[shaneTX]

I recently captured a small swarm of bees out of a tree near my home in West Houston.. I put them in a nuc and waited a few weeks to look for eggs and capped cells. Lots of brood but couldn't located the queen after 30 minutes .. ugh..

This weekend, I inspected them again and wow! She is a great layer! And lucky me, I found the queen in 30 seconds!.. sheez.. She isn't a golden italian queen like the rest of my queens... she also isn't very big and is stripped like her daughters.

As you can see from the picture, this is some pro level where's waldo.. She looks great in pink.

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I guess what I'm worried about is if she is an africanized queen being the source was a wild swarm. Turns out Google sucks at finding this answer. Right now, the colony isn't aggressive but the brood nest is only 3 frames wide.

 

[Steve in PA]

Following because I have one queen that looks like that as well. Certainly not africanized but she looks different than every other queen I have.

 

[fieldsofnaturalhoney]

I guess what I'm worried about is if she is an africanized queen being the source was a wild swarm. Right now, the colony isn't aggressive but the brood nest is only 3 frames wide.

I don’t think you can identify if a queen is Africanized by looks, but I am not an expert. You will be able to identify it by feel

 

[honeyhartbees]

We have several queens with that coloring. Some have come from black mothers, some from yellow. So they are in the mix of the ancestors of my bees. As was stated, just need to wait and see how the hive acts as it grows. And, no, mine are not agressive.

 

[ruthiesbees]

I have several queens in my apiary that look like that. I call them my tiger stripe queens. I intentionally don't run "Italian bees" because I don't want to have to feed them over the summer dearth and will instead bring in Caucasian and Buckfast bees from a guy in West Virginia. Then I raise my own queens and let them mate with the other bees in our area. We have a lot of beekeepers in our town, and some buy the Italians and others are raising Russian bees, so these are true mutts. My Caucasian queens will still tend to be mostly black. I don't have a golden queen in the bunch.

 

[birddog]

When you catch unknown swarms you call them muts. Most of us that allow our bees to open mate should call them muts , after that observation of their habits determines their value

 

[Hunajavelho]

The crescent shaped stripes is common in eastern European races like Anatolian, Carniolan, Caucasian and so on...


queens with south african genes incl. a.m.scutellata usually looks like this:

 

[AR1]

The crescent shaped stripes is common in eastern European races like Anatolian, Carniolan, Caucasian and so on...


queens with south african genes incl. a.m.scutellata usually looks like this:

View attachment 54577

That looks exactly like my queens, but they are quite calm and overwinter well in Illinois, so not a lot if any African.

My opinion is African genes only matter if the bees get mean, or they don't overwinter where you are. Bee races are all mixed up so any bee color can be any genetics, unless you buy only artificially inseminated queens.

 

[GregV]

That looks exactly like my queens, but they are quite calm and overwinter well in Illinois, so not a lot if any African.

My opinion is African genes only matter if the bees get mean, or they don't overwinter where you are. Bee races are all mixed up so any bee color can be any genetics, unless you buy only artificially inseminated queens.

+1
Outside of 100% controlled environment, these talks of the "bee-looks" are meaningless.
A typical case in the US - open-mated hybrids of whatever with whatever, with (whatever*whatever) outcomes.

PS: superficially I like the dark bees;
I want to believe the dark bees are better for the North;
is this true?
heck, of course I don't know;
call it fetish if you want, LOL.

 

[JConnolly]

The bigger question with respect to if bees are Africanized or not is not just about the queen, but what kind of drones did she mate with. Africanized drones have a big effect on temperament. And there is no way you can tell that until she raises a population and they turn out to be mean.

 

[shaneTX]

When you catch unknown swarms you call them muts. Most of us that allow our bees to open mate should call them muts , after that observation of their habits determines their value

I guess I do the same thing.. Most of my bees are mutts from wild swarms..

Out of curiosity, what characteristics and how do you grade/observe as being desirable? I find it takes me a long time to determine if a queen is good or not and then Im over invested.

One interesting trait I've seen from a couple of the swarms, is they reduce the size of the opening with propolis to only fit 2-3 bees.. I guess that is a good anti-raiding trait.

 

[shaneTX]

The crescent shaped stripes is common in eastern European races like Anatolian, Carniolan, Caucasian and so on...


queens with south african genes incl. a.m.scutellata usually looks like this:

View attachment 54577

That looks like a lot of mine except mine have pink dots..