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Author Topic: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee  (Read 14731 times)

Offline organicfarmer

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #20 on: March 04, 2011, 10:40:02 pm »
i personnally am looking for a more aggressive strain as i hope for a correlation to their aggressiveness toward pests, energy at gathering nectar and resources (go getters). Of course i have no science to show just that.

Offline Countryboy

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #21 on: March 04, 2011, 11:39:12 pm »
You may want to look into the history of the Africanized Honey Bee that was developed in South America.

It has the characteristics you say that you are looking for.  (They are also bad about swarming, can't handle winter, and are downright miserable to work with - but they are go-getters.)

Offline rdy-b

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #22 on: March 04, 2011, 11:49:48 pm »

I have only kept German Black. Caucasian, Carniolan, Italian, Buckfast and Elgon.
Of course my experience are not so valuable as your.
i have kept Italians longest,   40 years. They are best to my style.

Italians have no problems with wintering when its origin is from north.


I would like to hear about the ELGON bee and your opinon of them -very interested if you have the time-RDY-B


Offline Finski

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #23 on: March 05, 2011, 01:43:56 am »
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It is same to me what you do there.
You have your own systems from Florida to Alaska and they will be never changed.

Insulation skills -- I have seen them in forum.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 01:55:23 am by Finski »
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Offline rdy-b

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #24 on: March 05, 2011, 02:45:07 am »
 I have heard that the ELGON bee is varoa resistant and it achieves this
from a ODOR that it emits and- the Odor is similar to CAT PEE is this true--RDY-B

Offline Finski

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #25 on: March 05, 2011, 05:02:28 am »
I know one professional beekeeper who has Elgons. It is Buckfast type artificial race. Elgon word is mountain of Kenia and African A. monticola blood has used in breeding. Olsson use small cell size in brood boxes.
http://www.elgon.se/story3/sven-olof_ohlsson02.htm

I kept a few years Elgon bees but the crossings with Italians become quite furious gang. I must give up that creature. When I treated varroa, hives has as much mites as Italians.

Olsson lives on area where is no other beekeepers. It is easy to keep strain pure.

An elgon bee on entrance

« Last Edit: March 05, 2011, 05:13:09 am by Finski »
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Offline Finski

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #26 on: March 05, 2011, 05:14:00 am »
I have heard that the ELGON bee is varoa resistant and it achieves this
from a ODOR that it emits and- the Odor is similar to CAT PEE is this true--RDY-B

I did not notice that
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Offline deknow

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #27 on: March 05, 2011, 05:25:31 am »
One thing I've noticed here, are bees with mostly black on the tips of the abdomen with successively thicker yellow bands going toward the thorax.  These bees are a few millimeters shorter than the straight banded bees.

i certainly can't evaluate things from a distance, but this kind of observation (strange bees with black tips) are often not a separate race or variety...these are generally robbers that have had the yellow hairs rubbed off of the abdomen, exposing the black exoskeleton.  a few milimeters is a lot of difference in size for a bee.  workers are 12mm or so long, "a few" (more than "a couple", less than "several"...perhaps 3mm?) is about 25% smaller.  these robbers could be your bees returning from their pillage, or they could be robbing your hive.

deknow

Offline CapnChkn

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #28 on: March 08, 2011, 03:53:52 am »
Deknow, I'm familiar with the hair pulling.  These bees are far too numerous to be veteran robbers.  They all have the same pattern, and I didn't see them from a distance, as I was saying I would sit next to the entrance and watch the bees for hours.  They are black tipped, about 1/3 the length of the abdomen, with the second third having a thin band of yellow, a thicker band, and the thickest with a hair thin line of black in the last third.

I would say about 2 mm shorter than the regular Italians and thinner bodies.  I thought they might be robbers as well, and there were plenty of fights, but there were so many of them I figured they were different genetics coming out.  The trees around here have plenty of rotten branches and trunks, so I can only suppose they came from there or the neighbor's hives across the road.
"Thinking is like sin, them that doesn't is scairt of it, and them that does gets to liking it so much they can't quit!"  -Josh Billings.

Offline edward

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Re: Most passive to most aggressive species of bee
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2011, 04:26:39 am »
Last year I bought 2 Elgon hives , a kolega bought 8 hives.

They were very gentle and very productive , a true delight to work with and new ideal to try to copy.

I suppose this is due to the competent bi keeper I bought them from , I think I´ll try and buy some more this spring  :-D

mvh edward  :-P