I'm in the final stages in 2009 of switching my more remote yards over to all russian. these yards 
have no other beekeepers near by so I have a good chance of keeping the genetics intact.  Half my 
operation will be russian then. 

in spring of 2008 I had over wintered singles of russians that were made up the previous spring as 
nucs, those hives exploded into a box and a half, during a spring that never really felt like spring. 
i took 2-3 deep frames of brood out of each in late may to make up nucs for 2009 and they still 
got swarmy. If the honey production is lower its been hard to tell. I got an average 4-5 supers off 
them last summer. 

I've not kept bees as long as some, but in my 15 yrs I've never seen a strain of bees over winter on 
so little honey and have so little winter losses. Those singles turn up in April with the 2 outside 
frames packed with honey yet. They spend the whole winter on the inner 5 frames.

The drive by inspection I did last weekend during a warm spell shows preliminary numbers to 
look like 1 or 2 in 50 Russians hives lost so far.

As others have pointed out, I think the best result with these bees is to keep them isolated from 
other bees to keep the genetics pure. Every thing I have heard and read says Russian hybrids lose 
the characteristics that make them so special. And the Russians do seem eager to replace their 
queens as opposed to Italians. 

For northern stationary operations this bee is ideal IMO. I save money by not treating or feeding 
much. No FB treatments, no varroa treatments, no nosema treatments either and still no real 
losses. You can run less brood equipment also if over wintering - more savings. A single deep or 
deep and a medium is adequate honey stores for over wintering.  

WIth high fuels costs like in 2008, this strain of bee can deliver a real advantage to the bottom line 
by cutting down on trips to the yard. 

Sure the Italians can bring some cash for pollination in CA, but what is the overall cost of the 
average high losses, multiple feed and treatment bills and all that extra labor?  Sounds like a lot of 
work and risk.

My final thought is this is not a bee you buy a dozen russian queens of and requeen some non 
russian hives and then try and run a comparison in an area thats full of other bees. 

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