Ernie Gregoire responds to John Mesinger's request for information.  He says
that the more robust the colony of Carniolans the more they eat during mild
winters.  This is directly opposite to what John was saying, if I
interpreted his comments right.

Actually, Carniolans, Caucasians and Midnights by nature of the pure strain
are much more conservative on the use of winter stores than a pure strain of
Italians.  Fifteen years ago, and previously, we could acquire queens of
these breeds in a purer strain than I've seen since.  Back then they
produced gray and black worker bees with no Italian color.  But in the last
15 years, so-called Carniolan, Caucasian and Midnite bees produce from 10 to
90 percent Italian cross offspring.  It is my opinion that calling these by
their race and strain name is not truth in labeling.  We often talk about
these strains as though they are pure strains having the look and behavior
of their distant parents but this is not the case today.

Dr. Sheppard's work on honey bee genetic differences between breeding stock
in the south and California indicates that there is no significant
difference between these stocks except for their color.  I wonder what the
genetic differences are between these races in their original home lands
today.

I would also like to suggest to list members that when you are describing
colony size, performance or other bee behavior that you describe colony size
in number of deep frames, or equivalent in other sizes, covered with bees at
a certain ambient temperature.  Saying a colony is robust, or very robust,
weak, quite weak, or having a large number of bees, does not give us any
idea of the colony  size.  Saying that you will feed the daylights out of
them does not give us any idea of how much honey or syrup you intend to have
in the hive in the fall.  Effective and efficient communication requires
explicit use of terminology and adjectives.

I just can't agree that "September is right for New England to begin nucs."
Dr. Jay, and I think others, have determined that fall bees are
physiologically different than summer bees.  Fall is not natures time for
raising queens.  If you are buying spring raised queens in the fall to put
in nucs I think you will have more success.  If you want to have nucs go
through the winter why not just split every hive in late May or early June,
introduce new queens and winter them, and then kill your parent colonies in
July or August after the nectar flow?

James C. Bach
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