Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Races of Bees

Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Races of Bees#

1 . What are the advantages of Italian bees - Apis mellifera lingustica?

  1. Excellent foragers and honey producers

  2. Queen is a light color making her easy to identify

  3. Low/Moderate tendency to swarm

  4. Moderate propolizers

  5. Relatively calm and gentle

  6. Readily builds comb

2 . What are the disadvantages of Italian bees- Apis mellifera ligustica?

  1. Can build lots of brace and burr comb

  2. Poor orientation to home hive, drifts to other colonies

  3. Brood rearing continues after main honey flow even into the fall, may build up excessively in spring – may enter winter with too many bees

3 . What are the advantages of Carniolan bees - Apis mellifera carnica?

  1. Build strong populations in the spring

  2. Exceptionally gentle

  3. Few brood diseases

  4. Over winter well

  5. Forages earlier in the morning and on cool and wet days

4 . What are the Disadvantages of Carniolan bees - Apis mellifera carnica?

  1. Tend to swarm if not given room

  2. Dark queen, difficult to locate

5 . What are the advantages of Caucasian bees - Apis mellifera caucasica?

  1. Gentle and calm on the comb

  2. Have a long tongue so that they can exploit more species of flowers

  3. Tongue length: up to 7.3 mm

  4. Little tendency to swarm

  5. Forage at lower temperatures and on cool, wet days

  6. Overwinters well shutting down brood production in the fall

6 . What are the disadvantages of Caucasian bees - Apis mellifera caucasica?

  1. Maximum propolizers

  2. Dark queen difficult to find

  3. Can drift and rob

7 . List at least four of the five lines of hybrid bees available in the US?

  1. Buckfast Hybrid (cross of Italian, Carniolan and Anatolian)

  2. Starline Hybrid (4-way Italian cross)

  3. Cordovan

  4. Russian

  5. VSH (varroa sensitive hygiene) and/or Hygienic bees