Just remind me why people have carnies?

[meidel]

It's confirmed - a particular mayor backed organisation supplied one of our apiary members a colony of carniolan bees. No doubt they did the same thing to all those unsuspecting new beeks on their scheme the whole breadth of the capital with the same bees.

Anyone with experience of carnies can you share your knowledge here so we know what to expect over the coming years, please? And here I was, hoping to have less swarmy bees next year so glad I didn't spend the extra dough on bought queens now - after all what's the point if there are already 3 carnie queen colonies within the apiary - yeap 3 now from the 1 which arrived in April this year.

 

[Finman]

.
Carni is famous for its swrming.

.

 

[For want of a better word]

.
Carni is famous for its swrming.

.

and in my own experience the second generation are bitches from hell!

ping... sting and chase.....

saving grace is that they seem to overwinter well and are good honey producers... compared to some other bioengineering products e.g. spin-fasts

great out apiary bees... nobody with any sense would steel them

 

[Andy Duff]

easy to handle, breed fast, survive the cold in low numbers, been there done that designed the t-shirt.

AND THEN IT GOES WRONG, SORRY

WRONG

GET AN OUT APIARY IN ANOTHER COUNTRY AND LEAVE THEM THERE

There is no such thing as easy or cheap bee-keeping.

ours only partially converted to the dark side and that was bad enough on an allotment

 

[Finman]

.
I had 10 years Carnies. 3 of them were terrible swarming years.

When I bought queens, they were from edgle to edge. They are many.

If we list bad features of carnies, we find the same features from Italian stocks too.

Italian stocks are tens. Britain is easy country to overwinter hives. One problem is that UK beekeepers ventilate their hives like mad.

Lets talk about issue, which race stands best UK beekeepers?
Brittish weather is much more easy to bees than 2-hive owners.
.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

If your main crop is OSR, then carnies work as they build up quickly in the Spring so there are plenty of bees to get the honey crop.

I have a selection of bee types. Carnies have not been aggressive after breeding over a few generations. Italians are more flighty. I have a 'darkish' bee that had chalk brood plus others which have been fair to reasonable this year with regard to behaviour. That's my experience in my part of the world.

Carnies can swarm it's true. My first carnie queen came from a swarm from - I suspect - a top bar swarm generator - they have been bred so this year I have 2 colonies that haven't swarmed so have bred again some queens from one of those.
Gentle and productive in those cases. One has 1 brood box and 2 full supers. The other is on a double brood and has 4 supers - pretty well full. I can't complain about that with this summer and no OSR to speak of.

I breed more than I need and cull the most aggressive queens in September/October; uniting with other stock and cull again in Spring if they are poorly behaved at first opening. In this way any bad tempered bees have gone by mid-summer.

 

[meidel]

One lone voice of encouragement - cheers hebeegeebee. I guess like most of beekeeping, what's required is sensible management.

But I'm interested to hear everyone's experience with this type of bee, the bane of most beeks it seems.

This thread is not about doing down the hobbyist or even a shoutdown between commercial beeks and the hobbyist so please keep it sweet fellas.

Cheers

 

[Winker]

I have 22 hives of them and love them. If you keep on top of them there's no reason to lose a swarm, i have 3rd generation carnies all very nice to handle.
Weekly inspections and enough room to expand, and you should be ok.

They build up Nice and early on in the season which allows them to take advantage of the OSR and they over winter well too.

Even the bee inspector commented on how gentle they were, when he inspected them.

I had a buckfast last year that was the queen from Hell. She was a second generation Bucky who just went Mad i guess. Her offspring would chase me for a good 500 yards, and they would explode in my face when ever i took the crown board off.

 

[fiftyjon]

In agreement with hebeegeebee; they over winter well, build up well and my carnies are the ones with full supers on.
With good management they are a delight to work with and give plenty of bees for increase.
Lack of management and space they will swarm.
The temperament of future generationis not as unpredictable as other varieties.

 

[justme]

I've got some Carnies also. Came from a swarm originally, had them morphed as Carnies. Did have issue for 2 days only last year when they went q- following failed A/S. Gave eggs and now have both daugher colonies, hardly needed feeding so far this year. 1 hasnt even looked like swarming, the other superseded (not necessarily successfully, still waiting). Very quiet to handle when weather ok. Hard working and lovely pollen mixture as opposed to those yellowish bees that mainly/only bring in yellow! Got to be a healthier diet.

Thinking about it any bees can/will swarm if not checked weekly (if not clipped queen).

 

[fiftyjon]

" Thinking about it any bees can/will swarm if not checked weekly (if not clipped queen)."

 

[Poly Hive]

Ok mine are the Alpine strain propogated in NZ.

Not fed anything since winter feed came off.

Some have two supers of cut comb on them. Sealed and ready to come off but is being left on as insurance. Not being touched by the colonies as htey are getting enough day to day. Yes in this weather.

Quietest bees I have ever known. They sit on the comb and just get on with life. Sting? Very rarely unless caught.

Swarmy? Not desperately. If given the 2nd brood box it seems to keep them happy.

Some of mine are 2nd generation and I can barely tell the difference.

The acid test, would I buy them again? With out a shadow of a doubt.

Oh and lovely cappings too.

PH

 

[northernsoul]

Carnolians are fine though they swarm a lot. Nationals are too small for them.

After they swarm or attempt to swarm the second generation which usually works out as a carnolian cross with a local bee, results in very aggressive strains which need an ASBO.

They are a nightmare. Don't touch them even if they are free

 

[Poly Hive]

It's like everything there are excellent bicycles and ones that are utter rubbish.

There are excellent AMM and pure nightmares.

No doubt there are rogue Buckies too.

Buyer beware.

PH

 

[meidel]

We have all types in our apiary at the moment, so very cheered to read all the positive responses. So far all the bees are well behaved, they got a tad tetchy during the swarmy period and when they were q-, all typical bee behaviour. So not too worried. It was interesting to see the difference between the dark native and dark carnie bee when our bee guru came down and pointed it out to us yesterday. And some of us have bucky queens and some the Italian mongrel, a pretty yellow bee.

 

[Skyenet]

Never had a problem with them.... Yes a bit swarmy but that can be managed.

 

[For want of a better word]

THEREFORE.....the answer is.... depends upon the breeding line!

Q.E.D.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Meidel

Did they come as a Nuc of Bees or was it a 2lb package with a caged queen?, hopefully he wont be too disheartened with carnies and stop beekeeping

 

[johnandyrob]

I have been told that Manchester beekeepers have a carny colony that has given thirty supers in three years and has not tried to swarm

 

[psafloyd]

It's confirmed - a particular mayor backed organisation supplied one of our apiary members a colony of carniolan bees. No doubt they did the same thing to all those unsuspecting new beeks on their scheme the whole breadth of the capital with the same bees.

Anyone with experience of carnies can you share your knowledge here so we know what to expect over the coming years, please? And here I was, hoping to have less swarmy bees next year so glad I didn't spend the extra dough on bought queens now - after all what's the point if there are already 3 carnie queen colonies within the apiary - yeap 3 now from the 1 which arrived in April this year.

We had Capital Bee bees. Mine had swarmed when I was in there on the 8th day since the last inspection (actually 7.5) with (up to) day old eggs and just closed closed QCs.

Have introduced a frame of brood from the prolific daughter of my first queen and the QCs should be hatched now. Will check if I can get a break in the weather.