Italian vs Russian temperment...my observation.

[SteveSC]

I've just recieved a few Russian hives that I think I've somewhat isolated ( for a few miles ) from other hived bees. 

These Russians seems to be very calm bees - not what I'm used to with the Italians.  They just go and do their business and aren't concerned with someone standing over them..  Unlike most Italians I have that will at the least head butt you just because they can.

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Short story: Thought I would just throw on the hat - veil and short gloves for a quick trip to put a super on one of my older hives last Sunday - I should have known better.  The Italians looked like you poured them out of a bucket as soon as I raised the inner cover - 12 hits -  a quick run to the dark barn  - wife laughing too hard - that won't happen again.  They're hard workers but most I have just don't want to be bothered.

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This fall I'll probably re-queen my Italian hives with new young Russian queens - maybe it'll make things less stressful in the bee yard next yr...   My first inpression is that I like the Russian bees, we'll see how well they build up from the 5 frame nucs I bought.     

[Shizzell]

Interesting. Please do tell us what you find. I'm thinking about requeening all of my hives with russians. If the people claiming that the russians are the ultimate thing, I think I might do it.

Some things that I bet everyone wants to know:
- Aggressiveness w/ and w/o honey stores
- Resistance to mites
- Swarming Potential

Maybe i'll have to get a few comrades myself.

Jake

[Mici]

agressivnes-the least agressive are Carnis.
mite resistance-don't think you'll be much better off, read a few things around the forum-beginner traps and stuff
swarm potential, hehe Carnis should be Swarmis :-D

[prisoner#1]

These Russians seems to be very calm bees - Unlike most Italians I have that will at the least head butt you just because they can.

I just hived an italian package about a week ago, in dumping the box I had a few that buzzed me but no bumping really, I checked on them sunday
to see if the queen was out and if they were settling in and to remove the entrance reducer, I had no protection (shirtless) and had a couple that
did nothing more than bump me, today I removed some burr comb they were building between a couple frames and had no issues at all even when
I squished one between frames, these italians seem to be really mild

[Brian D. Bray]

I have NWC, MH and Italians.  I find the Italians to be a little more flyty than the others, more bees going airborne.  The gentleness of the bees seems to be fairly uniform.  In my experience the temperment of the hive has very little to do with the Sub species of apis but more a factor of handling by the beekeeper, weather, and inbreeding. 

If you want to get your Italian bees to accept a Russian queen, which many beekeepers have found to be difficult, I would suggest you spray sugar syrup with vanilla added to it on both the bees in the hive and the queen in the cage.  The Vanilla works to mask the differences in phormones between the bees.

[Michael Bush]

I see a lot more differences in temperament from hive to hive than from race to race.

[SteveSC]

I see a lot more differences in temperament from hive to hive than from race to race

I have to agree with that without a doubt.  Most of my hives are tempermental some are just bad news...!

[Mici]

what about temperament:surplus honey? is it anyhow related or just two seperate things?
somehow i have it in my head, that the more agressive the colony the more honey, but it probably ain't so, huh?

[kgbenson]

but it probably ain't so, huh?

Nope.

Keith

[Shizzell]

I find every year that come to the fall, all of my hives increase their aggressiveness. So I beleive they are related. Maybe some different strands increase they defense when they have more honey than other strands.

Just wondering.

Jake

[kgbenson]

I find every year that come to the fall, all of my hives increase their aggressiveness. So I beleive they are related. Maybe some different strands increase they defense when they have more honey than other strands.

You are not the first to notice that they will become more agressive in the fall when protecting their hoard.  A) they have more of an investment to protect and B) there are usually more bees, meaning more guards, and if you take the honey *after* the flow is over, you now may have the feild force hanging out with nothing to do but take out their frustration on the beekeeper.  In many ways it is more a function of bee numbers, not honey volume.

This does not mean that more aggressive bee collect more nectar.

Keith

[Moonshae]

I wonder if the increased defensiveness in the fall is related to yellowjackets and similar wasps becoming more aggressive in their search for food. The bees may need to ramp up their defenses to protect against a more determined enemy, so to speak.

[Mici]

anytime food sources get scarce they get more defensive. food gets rare-the need for protection is bigger plus a lot of field bees have nothing to do, so they protect.
food is in abundance for yellow jackets in fall, all the fallen fruit..

[Shizzell]

Exactly, thats why I'm wondering whether different strands (such as the russians) are more/less defensive than italian when they have honey stores.

It would make sense that the weather and other facters seem to play a bigger part. Then again, I have never had any other strand except italian.

Jake

[MrILoveTheAnts]

Besides Africenized bees I don't think one is more violent then the other. They're all the same species so it's nothing more than breeding. Cape bees are turning into something of a social parasite on other hives though so there is something to it.

[qa33010]

    My russians from last year were very passive.  This year with a larger brood area, two boxes, they are a bit more protective with head butting.  But no more than the feral hive.  The three russian nucs I picked up this past Sunday are really calm with four frames brood and stores each.  We have had no trouble mowing around or near the hives.  We are getting a fence put up in the back yard for the dogs and while the crew was using chainsaws within six feet they didn't mind at all.  I did have a pick-up topper held up against the hive that vibrated like crazy with the chainsaw at max and they still didn't care.  I've been around italians also that have varied temper.  I was told by the beek they had different backgrounds and of course it didn't help that a hive or two was nudged by yours truely losing balance after a back spasm

[doak]

Couple years ago I had some new queens in my Italians and early in the spring worked them with out gloves. One of mine that swarmed twice and ended up queenless a few weeks back are gentle. When I opened it the other day and went all the way down to the bottom board, 4 boxes deep, not a single sting, no head butting. The hive next door that I took the frame of brood from "ATE" me up. :roll: :shock: :evil:
doak

[carol ann]

Am new to all this and never worked bees until this year.
I have one feral hive and one Russian hive. So far the feral hive has been more docile than the Russian. Perhaps the feral bees are just more accustomed to their environment, not being moved, but actually choosing the box? Easy transition. I will see as season passes.
Carol ann

[Understudy]

Besides Africenized bees I don't think one is more violent then the other. They're all the same species so it's nothing more than breeding. Cape bees are turning into something of a social parasite on other hives though so there is something to it.

I do not feel that AHBs are as violent as the media makes them out to be.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Cindi]

Definitely bee temperament changes from day to day, time of day, year to time of year, no question.  If it is a cloudy day, there are more bees at home, same as if you go in a hive early in the morning, late in the afternooon.  Sunny day, less bees around the colony for us human to deal with.  Think about it.  You will find it makes perfect sense.  When they have honey saved, they are going to defend it, if there are yellowjackets (I hate yellowjackets, I am on a death mission of these nasties) and other predators, they are defending. 

When you think about bee behaviour, it is logical, very logical, put yourselves in their place and see then what you think, they have a very similar world to ours, in many ways.

I worked my 8new colonies last week (4 packages, Kona Italian queens, 4 nucs, Kona Italian Queens, my old overwintered colony (now a crossbreed of Carniolan/Italan probably).  Not one sting, all very calm and just doing their own business.  Beautiful sunny day, 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

I sustained a sting at the very end of the event.  On my ankle, just a little bee that had crawled up my foot and got stuck in the cotton of my sock.  Not her fault, she thought my ankle was hurting her by not letting her go (she didn't realize that it was kind of a fuzzy thing and her legs probably got stuck in the fabrice, the poor little thing, I felt so bad).

I had not worn gloves, only used baby powder and reapplied that a few times.

I do not like to wear gloves.  Gloveless I can feel even when I come close to touching a bee.  AND I always look very closely before I put down my fingers or hands that a bee is not in the target area. 

Gloves are clumbsy and when you squish a bee, then you are in for it.  The alarm phermone is released and the bees are "on guard" and you're gonna get it for sure.  My thoughts, take it for what it is worth, hopefully more than two cents  :roll:  Have a beautiful day, a great life, love your life and live it well.  Cindi

[SteveSC]

Just an up date on the three 5 frame Russian nucs I recieved. 

I did a 2 week inspection last Sat. to make sure all was well.  It's apparent that where I located these hives there aren't alot of other bees competing for nectar and pollen.  All three hives were all but full ( 9 frames +) of stores - pollen and larva.  All the queens were laying good full frame patterns and the bees were still real docile - not the first sting.  These bees will crawl on and\or bump you but don't make an attempt to sting ( my kind of bee ).

I'm still sold on the Russians.....   Looks like I'll get surplus honey out of these 3 hives if they keep working like they have been for the last 2 weeks.....   

[Galaxy]

SteveSC:

Who did you get your russian bees from?  I would like to acquire some russians that are calm. 

Thanks,

[acbs]

SteveSC,

We don't believe you will be disappointed with the way your nucs will build up or with the Russians in general.  This is our fourth year with year with Russians.  Granted, this is our fourth year with any kind of bee, but we don't see why more keepers don't have them.  Even when we've caught swarms, we've only let them build up and get established in the hive and then replaced the swarm queen with a Russian.  We'll give you the following reasons as to why we like them.  (We're not claiming Russians are better than anything else, we're just relating our experiences with them.)

Mite Resistance-We used wintergreen grease patties the first two falls just because we thought we were supposed to.  Didn't use any last fall with no negative results.  We also use SBB's.  Bought two Russians open bred with Italian drones our first year just to increase our hives.  Had evidence of mite problems in those hives so, again, replaced those with our Russians.  We're not saying we don't have mites, maybe we would even have better results using small cell, but they do a very good job of dealing with them on their own.

Surviving the Cold-Three winters with no lost hives.  6 the 1st, 10 the 2nd, and 17 the 3rd winter.  We had two colonies make it through without their queens and were still strong come spring.  Even with this last early spring cold blast here in Central Ill., other than a small loss of some brood, all kept right on going.  Maybe it's just a managment thing (we worry about them having enough food), but they have always had enough stores to last until spring.

Temperment-We don't know where the Russians began to get a bad rap about their attitude that we had read about before we got ours.  We rarely use veils, smoke, or long sleeves.  They're not perfect angels.  They are still bees.  Certain days and certain conditions and they will remind you.  The hours of my job as a truck driver sometimes means we'll work them right before sundown, most of the time with little or no problem.  We've got pictures of my grandkids with them that we'd love to post as soon as we're allowed to post links.  Will only occasionally have to wear gloves when brushing bees off honey frames when getting ready to extract.  This has been our first year of having to requeen a hive because of ill-mannered bees, and most of that was because of a struggling queen that they weren't happy with.

Honey Production-Have always had enough for our use (we use a lot), and enough for some to sell.  We've been too busy expanding our number of hives to really know what they will do if left alone to build up and produce.  At present we have 16 queen nucs in various stages.

We got our first 2 nucs from Arnold Honeybee Services in Knoxville, Tn., several queens and 3 nucs from Jester Bee's in West Ridge, Ark., and got a breeder queen this year from Glenn Apiaries.

Arvin & Colleen

[SteveSC]

Thanks for the information Arvin....

I think I'll like the Russians - so far so good. I'm going to check them again in about 2 weeks to see if they've been working on the supers.

I posted a thread about 10 days ago pretaining an Italian hive I have that was queenless and looked like it was going to stay that way ( you can reference back to find the thread ), anyway.

I re-queened that hive with a bred Russian queen I got from Dwight Porter in Picken, SC ( Dwight and TwT (on this board) work bees together ).  I also got the nucs from Dwight.  I put the queen in last Friday - checked it on Sunday - queen still in cage but close to being released.  This hive has always been tempermental - about half mean.

Yesterday after work I thought I'd check to see if the queen had been released.  It was hot - about 89 degs. - no wind - good time to check a hive, I thought.  I noticed the hive didn't have much activity outside - I assumed like the rest of the the hives around there they were out foraging.  Never assume.

I cracked top cover and removed it - everything going to plan - I slid the tool under the inner cover and you could hear a hum louder than I've ever heard.  When I opened the hive I seemed all the bees were in the hive and they all had one mission - to get me out of there.  There were hundreds of bees in the air and on me ( I had full protection ).  So many bees I couldn't tell if the queen was laying or not - she was out of the cage - I did see that much.  I closed the hive and walked away.  The bees stayed with me for loger period of time than usual.   

Before I re-queened last week that hive was aggressive but not near as aggressive as yesterday.  I wonder if being without a queen for a time and now having a new queen they were protecting her by coming after me like they did.   I hope once she starts to lay her off spring will calm the hive down. 

Has anyone ever had a hive act that way...?

[Kathyp]

my Russian hive last year was WAY better than the Italian hives this year.  if i order next year, it's back to the Russians!

[prisoner#1]

Gloves are clumbsy and when you squish a bee, then you are in for it.  The alarm phermone is released and the bees are "on guard" and you're gonna get it for sure. 

I have some italians, I've checked them several times in the last month, the day my 2yr old decided to follow me to the hive
is the same day i got stung, only once though, it was self defense, I squished her. needless to say my daughter enjoyed the
visit, poked a few sticks in the hive to see if they needed a few extra, the bees didnt bother her a bit, I'm dreading the day
she does get it, but then again that may be the day she decides to start listening

after all I've read over the years I really expected to get hit a few more times, these bees were amazingly calm

[Kathyp]

I'm dreading the day she does get it, but then again that may be the day she decides to start listening

the lesson is better learned when it's self taught.  that's how my granddaughter learned about electric fences.  :-)

[Jerrymac]

the lesson is better learned when it's self taught.  that's how my granddaughter learned about electric fences.  :-)

 :-D Oh Yeah. I fell into a wood chipper once. Won't ever do that again.  :-D




No not really. :roll:

[SteveSC]

Oh Yeah. I fell into a wood chipper once. Won't ever do that again.

..I was really wanted to hear about that ....!    :-D 

Falling is the easy part - it's the getting out that's a struggle.