I have nine colonies in top bar hives and five five-bar nucs. I raised the queens in the nucs by grafting. The queens seem to be doing well in the nucs, but one of the nucs seems to be developing more and more very dark bees. All of my colonies have been Italian though I did have one colony of black bees establish itself in a vacant hive three years ago. That colony of black bees died out during the following winter...probably due to mites. I don't know enough about honeybee genetics to know how color is inherited, though I would bet that it's multiple alleles, quantitatively inherited. Any ideas on what I might be seeing?? Is it likely that the queen in the dark nuc mated with one or more dark drones? There well may be some feral colonies of black bees in adjacent forests, though feral colonies seem to be few and far between in Georgia, USA now compared to years before Varroa. Any comments would be appreciated. Cordially yours, Jim ----------------------------------------------------- | James D.Satterfield | [log in to unmask] or | | P.O. Box 2243 | [log in to unmask] | | Decatur, GA 30031 USA | Telephone 404 378-8917 | -----------------------------------------------------