My hives were being robbed this weekend. I noticed that the robbing bees were mostly black with some yellow striping. My bees are either mostly yellow with black stripes or evenly yellow and black. Are these the black bees I have read about? I am not aware of any other keeps in the area. My hives are in a remote part of the county, not many neighbors.
Carniolans have made a big comeback in recent years and they are dark. Caucasians were popular back in the 60s and 70s and some of them are out there in the wild. They are more silver grey but kind of black. The old "German black bees" were black and mean...
michael, i remember the german bees as having less hair on their thorax too. is that just in my mind or is that right? there was one beekeeper that kept german bees near me in th 80's and that's how i remember his bees being. around 1999 i did a removal in harris county georgia and that is the last time i remember seeing bees that i thought were either pure or at least mostly german.
i meant abdomen, not thorax.
Quote from: Michael Bush on March 16, 2015, 03:10:57 PM
The old "German black bees" were black and mean...
OP: "are these the Black Bees I've read about ?" Not necessarily. Although Woyke (1977) asserted that yellow is dominant over black on one particular recessive gene ('bl'), when this is combined with the half-dozen so-called 'polygenes', the overall effect becomes that of black being dominant over yellow.
Thus, mongrelization of any race, regardless of whether it starts as pure-bred or hybrid, always results in the creation of black bees, and so the poor German/ British black bee (AMM) - which is indistinguishable from black mongrels - duly gets an unfair reputation for being fierce, whereas it is far more likely that the 'hot' bees being complained of are in fact mongrels.
Certainly in Britain, this 'bad press' started shortly after the Isle of Wight incident, when the domestic Black Bee population was heavily decimated and queen suppliers had a vested interest in promoting sales of imported Italians and Carnies in addition to the home-grown Buckfast as replacements.
Last year I took delivery of two pure-bred Irish AMM breeder queens, and performed my first 2015 inspection of their colonies a few days ago, and I have never handled such calm, gentle and and docile bees, and this on a day which was heavily overcast and very marginal for making such an inspection.
It's the old story of pure-bred bees being docile and generally well-behaved, in contrast to crosses between these and other races and/or hybrids which can so often result in vicious behaviour.
But the fundamental problem of all Black Bees looking very similar remains, and so the existing prejudice towards the German/ British Black Bee just keeps on being unfairly reinforced.
LJ
>michael, i remember the german bees as having less hair on their thorax too. is that just in my mind or is that right? there was one beekeeper that kept german bees near me in th 80's and that's how i remember his bees being
I've seen colonies that I was cutting out back in the 70s that were solid black with no stripes and were mean as snakes. Well, that's not very fair to snakes. OK, they were mean as German black bees...
But I've also seen quite nice black bees. I think part of the issue is that the wild ones were not being selected for gentleness. It's not hard to breed for, really, but without selection they quickly revert to being pretty defensive.
yeah, they came out to meet you and they ran on the comb a lot from what i remember.
(http://tractorbarn.sytes.net/mystuff/pictures/fun/killerbeebelushi.png)
"Eyewitnesses say that the bees are yellow and black, and dress much the way Eli Wallach did in the movie 'The Magnificant Seven'. The bees are also overweight..."
There are people in high profile positions who can't stop themselves from drinking, and people living on the streets who can do high end math in their heads. You can't lay a behavior on factors like color.
This kind of thinking started in the Victorian era, when having the "perfect" animal was important. When bees are selected for certain traits, they're not picked by race, they're picked by temperament. Mostly it has to do with the reaction the bees are going to have to different stimulus, like an alarm pheromone.
When I look at the bees in my hive bodies, I see several different colors and patterns. They'll all have genetics from multiple fathers, but they all share the genes from the mother, being the only real control breeders have.
Quote from: CapnChkn on March 18, 2015, 01:47:35 AM
When I look at the bees in my hive bodies, I see several different colors and patterns. They'll all have genetics from multiple fathers, but they all share the genes from the mother, being the only real control breeders have.
Then you're not a breeder. Breeders can select the paternal line by either Instrumental Insemination, or by the use of Isolated Mating Stations.
LJ
>yeah, they came out to meet you and they ran on the comb a lot from what i remember.
...and followed for miles...
When I look at the bees in my hive bodies, I see several different colors and patterns. They'll all have genetics from multiple fathers, but they all share the genes from the mother, being the only real control breeders have.
? Last Edit: Today at 02:00:08 AM by CapnChkn ?
Capn Chkn,
I glad you are so pleased with your bees.
My bees weren't robbing themselves. I could tell the difference in the coloring from MY hives and the robbers.
I don't know what your were trying to imply, my apologies if I took you incorrectly.
J
@jvalentour - Well, I didn't mean to imply anything except that genetics don't work in any set form. I hear beekeepers lay behavior traits on specific races of bee, often determined by their color.
"Man! You would not believe these bees! They are HOT!"
"What color are they?"
@Little John - You're right, but I don't really have a better label than Breeder. I have watched the IWF videos, and know about contracted queen breeding on islands. But these methods are usually out of reach of the general beekeeping population.
Mostly queen programs involve trapping the drones of less productive hives, and flooding the local area with desired drones, and using eggs from the desired queen(s). In the words of the President of my former association, "Well, I call the queen from my best hive my 'breeder' queen."
Capn.. Pure strains of bees DO very much have traits.. Swarmy, robbing, lots of propolis, and MEAN or calm to work with.. but you ARE quite correct in that most bees today are no longer a pure strain so those characteristics are not as obvious and straight forward.
I have BLACK bees in my hives from feral drones.. No stripes on their abdomens, they are solid black.. throwbacks or leftover genetics from years ago.. When my hives have upwards of 20% of these black bees they ARE more aggressive than when the percentage is lower. In dealing with feral hives locally, the hives that are 90% black bees are as close as I ever want to get to dealing with AHB. The last two were so mean I destroyed them.
So when I get calls from those same areas, it is not unusual for me to ask "What color are they?" so I can be prepared and take my full suit along. This is not to say other "colors" cant be aggressive, but in general, those dark bees are meaner than most "colored" bees I have to deal with. NOT because they are german black bees.. just because thats the color they are.
Quote from: CapnChkn on March 22, 2015, 11:37:14 AM
@Little John - You're right, but I don't really have a better label than Breeder. I have watched the IWF videos, and know about contracted queen breeding on islands. But these methods are usually out of reach of the general beekeeping population.
Mostly queen programs involve trapping the drones of less productive hives, and flooding the local area with desired drones, and using eggs from the desired queen(s). In the words of the President of my former association, "Well, I call the queen from my best hive my 'breeder' queen."
Sure - I understand that ... :smile:
So much depends on individual locality - I live in a semi-isolated area and only last week installed 5 drone hives encircling the apiary at a distance of approx. 1 mile, and have several more drone hives in the apiary itself. In addition to this, I'm trialling the Horner system of late afternoon virgin release for the first time this year.
And - those who claim knowledge of such things also tell me that Apiary Vicinity Mating is more common than DCA mating where the terrain is flat - and it definitely doesn't get any flatter than where I live ... so maybe the results from this combined strategy will be good - but - there's only one sure way to find out.
'best
LJ
I
CapChickn,
Perhaps you would read the original post again for clarity.
J