Ontario - Looking for European dark bee / German black bee

[Grid]

I'm interested in getting some European dark bees (Apis mellifera mellifera)  From Wiki: "These small, dark-colored honey bees are sometimes called the German black bee."

I am in Ontario.  Anyone?

Thanks,
Grid.

[Understudy]

Check with your local bee association. There are not a lot of black bee breeders that I am aware of in the US and Canada. If you find someone post a reply and let us know.


Sincerely,
Brendhan

[thegolfpsycho]

Would you mind explaining why you want that type of bee?  They were ill tempered, glued everything up to the point of almost requireing a jack-hammer to get it apart.  Seems like I remember them frequently making a mess of the combs too. At least, that's how I remember them.

[Grid]

I am a hobbyist, not a commercial honey producer.  I'm interested in bees, and want all sorts.  The more diversity the better.  If I could get stingless bees up here, I'd look for those too.  Apis Cerana, if they were here.  NO, I'm not suggesting or advocating anyone illegally introduce any more "foreign" bees into North America!!!  I am simply expressing an interest, and if I were in an area where Apis Cerana lived, I would look to get some.  I'll be looking for some of the solitary/native bees soon as well, like the Blue Orchard Bee.

I guess the short answer is because I like bees.  :)

Grid.

[Nathen]

So did you ever find any?  Maybe you can catch some!  Ontario isn't too far from New Jersey!

I don't know how to differentiate the different strains/races of honeybees.  I've heard the terms Italians, Russians, Carniolans, and maybe Caucasians (or am I just making that one up?) used on this site, but I don't know how to tell one from another.  I can usually identify it as a honeybee, I recognize that some look different than others, and that's about it.  Starting this spring, though, I started seeing dark, black bees that I didn't even think were honeybees at first.  The first one I saw was in our lab at work.  We were working with the doors open because it was warm and we hadn't started the air conditioners for the season yet, and a bee landed on the table in front of us.  The guy next to me asked if it was a honeybee, and my immediate response was, "No."  Then I looked at it a little closer and wasn't so sure.  It sure looked like a honeybee in terms of body shape, but the coloration didn't look like any honeybee I had ever seen.  My coworker killed it, and I didn't think much more about it.

We have a honeybee hive in the side of our building here at work.  They took up residence in the cinder block wall by way of an external light fixture that was not sealed well.  The light fixture is at the very top of the wall maybe 30 feet off the ground.  They're not hurting anybody, so we've just let them be.  I believe this will be their third summer in this location, but I don't know for sure when they showed up.  I watch them quite a bit just out of curiosity.  My grandfather kept bees, and I've always found them interesting.  They have been quite active this spring, but I have yet to find them working any of the plants in the vicinity of our building.  Dandelions, clover, various wildflowers and flowering trees.....they have no interest.  They're busily going off after something, but I haven't a clue what it is.

Early this spring, we had a tree out front of the building that was partially brought down by a storm.  When the weather turned nicer, we brought it the rest of the way down so that it wouldn't fall in the road and hurt somebody.  I was at work one weekend trying to catch up on some things I was behind on, and one of the owners came in and started cutting up the tree and stacking wood.  It was really nice out and I was sick of being inside, so I decided to go out and help him.  While I was helping him cut and load the wood, I noticed a buzzing coming from a nearby bush.  I went to investigate and found that the bush was flowering, and the bees were working it like crazy.  The interesting thing, though, is that it wasn't the bees from our building.  It was the black bees like the one that I had seen in the lab a few weeks earlier.  Again, I wasn't even sure they were a honeybees.  They sure looked like honeybees, but the coloration had me doubting.  The bees from our building were busily coming and going.  I don't know where they were going, but it wasn't to this bush even though it was right around the corner of the building.  I found it fascinating that these black bees were coming from who knows where to work this bush and were just going crazy over it, and yet the hive of bees right around the corner didn't have the slightest bit of interest in it.  I didn't see one "normal" looking honeybee working this bush all afternoon.  Just the black honeybees, some bumblebees, and some of the small native pollinators.  It makes you wonder what makes them decide what they want and what they don't want.

I was so captivated by the black bees on the bush, that I didn't think to grab my camera and snap some photos to assist with identification.  After some searching on the Internet, though, I finally found some good pictures that look exactly like what I saw, and that's really the reason that I posted this (longwinded, boring story aside).  I wanted to share the pictures.  While searching this forum, I found lots of threads on black bees, but none of them had any pictures that made me say, "Yeah.  That's what I saw."  These do.

http://ucanr.org/blogs/bugsquad/index.cfm?tagname=heat

This website identifies them as Carniolan.  I can only assume that is right unless somebody tells me differently.  They are definitely different than anything I had ever seen before, though.  Most of the "black" bees that I had seen before looked more like this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x196215

...with visible striping on the abdomen.  Not so much black as....sort of an inversion of the colors on "normal" honeybees.  Definitely not the jet black color like the pictures in the first link.  I always assumed that this was what people were talking about when they talked about black bees.  Now I know better.

[bee-nuts]

I think the only true German black bees left will be in some remote area in a tree.  I heard they build beautiful white comb.  I would keep some too if they still existed, hot or not.  The theory I have read is that any that survived in the wild will likely have been wiped out by mites but I believe some have to exist somewhere in US or Canada.  I actually planed on doing some searching in the National forest in the norther part of my state this summer but when it comes down to it I just dont have the time.  I actually have an idea though.

If you take a couple frames of brood, brush the bees off, put them above an excluder, then take these bees and a queen cell and put them in a nuc and take to remote national forest area for her to mate, (your drones cant get through excluder) you will have half feral bees as a result.  If you think you got half blackies, do it again, and again or better yet catch some swarms at this point.  I was thinking of approaching the forest folks with this idea because it takes all the work out of searching, catching swarms, finding bee trees, ..........................

[bull]

i have some little fears bees that don't have very much yellow at all.
hard chargers and hit harder , some are black from the thorax down .
sunday had 1 sting right between my eyes.
?is  there a book on IDing bees by type or size , color?

[charlotte]

I have a hive of mutts that are almost all black.  I had Ital., Russian/Cauc., & Carnies--the queen of this hive was a superedure from original Carnies. So she mated with ? From what I understand there are no German Blacks around anymore--most black bees are just some form of mutt orginating from Carnie or Russian/Cauc. stock.  I know that mixing can result in a "black bee"--since I have one of these hives.  They are not German Black- just a black mutt.  For the most part they are similar to Russian in behavior.  Neat to look at & survived the winter exceptionally well. 

[greezykid]

I have 4 hives, having split 2 this year.I saw a queen bee in one of the splits that was so black I thought it was a black wasp.Solid black no stripes that showed.That hive is now full of black bees but they do show stripes.They are very good natured also.They are mutts I'm sure

[bee-nuts]

I have 4 hives, having split 2 this year.I saw a queen bee in one of the splits that was so black I thought it was a black wasp.Solid black no stripes that showed.That hive is now full of black bees but they do show stripes.They are very good natured also.They are mutts I'm sure

Take pics and post!!

[greezykid]

I'm trying to upload pictures but haven't mastered it yet for some reason it keeps saying nothing was uploaded.

[bee-nuts]

I'm trying to upload pictures but haven't mastered it yet for some reason it keeps saying nothing was uploaded.

where are you uploading them too?  Open a photobucket account.

[greezykid]

I'm using beemasters imageshack.

[greezykid]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Uploaded with ImageShack.usIf this works I'll try to get some more pictures.this is the queen on one of her mateing flights comeing home.It's hard to get a picture as they land.This is from 6 weehs ago as I set up nuc.I saw her fly out and return and wasn't sure it was a bee because she was so dark.The other is from one of her daughter now,I just transfered them from the nuc.

[ONTARIO BEEKEEPER]

   I have some very dark bodied bees 3 hrs form Ottawa.

[tecumseh]

charlotte writes:
I have a hive of mutts that are almost all black.

tecumseh:
the german's were smaller (also had a shorter tongue and therefore could not work some flowers).  brother adam at least suggested the the trachael mite  (the isle of wright disease) would not be so kind on the german bees.