Hello Mike,

My friend Mike and I email back and forth and this email perhaps should be
perhaps best direct because some on the list will say "hey wait a minute
what you are saying is not what the researchers and queen breeders
advocate".  As my friend Rip says I am not bound by an agenda so only
sharing a *small part* of my methods. maybe my two beekeeper joke reminded
me I better share a bit of my knowledge as none of us know when we might be
called home.

 >   These Russians that you have had for four years,
have you requeened?

Some queens have still got the yellow queen mark. Others have been
superceded and given the color mark for the year I saw they had been
superceded. With the Russian supercedure hybrid each has less varroa
tolerance and carries in most cases a higher varroa load but even those with
a high varroa load seem able to avoid PMS.

When evaluating a line I start with a large number and simply remove
queenless colonies. Shake out the bees and take the equipment.

I do the same with all my bees. I never mess with requeening a colony in the
field. I do at times install a nuc in a queenless hive in production yards
but not hives under evaluation.

I do observe all aspects of their behavior. Make detailed notes and  monitor
mite loads (both varroa & tracheal).

  What was your source of Russians initially and  with requeening if
you did do that?

I do not requeen hives under evaluation. I make all hives up exactly the
same with the same amount of brood, pollen and sealed honey. When one gets
fed the whole yard gets fed. You get a clear picture of a queen
breeder/queen producers bees when you install 50-100 at a time.

I want the yard to be exactly alike. They all need a super at the same time.
etc.

I don't mix lines from different queen breeders. I usually start with 100
queens  of a line and place in four yards. The first year Russians are now
in two yards four years later.

Some Russian sources

Glenn Apiaires
Strachan Apiaries
Olivarez Honey Bees
Purvis Brothers Apiairies

I keep lines in different yards. I keep All Russian lines in seperate yards.
The Purvis Gold & Purvis Blue lines are in seperate yards.

I do keep commercial production yards with mixed queen lines from about four
different queen producers.

All the Australian queens are in a seperate yard.

However hives in the general population  do come together in winter holding
yards when all drones have been kicked out.

When placed back in yards they go back in yards by queen breeder lines. I
adjust the hives on pallets but keep the lines seperate.

All but recent supercedure queens are marked.

Swarms are always taken to remote production yards.

 All but experimental colonies will be moved into a large holding yard after
the first killing freeze this fall and drones evicted. Easier to care for an
available for pollination if needed.

 The bees are currently bringing in aster & goldenrod pollen. I like for the
bees to gather as much as possible without compettion from a large number of
hives.

>    I am trying to repopulate my county with
beekeepers via classes each fall and would like to
promote Russians and/or SMR's with my students.

Some of the Pure Russian/Russian lines are  aggressive. When crossed about
one in twenty is aggressive from my observations. I mark in red aggressive
hives and also mark possible breeder colonies when evaluating.

I am about done testing the Russian bee and may drop the Russian production
hives for commercial beekeeping reasons.
I dropped the SMR breeder queens because the F1 hybrids had poor brood
viability.

I would recommend a NWC/Russian hybrid for the Russian bee.

and introducing SMR into your hives with a SMR F1 hybrid instead of a direct
daughter of a Glenn Apiaries breeder queen. We have had SMR II breeder
queens of both the yellow & red lines. All the direct open mated daughter
queens had poor brood viability.
However those F1 can be grafted from and the daughters open mated and the
good brood viability is back to normal to almost normal or those hives can
be used as a SMR drone source.
.

My yards for the most part run in a cross pattern with my home yard in the
center for up to 25 miles.

 Drone source colonies from half a mile to two miles in all four directions.

Strictly production hives are at the outside of the cross as I do not want
their drones for the most part.

Moving hives is the easiest beekeeping operation I do. A single person job.

I at times dream about beekeeping at night. I am always thinking about my
beekeeping. Always trying new ways of keeping bees!

By contrast I got two calls from hobby beekeepers tonight which have not
pulled their supers, hives are starving and have not yet checked mites loads
or treated.

My hives are all ready for winter! Honey all extracted and stored away. I
guess I will go clean in the building tomorrow while waiting for the first
killing frost so I can move the hives into the holding yard.

My partner says he has six yards left to feed and then he is done except for
the moving into holding yards . He finished his extracting a day before me
but I finished my wintering a day before he did.

Now we are thinking California!

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---