Bee colors

[jsmob]

Hey!
I have a question. I picked up some packages and noticed some beautiful cinnamon colored bees.
Does anyone know if this is a different breed of bee (mine are suppose to be Italians) or just a variation on color within the Italians.
Thanks

[Brian D. Bray]

Hey!
I have a question. I picked up some packages and noticed some beautiful cinnamon colored bees.
Does anyone know if this is a different breed of bee (mine are suppose to be Italians) or just a variation on color within the Italians.
Thanks

In the old days we had 3 colors of bees: yellow=Itallian, Black=German, and Grey=Caucasian.   With todays influx of Buckfast, Carniolans, Russian, and hybrids such as Minnesota Hygenics, I would Venture to say such colored bees were of a hybrid nature.  The other thing to remember is that even in a pure genetics hive the colors of the workers can range in shade and number of bands so color, per se, is not definitive.  Also packaged bees are often a mixture of bees from more than one hive, so again, nothing is definitive until you have a hive consisting solely of offspring from the queen.

[doak]

Bingo ;)doak

[Michael Bush]

Probably Cordovan Italians.