Our bees arrived today after their long trip from California. This year we decided to try Carniolan bees from California instead of the Italian bees out of Georgia that we have had the past few years.
The type of bee to get is a personal choice. Carniolan bees supposedly overwinter better because they will slow down on rearing brood when the honey flow slows down. This means they don't have a large, hungry population to feed all winter. But this means they don't make as much honey and I have heard they propolis like crazy. There are plus and minuses for both types of honey bee. For us our bees have died the past two winters and we figured we wanted to try something different.
This lady rode along side me on the way home.
The queen is almost black which was surprising since the Italian queens are very light colored.
Shaking the bees out causes a lot of them to become airborne.
The hive looks so little with just two supers.
I hope these Carnolian bees do better for you. I installed Russian bees in our hive, and they have made it through two winters. But they are SWARMY! They have swarmed each spring, despite my efforts to keep them from doing it. We still got plenty of honey, so I'm not complaining.
ReplyDeleteWe have heard both positive and negative reviews about the Russians. We figured we would give the Carniolans and try.
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