Dark bee

[Mike a]

I have yet to collect a sample and send them off to be WM'ed but if any one has any serious ideas of what they may be roughly related to comparing against known stocks I would be grateful.

First tail band has a hint of ginger although the picture doesn't show this clearly.

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Also a huge thank you for all the kind emails wishing me well.
The op to remove the prolapsed disc went well and I was up and walking around within 4 hours which upset the nurses a little.

 

[Midland Beek]

I have yet to collect a sample and send them off to be WM'ed .

"WM'ed"?

Grey bands are indicative of Carniolan.

 

[Midland Beek]

Oh, got it. Wing morphology.

 

[Mike a]

lol, yep wing morphology.

 

[kazmcc]

Hope the book helped, although by the sound of it, you didn't sit still long enough to read anything Glad all is well.

 

[Mike a]

Hope the book helped, although by the sound of it, you didn't sit still long enough to read anything Glad all is well.

You are spot on I didn't get a chance to read it, but as I have 6 weeks of total R&R I will.

 

[beebreeder]

Hi Mike
They look like they have a fair bit of carniolan in them
kev

 

[Mike a]

Hi Mike
They look like they have a fair bit of carniolan in them
kev

Thanks Kev

Breeding and bee identification is without doubt some thing I know very little about in detail, other than I understand the basic factors of a queen mating with x amount of local random drones can give a wide variety range of temperament, colours and banding patterns over the queens life time, but I've not taken the time to study this side of bee keeping in any great depth.

So to date all the AI imported Carni queens I bought from mainly (EB & Bicks) and any subsequent next generation queens have always produced bees with grey bodies with strong tan coloured bandings. So I naturally compared what I am used to against the bees in the picture I got as a swarm which threw me as they are very dark grey bordering on almost black.