Bee colors

[wayne]

  We have had a warm spell and the bees are all over my feeder. Last night the clouds caused it to cool oof early and several dozen didn't make it home.
  So I brought them to practice on. Checking for mites and such. Found no mites, but noticed that there seemed to be 2 different strains .
  Some were classic golden looking bees and some looked like the same strain but older, The backs showed dark patches and the wings looked ragged. But some looked just plain black. A different strain perhaps?
  Heres a picture.




wayne

[Mici]

the ones with ragged wings and darker colour are just elderly ladies.
had the same discovery a couple of months ago.

[Michael Bush]

The variety of colors is typical.  The queen just mated with a lot of different drones.  I see that same assortment from all black, to black with stripes, to yellow with with a black tipped abdomen to mostly yellow striped.