Dee Lusby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Each of the above lines is different and has good traits
and undesirable traits. I would be interested in you
describing your bees and their good & hopefully describe
any undesirable traits.

Dee,
    You were writing to Bob.  I'm going to stick my nose in and share the little experience I have had with some of the lines mentioned.

First, I'm located about 90 miles NNE of Mobile, Alabama.  The winter has been more mild than usual, it seems.  We have had henbit and wild mustard blooming since the last week of January.  Some of the early blooming fruit trees have been in bloom for several weeks.  Saw some white clover blooming today so that's beginning to become available.  And there are the various other early blooming plants so for a number of weeks now my bees have been bringing in pollen and nectar.

SMR's   I got my queens from one of the most reputable sources in the U.S.  I made splits from basic mongrel Italians (2 frames of brood with a frame of honey and pollen on each side and 6 frames of foundation).  Even with my fumbling attempts at introduction all five took.  They built up very rapidly.  I fed sugar syrup and in about four weeks all of them had about six or seven frames of solid brood each.  I've been into the hives already this year and I definately have two queens remaining, one has been superceded, and in the other two I've not been able to find the queen although there is a very good brood pattern in both hives.  Anyway, I was impressed with the way they took off and built up over the summer and carried through the winter.

Russians.  Again, my queens came from a very reputable source.  The line I got was supposedly pretty touchy but in the entire time I've worked with them they were no worse than any of the other bees in the yard, and one time I worked them right up to the start of a heavy thunderstorm with no problems.  The Russians seemed to start pretty slow.  The SMR's were way ahead with brood production for the first three to five weeks.  Then the Russians caught up.  All of the hives were pretty strong by mid summer.  Already this year the Russians are starting to build up and I'm told that they are slow to start.  Didn't seem to be this year.  The size of the winter cluster might have been smaller than the SMR's and the Italian/Buckfast cross but not too much so.  One Queen didn't do well and the hive died out.  I figure it was a poor queen.  It never did have a good brood pattern.  All of these bees are involved in a test so I couldn't take much brood from the other hives and try to b!
 oost the
 poor one.  With this bunch I was able to successfully introduce four of the five queens into the splits, again made up with basic mongrel Italians (2 frames of brood with a frame of honey and pollen on each side and 6 frames of foundation).  I later introduced a Russian into the fifth hive and she seemed to take.  Not sure if that was the one that later failed or not.  Will have to get back into my records to see for sure.  

The controls - the Italian/Buckfast cross.  I was not impressed with these bees.  I had the hardest time getting acceptance of the queens for some reason.  If I remember correctly out of five hives I had to requeen three of them.  They didn't seem to build up as rapidly as the others.  They too, were started the same way as a split.  One of them died out late in the summer, again I think it was a poor queen.  They built up but not as successfully as the others, at least to my observation.  When I checked about a week back only one of the queens seemed to have made it through the winter without being superceded.  I'm impressed with the SMR's and the Russians but not so with the crosses.  I keep those because they are the standard to which the others are being compared.  I have a couple of other hives with just plain old Italians and they seem to be doing well in the location.  One of them I kept in just Illinois supers to see how they would do and it just about filled four of!
  the five
 supers I had on it.  All of the hives did well with the fall flow and went into the winter with good stores.

Italians, Italian/Buckfast cross, SMR's, and Russians.  With just one season, well almost, I think I would like to populate my yards with the Russians and the SMR's.  We'll see how they do this summer with a monitored honey production and mite monitoring.  As mentioned previously the whole yard of bees seemed to be very docile, even in not so good conditions.

I must say though that NONE of them liked me mowing around them.  Don't know if it was because the weeds were so tall by the time I got to mowing the yard or what, but it's taken me about three sessions with the mower to get the whole yard mowed.  They just about mob me after about ten minutes working up close to the hives.  Was able to get most of the yard out away from the hives mowed the first session, but when I got close, it was "Can't stand it any more."  Hopefully with all the weeds and stuff down now it won't be so bad this year.

Well, a pretty long diatribe, but that's my two cents worth.  Like the SMR's and the Russian's at this time.  Not impressed with the Italian/Buckfast cross.  Will see how they do this summer.

Mike in LA

		
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