Yellow Bee

steveouk · February 18, 2008, 02:13:32 PM

I was taking to my Father-in-Law who is from Arkansas about bee's He spoke of tow kinds of bee that he new off when he was a child ( He is in his late 70's ). These where a Swedish Bee and a Yellow Bee He said both where very prolific and bother where very gentle was wondering if anyone else had ever heard of these types of bee. I was thinking perhaps they where Russian Bees or Italian ?

johnnybigfish · February 18, 2008, 02:26:09 PM

Hey Steve!
I asked about different bees here awhile back.
I remember seeing bees that were more yellow also. I just wanted some more colorful bees to be able to look at. Theres so many kinds that i havent seen the brighter ones and put a name to them,...
Anyways, good luck and I'll be watching from here to see what happens!
your friend,
john

steveouk · February 18, 2008, 03:21:13 PM

hey john ! not spoken in a while. Love the blog by the way.

watercarving · February 18, 2008, 04:34:32 PM

We used to have a feral bee around here that was almost black. They were pretty mean too.

MrILoveTheAnts · February 18, 2008, 04:40:17 PM

Are you asking about Yellow Honey Bees? or just wild Bees that were Yellow?
All honey bees are verieties (breeds) of the same species Apis mellifera, (and I believe some consider there being sub species of that but who really can say what a subspecies is?)

A similar looking bee I find here in NJ is a type of Digger bee that lives in the ground. And besides living in the ground it looks almost exactly like a honey bee. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees/GroundBee2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees/GroundBee.jpg

steveouk · February 18, 2008, 05:41:33 PM

kind of. When i asked my father in law did he mean Italian bee's he said no they are called Yellow Bees.

CBEE · February 18, 2008, 06:16:39 PM

Have you shown him some pics of different bees to see if he recognizes any of them ?
I believe there are a couple of strains that are an orangy yellow color.
It could be a reginal name for a normal strain of bee just like golden comet chickens in one part of the country are red rockets in another part of the country. They could also be a local strain of feral bees that people caught swarms from. Did they buy these yellow bees from some one ?

Brian D. Bray · February 19, 2008, 10:01:35 PM

Quote from: steveouk on February 18, 2008, 05:41:33 PM
kind of. When i asked my father in law did he mean Italian bee's he said no they are called Yellow Bees.

My Mentor and my Greatgrandfather both had some of the Black German Bees Apis Melifera M. and they were often called just black bees. Back before the depression Italians were called Yellow Bees. Those were the 2 primary types of bees in the United States up until then, having been brought over by European immigrants (that's how my Greatgrandfather's bees got here--his Grandfather brought them with him from Germany in the mid-1800's). If you had Black bees they were Germans and if you had Yellow Bees they were Italian. Then gradually there were Causcasian, Buckfast, Carniolan, and Russian introduced and the names Black and Yellow fell out of use due to the color variatiions. BTW, Caucasians were originally referred to as Gray bees.