>Robert Brenchley asks: "Could this be a case of a queen having mated with >drones of different races, and producing different coloured offspring?" > I would suggest drifting as the most likely siuation, although without full information it is hard to be certain. We get the same situation in reverse here. Our bees are mainly blacks, but from time to time we experiment with other types. Occasionally we try out a few yellower ones. Once the colony(ies) with yellow bees becomes established and the progeny of that queen begin to fly it is not long before you can spot some yellow bees in more or less every colony in the apiary. There are generally more of them the closer you are to the yellow colony, but they can crop up anywhere, particularly near ends of rows or nearest the current nectar source. These are not robbers or the result of cross matings, they are just bees going about their everyday business having adopted a home other than that in which they were raised. Drones seem to have very little colony loyalty at all, and congregate strongly in any colony raising queens. If your bees are all of one general type you probably never notice this phenomenon, but throw in a colony of radically different colour and it is immediately plain. In the UK it is often said that Italian bees are great robbers, but the dominant bee, at least in eastern Scotland, is black. Thus it is obvious if yellow bees are frequenting your dark hive, but not at all obvious if the visitors (or adopted residents) are identical in colour to the hives own bees. -- Murray McGregor