could you give an update on how you found the russians that you used last
year were?

I did not  send the Russians to Almonds so I could see the way they wintered
in Missouri. Most came out of winter with small clusters. Ok for the hobby
beekeeper but a drawback if you need brood for splits or planning on renting
hives for apple pollination.

The main reason *in my opinion* commercial beekeepers are not on the Russian
or carniolan bandwagen in many parts of the U.S. is simply you can not bring
a hive into an orchard with a small cluster and get top dollar. If you are
selling nucs you need brood.

> like temperment and honey production.

We had the worst drought in a 100 years in our area last summer so I really
can't say about honey production. Will take a   few normal years to get an
idea. Temperment of the Russian hybrid was good. I bought Russian/Russian
and was told later I got a Russian/NWC cross. The new owner of the company
said I got a hybrid (crossed with NWC drones) but the now deceased owner had
indicated  I was getting a Russian/Russian bee. Regardless those drone
source hives drones are Russian/Russian.

Complicated subject but one which I have covered in the archives. I tried to
find a source of Russian/ Russian in the U.S.through Charlie Harper
(provides only breeder queens) but could only find Russian hybrids being
called Russian.

I finnally located a California queen breeder which set up a remote mating
yard and Russian drone colonies and he provided as close as I can tell
around fifteen beekeepers with Russian/Russian so we can evaluate the
Russian bee ourselves.

> Did you install the new
queens into italian or russian hives?

We used brood from four different yards . The brood and bees were both
Russian/Russian ,Russian/ Carniolan , Italian/carniolan and Italian .

>thanks mike bassett new york (mine are due in a couple of weeks)

I am always interested in hearing about experiements with bees run by
beekeepers (and have to wonder why many times we get so different results
than researchers  do). Find out from your queen breeder what the queen
source is ( Russian II queen is best) and then what the drone source is. If
they are production queens (priced similar to other on the market queens)
they are open mated. Ask your queen breeder the drone source. All the
Russian i found available this year were   grafted from a Russian breeder
queen and then open mated to the most popular line used by the queen breeder
(which make those workers a Russian hybrid and  NOT Russian/Russian).

The problem I have had over the last two years is gettin U.S. queen breeders
to *understand* what the hell a few of us beekeepers are talking about.
Myself and a handful of beekeepers simply want to install and evaluate  the
Russian line as imported into the U.S.. There is an excellent chance from
what I see so far I will be requeening with my favorite line of Italians in
the end but we simply want to see for ourselves if the Russian bee (which
has very little carniolan and Italian blood  as imported) will do as those
in the USDA claim the bee will do.

All but the California queen breeder went  on and on about the hybrid being
the better bee. Which may be but why should the U.S. queen breeders decide
for the rest of us that we do not need to ever test the Russian/Russian bee
in our apiaries?

The truth is not many queen breeders are ABLE to set up a remote site to
produce the Russian/Russian production queen.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison
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-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::