well into september. My bees had a steady water source, however the plants did not. wildflowers that usually bloom all summer long were noticeably absent. there was some smartweed that bloomed and the bees worked it. But there again, how much nectar/pollen was it producing?
I think all these things combined caused the Russians to struggle. Being a first year beek, I didn't realize I could have helped them along with supplemental feeding with something like Megabee in conjunction with the sugar syrup I was feeding:doh:....with Russians, pollen=brood production...more bees, more foraging ability.
In fairness to the Russians, they didn't evolve in a climate anything like the Texas panhandle. In looking back, I now think pure Russians require a very different management approach in my area vs. a climate like the northeast or the east/west coast. In my previous posts, I didn't mention I had three hives of feral bees at another location that all produced nearly two full supers of honey under the same conditions. For me, this provided proof that a strain of bees' adaptability to a location can be an important issue.
I plan on keeping my Russians and adjusting the way I manage them. I have seven hives going into the winter. Of the seven, only one had completely filled out all nine frames in both deeps. One hive is very small, six frames in the bottom deep and four full in the top. I probably should have combined those frames into one deep, but decided to leave them alone. I plan on feeding pollen substitute and dry sugar as needed to all hives.
I found the Russians to be very gentle bees to work. One person above commented about the difficulty in finding the queens. I experienced the same thing. The Russians are quite a bit larger than the feral bees I captured. I would also like to add I did not see a single mite in any Russian hive. I did have a few SHB show up.
This next year will tell whether or not a change in management will help the Russians be more productive in my area...providing we have a normal year weather/rain wise. I'm thinking under some conditions, no amount of good management skills will help. It may prove to be to much of a hassle to try and make Russians productive under my climate conditions. Perhaps Russians crossed with feral bees from my area will be a better choice.