who likes russians

[hardtime]

i am getting 3 lds of them next mouth .what is the  good and bad  of them? do thay build up good in spring. are thay good honey makers.?????

[Rabbitdog]

I am also getting 2 russian packages tomorrow.  I don't have any 1st hand experience with them but have heard that they tend to be swarmy.  If you can minimize that, they seem to be good producers.  I have a friend about 5 miles away that says they build up faster than his local mutt stock, probably because they tend to fly at cooler temps.  I mainly was interested in introducing some russian genes to the pool in hopes of assisting with varroa control.
Where are your bees coming from.  I know Dadant has packages on the way but probably won't be here until mid April.
Best wishes!

[Michael Bush]

What you are probably going to get is three pounds of Italians (possibly cordovans) with an Italian queen.  But in a few months they will be all Russians if there were enough Russian drones around.

I've had Russians.  I was impressed at how high a mite load they could survive.  They were oddly defensive.  A lot of head butting and following.  But not so much an all out defensive attack and not a lot of stinging.  Others have had both similar and different experiences in that regard.  Some people think they are quite hot.  Mine didn't swarm any more than Carnis or any other bee that suddenly and explosively builds up in the spring.  Any of this type need to be managed to avoid swarming.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

[DennisB]

I have to agree with MB. I had two colonies last year (1 didn't make it through the winter). There is a lot of head butting. They went down to a small cluster fairly fast in the fall and stayed that way, not using much food during the winter. However, it looks like they are starting to build up fast now that we are getting a few warm days. They seem to fly when the other hives don't and have been bringing in more pollen than the other hives that are larger(that are Italian). I am looking forward to seeing what they do this year.

DennisB

[JP]

I've had 4. One was kinda weak, and got mites. One swarmed out because a limb fell on the hive because of Katrina, another one ok, another one, was a super hive, Built a skyscraper. I did find them to be a little objectionable once they got good numbers, nothing really severe. Yes, lots of swarm cells. I kind a liked them for the most part. Thr real strong one made lots of honey.


...JP

[deantn]

We just had at our last meeting one of the members of the new Russian breeders.
Very interesting talk he gave about raising russian queens.
His thinking about them is they are slower to build up and not all that good at making honey but what he was more interested in was their mite resistance. They have 18 blood lines they are working with but they only have two lines at his operation. They just keep swapping different blood lines every year. There is four different blocks in the USA so that every climate is included in each block.
He is selling queens but booked up until May I think. His web site is; longcreekapairy.com.

[dpence]

I am getting two packages with Russian queens myself in a couple of weeks.  The first experience with them was not good due to my ignorance.  I released the queen too quickly.  Looking forward to hearing others experiences this year with Russians.

David   

[Kev]

My two hives are both Russians. One is pretty mellow but was very weak going into winter. I didn't think they'd make it b/c they superceded in late summer. But they're still around.

The other is quite strong. Michael's point about head butting is true with this hive. Late last fall they were something else. Quite aggressive compared with Italian bees in hives I've worked on friend's property. They'd bang into my wire veil like rain. Really surprised me.

Like y'all I'll be curious to see how things shake out with these two once things finally warm up around here. They're not from the same stock, so I'm curious about temperament. Lots of beekeepers in this area have Russians.

Kev

[Brian D. Bray]

I have 2 hives of Russians and I find that they do tend to head but more than my Italian hive but they are still more friendlier than the Minnesota Hygenic hive.