I originally wrote this article last Thursday, but inadvertently tacked the
entirety of the original post to which I was responding.  Ever diligent in
their job, the BEE-L moderators did not approve my submission.  There has
since been a few more submissions about Russian queens which would perhaps
have softened my tone, but I am submitting the original, which follows.

Ben Hanson asked if others have noticed that colonies headed by a Russian
queen seem to be more aggressive than other colonies.  Personally I cannot
say, I have not had colonies headed by a Russian queen long enough for the
colony to be totally of the queen's descent.  I heard Dr. H.R. Shimanuki
speak of the Russian queen breeding program and he asserted that some of the
queens were culled from the program due to aggression.  He did not imply the
Russians exhibited a preponderance towards aggression, just that the queens
that DID show aggressive traits were culled from the program.  This is (or
should be) routine in any breeding program; cull the undesirable traits (in
this case aggression).

So I would wonder how many queens are being evaluated to arrive at an
assessment of "aggressive".  If it's a single queen, you may just have a bad
apple and an assessment that ALL Russians are aggressive is not valid.  The
correct assessment would be, "My Russian queen reared an aggressive colony".
Ben mentioned his neighbor feels his Russian colony is aggressive.  Again,
how many colonies are being evaluated?  Are the queen or queens from the
same breeder?  Are there any (other) common threads?

To date, my personal experiences with Russian queens has been poor
acceptance, some have been drone layers, others have lead to supercede cells
which were cut out in preference for introducing queens of proven (in my
area) stock (New World Carniolan).  Some have been poor performers which I
also replaced with NWCs.  Only four have shown at least acceptable levels of
performance, only 2 have me excited.  This is from a sample set of 13, which
is pretty small to draw statistically valid conclusions.

Given my experiences I also wonder if Ben's queen or queens are still the
Russian queen or queens he originally received from the breeder.  In my
sample case, due to the propensity to supersede, odds are that any colony
originally having a Russian queen is no longer headed by the original queen
and would be of unknown lineage had I not intervened and introduced a known
queen.  One can only be sure of these issues if queens are marked.

I would like other members of this list to expand on this discussion of
Russian queens.  Again, my sample set is small.  I originally ordered 30
queens for an April 15 delivery.  My breeder was only able to supply a
dozen, and not until late May.  Of these only 4 are still being evaluated.
It's been very disappointing so far.  I'm hoping the remaining 4 show me
something impressive to justify the expense and set backs in my evaluations.
I recall an article in ABJ stating the Russians will be good for comb
production as they make nice white cappings.  All Russians I put into comb
production failed miserably.  I'm out the queen, I'm out a replacement queen
and I'm out any hope of comb harvest for that hive.  Quite an expensive
trial evaluation.

When I posted earlier this year that I was unable to get Russian queens,
others offered sources where they were able to get some.  How have these
performed?  What are other's overall experience?  Ben asked about aggression
(only one response so far).  What about other traits?  Acceptance?  Brood
patterns?  Any shining stars?  I suppose it's too early to evaluate honey
production, at least in these parts, but perhaps not so elsewhere.  Please
folks, share your experiences!

Aaron Morris - thinking someone's (lots) are holdin' out!