Tim Vaughan replied to Keith Malone's question about a colony of dark bees
he had in Santa Maria, CA:

>They were darkish, but not black, too mean to work, didn't produce as much
>as the Italians next to them, and took up to several days to calm down
>after whatever manipulations were possible.

   I had the same experience with my first colony (1960) in Santa Barbara.
I hived up a swarm of dark bees and didn't even want to work with them.
Shortly thereafter I switched to Italians.

   By contrast, the Curneen bees from the Eureka, CA area were black (not
just dark) and easy to work.  Is anyone on this list from the Eureka area?

                                                        Adrian

Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106  [http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm]

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*    "We not only believe what we see:
*  to some extent we see what we believe."
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*                           Richard Gregory (1970)
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