"I've also heard that the hybrids can be hot, which is worrisome, but I wonder how much that depends on what they cross with. Anyone have any experience along those lines?" Some years ago, I accepted the gift of a New Zealand Italian queen in order to 'improve' my stock of local mongrels. They soon filled 2 brood boxes and 3 supers and had a bee beard in front of the hive. They were as docile as flies. They produced a crop of queen cells which I harvested to re-queen some of my other colonies of local mongrels. They did produce a reasonable crop of honey but ate their heads off in the winter (that was back in the days when I fed bees). The colonies that I requeened, having crossed with the local stock, became very bad tempered and it was about 5 years before I could restore the temperament of the bees to what it was before. Chris *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm