Black beauty or Beastie?

PaleoPerson · Jun 25, 2011

Pic of a queen from a swarm I collected last month.

All her progeny are dark and the temperament is good, doing everything they are supposed to do. The lighter coloured bees are from the original swarm and there are not many of them left now with all the new bees being dark. It seems odd that the queen looked so different in colour to the rest of the swarm when collected.

She was a virgin queen when collected, very skittish and ran everywhere but has settled down now she is mated and laying.

However, I have not had good experiences with dark bees, I wonder if they will stay nice.

Should I keep them???? The jury is out at the moment.

the naked beekeeper · Jun 25, 2011

My nicest bees are black as the ace of spades.
I think it depends purely on genetics.

Colour of a bee matters not a jot.

drstitson · Jun 25, 2011

if she was a virgin queen (ie it was a cast swarm) then her daddy was probably a dark drone hence her half sisters (the rest of the swarm) being mostly light.

jallen · Jun 25, 2011

my ginger bees are more bad tempured them my darker bees

Headnavigator · Jun 25, 2011

jallen said:
my ginger bees are more bad tempured them my darker bees

same here - My darker bees are much better behaved - only vice is they do like to build brace comb given the chance - otherwise they're very peaceable, you can almost see them yawning during inspections.