Thanks Ian. I intended to ask a question on your syrup situation so I'll ask it here. Do you do anything to keep your Sucrose 67 from fermenting in summer?
Hi bob you are a very switched on beekeeper one that other bee vloggers try to emulate but you’re always first with the best info!!! Glad you decided to give this TH-cam thing a go...
I enjoy listening to this calm, analytical voice of experience. It's nice to know that there are people out there that are scientifically and practically pursuing excellence in this trade.
I started my beekeeping with Caucasians. So Glad I did. They are super gentle! I love the color of them also. I always said I could tell which bees were mine! But as a 1st year beekeeper, my Caucasian survived into the next year and the same queen lived for over 2 years, productively. They didn't swarm the entire first year! As far as propolis... not bad. I know it is good for the hive and considered painting the inside of the boxes myself with melted propolis. I purchased mine from Winter's Apiary in Tennessee and my most recent queen from a place here in N. Florida. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find breeders of this race. I recommend Caucasians to any new Beekeeper. I hope to take a class from Sue Cobey this summer, learning to inseminate queens. Maybe that way I can get the Caucasian bee established in my area.
Hello Bob, Methylated spirit, or sugical spirit works well for me in the UK, where I get a lot of propolis. I have also found disolving propolis in alcohol and using it as a varnish inside my boxes after scraping and lightly blowlamping then ready for the season, works well. Kind regards, Tony Marsh, ( 60 years with bees ).
I have 4 hives now with a 50/50 ratio of your breed and they are so gentle. I have yet to be stung from any of those 4 hives and I have gotten my share from the other hives. You are right about them keeping more honey in the brood box but they seem to forage better in the cooler weather of MN also. I remember what Micheal Palmer said " the Italian bees would rather rob than forage". I still have not seen a swarm cell and they are a big hive now in late June. The propolis is something I had not thought of but maybe another added benefit. Thanks for sharing this info.
Thank you... I have been breeding for propolis production for years and everyone thought I was crazy .....like a fox 2 things that I like dark bees and propolis
Hello Bob, I had to chuckle when you mentioned fingers being sticky after working with Caucasian bees. Over the last 60 years hear in the UK, I have always had heavy propolisation of all parts of our hives. Some have been worse than others, with some stocks propolising the bottoms of the frames to the floorboards a gap of around an inch. I had WBC hives when I first started, the bees loved them, but they were the worst hives I have worked with, and often hive parts would break off through being so stuck with propolis. I burnt all of mine and have used MDs ever since, top bee space is definitely best. The best thing for cleaning propolise off of hands and hive tools is Alcohol, surgical spirit or methalated spirit works very well. Kind regards, Tony Marsh.
Bob, love your videos; very easy to watch with your calm confident voice. I have been keeping bees for 40 years now; never more than a dozen colonies. If I recall correctly, I purchased Caucasian bees from Dadant under tradename Midnight many years ago (and Italians under tradename Starline). Yes lots of propolis and very gently; however, once crossed with Italians I had after a swarm the offspring was very hard working but extremely ill tempered. Had one hive that easily chased 100 feet and wouldn't let my nearby dog out of her kennel dog house. I ended up moving that hive 20 miles away to my in-laws farm (lol) until I could re-queen. Dadant even acknowledged this potential in their sales literature; again, if I recall correctly.
Excellent video Bob ,thanks for posting. A funny little true story here. 15yrs ago I started beekeeping as a hobby here in rural SW Indiana. My birthday was coming up and I gave my mother a Brushy Mountain Bee catalog and pointed out a few items I would like. My birthday came and I unwrapped one of my presents and it was still in the cardboard box it was shipped in from Brushy mountain, and low and behold it had Sue Coby's name on it but moms address, somehow. I think at that time she was at Ohio State University. Ha, I contacted Brushy Mountain and they figured out the mistake and I later got the correct package.
Great video Bob I to have been moving my Apiary here in Florida to bees that are propolis producers the health of my Apiary has improved. The funny side effect is they seal the hive bettles in the traps
New subscriber here.. Im from philippines.... Im so glad i found found your channel your vids help me a lot in taking good care of my 2 colonies.. Im a newbie beekeeper.. Just finished my training about beekeeping
Hello Bob you are correct about the Caucasian I'm in Greece some beekeepers has bring the Caucasian bee but they don't work with them because we have hot summer and a lot weather changes we have the local bee makedonica cimillar the Carniola.The name propolis is Greek and in our language means before the city ( προ- πόλης ) and that because the bee's close the door of the hive when the winter come.
Black bullet queen :) i had one like that, they produced more propolis and honey than any other hive, but they were quite agressive. Great channel btw.
Bob I use the gel hand sanitizer from Mann Lake to get my hands clean from propolis. I have a gallon jug with a pumper on it so I don’t even have to deal with opening a bottle. Lorie 😁🐝
Thanks very much Bob, great information, not many people can talk knowledgably about bee species, so while things do differ slightly in the UK its all good to know.
Very informative. I've also read studies on the benefits of propolis. I even take a propolis supplement. I may look into incorporating a small percentage of Caucasians in our Apiary. Great video Bob!
Good day Bob, Excellent video,very Good assessment of the Carneolans Bees using propolis, They keeps out intruders of every sought,even you the Beekeeper has to think before you entered , Asking yourself questions what am I going to do,and so on,in my area I found them to be very trifty,always have a reserve, when they dont have no one else likely to have. That heavy Propolis keeps them so Healthy it's not funny. CONTINUED loving Bees,and. Caring for them.
I have Caucasian and Anatolian bees together. That's true they collect a lot of propolis. Anatolian race is quite aggressive but very resistant against varroa. A combination with Caucasian works really good for me. Also, even under rain and on cold days they continue working.
Thanks for the videos. I just installed two open mated Caucasians, will check acceptance mid week. The main reason I got mine was that they have the longest proboscis and can work all the clovers. Germ-X hand sanitizer, if you can find now, works well for removing propolis.
I love Caucasian bees. I have purchase 4 queens. One was a half caucasian queen, the other were products of open mating. Very difficult to find.. almost impossible. I love this breed! So gentle. I wish this breed would come back. I have since lost any major Caucasian blood in my apiary. My inspector was very impressed as I was the only one in this part of the FL Panhandle that had one. Mine came from Tennessee. If you start selling high percentage Caucasian blood, I would like to order some.
Hi Bob thank you for yet another wonderful and informative video. I'm watching your "bee hive management" series from oldest video to the newest, and I absolutely love what I'm learning. I'm a backyard beekeeper in NorCal and decided to try single brood chamber method on one of my colonies. You mentioned that two of your colonies died because they stored all honey and pollen in the honey super. I've been moving any honey/pollen from the brood box up into the honey super with the idea of giving them more space for brood. And if they need food for the larvae they can just run upstairs and grab some...is that a recipe for for disaster? Thanks!
There are different populations of bees in the Caucasus. Georgian gray bees are distinguished from them. Meat length 7.15 - 7.25 and more ... It is distinguished by high labor capacity, calmness, resistance to diseases ... In the literature it is mistakenly referred to as the Caucasian bee. He is a Georgian gray bee ...
You need to check out New River Bees out of West Virginia too. The dude has top notch equipment and does top notch work. He's climbing right up there with Sue Cobey.
Hello, I'm in West Virginia and I also have 75% or greater Caucasian breeders and lines from WSU. I'm in touch with Sue and Brandon and Steve quite often at WSU. I do my own ii and selection. I've been maintaining these lines for about 4 years now with new stock or drone semen from Sue or WSU every year. We should stay in touch for the potential of crossing our different lines in the future if the new genetics become unavailable at some point? Because of different selection methods our two lines would loose relationship over time and maintain their diversity. Thanks! -Jason
I am also glad you started doing these videos. Another good one. I raise queens here in ohio and would definitely like to try some caucasians when you start selling. My problem is people have bees everywhere up here so open breeding is ...well you just don't know.
Thank you for this video. I use push in cages myself. I'm glad you shared this for others, I believe people will have better acceptance. I don't think people understand that a mated queen isn't a laying queen and smells different. I don't want bees that early either. In are local area beekeepers are worried about space in early spring and we are 6 weeks away from our flow. Mine build up in time,Love my Carnies! I didn't have to worry about the shortage of hand sanitizer, because I have cases as rubbing alcohol. Alcohol for the mite wash and I have the gel alchohol hand wash pumps in my truck doors, because it takes off the propolis!!!
Out of my 8 hives in one place the Caucasian colony were the first in spring to be strong build up, no interest in swarming was very late when queen cups started to appear even then no eggs in them. I have heared the same as you propolis being really good for the Colony. So I would take a frame of brood from my Caucasian and put it into my Italian hive Italian frame of brood in the Caucasian I would do this with healthy colonies my idea was the Caucasian brood would hatch in the Italian hive producing extra propolis for health reasons for my Italian hive so far had low mite counts and healthy bees.
Very Helpful. I do feel that somewhere down the road I will try them. But living in NY, when we Bloom early like in April, I need early foragers. Yet I have an idea of getting a caucasian queen for a year so that they can propolis' the entire hive then re-queen with a Mutt from Wolf Creek? they are a mix breed with a little of everything and hear great things about them. I would do this simply because I like the idea of having a hive completely covered with that healing propolis. Thanks again.
Hey when U gave talk on raw honey about freezin it i remembered my mother used to freeze milk that way. It stopped the aging process on the milk. She would buy 5 or 6 gal jugs of milk when she found them on sale then put em in the freezer. Then she took em out one by one & they never spoiled if we drank them normally.
I have read a lot on different breeds swarming and what I can gather is to do with honey management. Russians tend to manage honey very well thru winter and then tend to manage it more precisely. So all of a sudden they decide its time and they go very fast. Before a person knows it, they're ahead of the Italians next door and they swarm. So we all call them swarmy. Seems maybe caucasians manage their build-up slower and as you say frugal. That's how the russians are described, but when they do begin to gather in a heavy flow, they just move fast. Just some stuff I read. Can't remember of it was Cornell or Clemson where I read that. Hoping to be stopping by y'all's store this week on the way to the NC mountains!!
Would like to see some updates on how your Caucasian introduction adventures are going. We are roughly two years out from this video. Seen anything exciting to report?
Hard to show differences between bees species that couldn't be contributed to other things, but it might be interesting to see an extreme case of their propolis tendencies. Had some feral bees about 6 years ago that I put into new equipment.. They put a 1/4 to 1/2" layer of propolis on everything that wasn't bee space in the span of a couple months. Never seen anything like it. Ended up killing the queen because her offspring wanted to kill anyone that even tapped on the hive, much less open it. But it was something unique, I just couldn't have them where my hives were at the time.
Lots of good info. Just getting started and haven't decided what breed or lines to go with. Thanks for sharing your past knowledge and the crosses you have worked with. Having healthy bees and good pollinators is more important to me than honey production. I hope to trap some wild swarms but I will definitely be looking at Caucasian replacement queens.
Hello Bob that was great information. Here in NC I have all Italian bees . I think I would like to see what Italian & carniolan would be like. 🤷♂️🤷♂️
I like how it shows in your yards.. who's who and the different ways they do stuff for winter. But I'm not so sure you guys in US have the original Ligustica Italian bees. Those bees look too blonde. I'm here right in the middle of the species. I don't think I would ever work with Ligustica again... we selected our own subspecies of carnie that reacts to the pollen from nature and knows better than me what they should be doing and are pretty resilient to drought and varroa by themself. I really like how you setup your operation every year. Almost the same as us here.. a lot of small yards
@@bobbinnie9872 i used to work seasonal a couple months every summer for a big operation in Italy. Their bees were more brownish than gray and had 2 orange or reddish rings.. there would be a rare bee with 3 rings. The overall color was more brownish. Not grayish like yours or mine are. I know if I get some Italian drone by chance those bees end up smaller in the first generation and have usually only one orange ring.. rarely two. Some people here like them and work with the carnie queen and Ligustica drones. They are fast workers and can pass the excluder easy. But I don't like the trend of mixing everything now when we still have our own very good selected bees.
I found it interesting hat you said about the Golden Italian bees starving after you took off the honey supers. I used mostly Italian & Carniolan cross queens when I kept bees. I didn't like the swarming tendency or that they were more aggressive but they made it up in honey production. One year I got some of the Golden Italian queens and in the spring I would feed if necessary, however the Cross bred bees were usually okay and didn't need feeding. The one Golden queen hive in that yard was removing brood because they had no honey and if I had not caught it when I did they would have starved. It seems that the Italian bees build bigger hives of bees but not necessarily more honey.
We like them a lot. Mainly because they're more gentle. They have also been doing a good job in every other respect. They do build up later than the Italians which we actually prefer. Your comment reminds me that I need to do a video on them. Thanks.
Thanks for this wonderful video u do a great job and I always look forward to seeing u/ Please keep them coming. A 1000 queen and u got 2 of them do u cry when they die., I spent 2000 but they were on 15 queens and 8 packages if u have time maybe u can use them to make queens and sell them.. I did 7 splits this week using the devider board that u tought me about shook the bees down like u said and used queen excluder. also on 2 I just devided the hive equal like u said I will go back and check for queen cells next weekend. U are great thanks for shareing your wisdom with all of us. U have a great day and Thanks again
Thanks. Betting on a Sourwood crop is precarious. I've learned not to take orders until I see the crop come in. We usually know if we'll have some by late July.
Hi mister Binnie I dig through some books and papers belonging to my late grandfather about study conducted in former Soviet union republic of Belarus on caucasian bees, they called it grey caucasian mountain bees which is native to northern caucasians Mountain , study was conducted for 3 years and report has been published in October 1984 , study compared 6 strains of bees, Russian , grey caucasian, carpathian, Ukrainian plain, yellow caucasian and carnica, there is some comparison between Russian and grey caucasian it will be interesting to hear your opinions on it and compare nowadays bees with it some information is from old book and some hand writing by my grandfather. Russian: mass of one day old bee 110 mg , mass of virgin queen 190 mg, fertile queen between 200 to 210 mg eggs lain ability during peak season 1500 to 2000 eggs in 24 hours, body color dark gray plain, behavior during inspection aggresive bees running on comb hangs in clusters at bottom of a frames always move from light to a darker place in hive, poorly protected nests from robbing by others bees and insects, honey capping white, during honey flows starting storing honey from the top, swarming behavior extreme in some years up to 90% colonies may swarm , more tolerant to faulbrood and nozema than southerners strains of bees overwinter well, bees use heavy nectar flow such as linden trees, buckwheat very well, during honey flows 3 or more kilograms swarming diminish to a minimum , average productivity per year per colony 28.2 kg, use of propolis by the bees medium,bees develop poorly in southern regions with a hot weather, lengths of tongue 5.9 to 6.3 mm . Grey caucasian bees : mass of one day bee 90 mg ,mass for virgin queen 180 mg, mass of fertile queen 200 mg, eggs lain ability during peak season 1100 to 1500 per 24hour, bees very gentle, during inspection continue working on a combs, swarming behavior very low 3 to 5% of colonies may swarm , nest propolisation very heavy, bees very hardy workers they easily switch from one nectar source to another, during honey flows bees fill brood nest first before deposits any honey in to a suppers , honey capping wet dark, not very good for comb honey production, tendency to robbing very high, bees protected their own nest very good, not suitable for a mix strains apiary, bees have longest tongue from all known honey bees strains in a world 6.6 mm to 7.2 mm, which allows for them to collect nectar from some plants that not possible for other bees do to a depth of a flower, less tolerant to faulbrood and nozema than Russian bees, overwinter well on quality food with proper ventilation
Hi Sergey. This is very interesting information. May I have your permission to share this? Some of my experiences with the behavior of Russians and Caucasians are much like what is described here. The Russians being used in this country today, although probably not as aggressive and nervous as the ones described here, do have a reputation for being aggressive. I had few hundred Russian colonies for several years and did not like them because of their tendency to swarm and their temper. The Caucasian bees talked about in this video are the Grey Mountain strain and sound much like the description here. Thanks for sharing. Good stuff.
@@bobbinnie9872 You welcome to share this information, I translated it from Russian so it you find any grammatical errors or some words need to be replaced you can do that too. There is three pages of information on caucasian that are in observation book that my grandfather left for me , which includes behavior before swarming during the swarming and after swarming, also ability of the bees to forage in different weather conditions, according his notes during 3 days of light rain with a temperature between + 18 to + 23 from all strains of bees they had on control scales only caucasian added weight not much on average . 7 kg per day about 1 1/2 lb. all others was negative
@@bobbinnie9872 Hi Bob enjoyed your video and description of Caucasian traits. My late father was a breeder from the mid sixties through to the last few years. He had an enduring soft spot for Caucasians and your description matches perfectly. In Australia Caucasians are favoured by those working in hot/dry locations as much as cold ones as their conservative nature accounts for a hardiness when times are tough. They are also good for non migratory operations in rural Australia for the same reasons- long periods of dearth. Dad imported mountain greys over several years from Everet Hastings in the late sixties/early seventies and maintained those bees for many decades. Exceptionally gentle, steady on comb, resistant to swarming and good honey production and overwintering etc. He was also involved in an importation I think in the early 90's of some Carpathians. A very different story and the painful memories live long with those unfortunate souls who encountered them! Thanks for your good work.
Went back to watch this video again. I don't know how the situation with Carniolan is over there.. but when you talk Carniolan here it's a lot of different- similar bees that act accordingly to the location where they are selected for. They can be Slovenian, Austrian and going down the Balkans Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia... they are all a bit different. The two mountain ones from Slovenia and Austria are nothing like mine down by the sea.. or the Serbian ones that are selected for black locust flow.. those will swarm immediately May first if you put them in your climate and conditions. Seme ting with the propolis and pollen collecting. Mine are made for it.. even have a bigger basket on the legs to adapt to the summer dearth.
@@bobbinnie9872 l switched some with a friend breeder from Slovenia years ago. His looked a bit bigger when you watch them next to ich other.. the queens looked to be bigger moving east.. the Serbian ones have giant butts. (But the mixing slowly started. The Buckfast guys will ruin everything importing German queens). I remember when German breeders used to came down to buy carnies from us so they can get rid of those disgusting black bees that lived up north. Haha, it's always the same. The Egyptians imported from the Greek thousands of years back for calmer, more productive bees. Anyway the purebred Slovenian didn't do good without additional breeding in my area. My bees would start working 2-3 hours before these would look out the entrance. They were not used to early flight. And mine up there on the mountain tought they are in haven and constantly tried to swarm.. they never seen so much flow all summer when it supposed to be drought without a speck of pollen. They were so different.. just there in 500 miles radius. My grandfather used to say that before when he was young every village had their own bees. The therein is like that.. all hills and mountains and valleys. I don't want to bother you anymore. This is stuff for the table, not for comments.
Italian queens are generally lighter in color and have some yellow or orange in the mix although the originals that were brought in to this country were a mixture of different leather colors. Carniolan queens are usually dark and at times black and Caucasian queens are often much like the one shown in this video or occasionally black. All of this is a generalization and can vary some. We can also tell by traits in colonies which would make a long answer. Perhaps I'll do a video on it some time, Thanks.
Thanks bob , I’ll want to be on that gueen list and if make Carniolan caucation nucs in 21 I’ll buy 10 of them , I believe the nucs I got this year from you must have little caucation in them every time I work them my gloves stick to everything , but those bees are best I’ve seen . Very pleased !! Thanks god bless!
Bob, how important is it to have an isolated location for your bees so that the strain remains strong? Seems reasonable to assume that your bees would turn into mutts if there were other bee colonies in close proximity. And not being able to ascertain bee colony density in my area has stopped me from trying to raise bees of a certain type. Am I wrong in such thinking? Another great video.
Thanks. You are right in you're thinking. We're lucky in that we dominate our local area by a lot. There aren't any other large beekeepers near us and not very many small ones either. Most of the smaller ones don't mind our presence and buy nucs and queens from us. There are a a couple of side-liners just south of us and we try to stay a least a few miles away from them. Also, many of our yards are completely isolated from other beekeepers so we're able to mate almost entirely with our own stock in those locations. Check out our video "Our Unique Area For Keeping Bees" and you'll see what I mean.
@@bobbinnie9872 Gerry - I am one of the smaller beekeepers (10-15 hives) in Bob's area and I can attest to his statement. I don't mind his presence and in fact would welcome getting some of his genetics in my bees. There's plenty of forage in the area. Bob - another great video! My first bees were a black German strain from a swarm I caught here in the early 80's. Aggressive bees but great honey producers! I wonder if anyone uses them anymore?
@@patrickhopton4609 they've gone extinct in North America about 1990s. Last one I even heard of in North America was that fossil of one found in 2017 in a dry Nevada lake bed. They said it was identical in every way to the German Black bee aka apis mellifera mellifera but to give credence to the find named it apis mellifera neoartica. I miss the black bees too
Hi Bob, I apriciate your desire and love to that bees, they are something we are very pruod of. But, just a little remark, correct name is Georgian bee (republic of Georgia in Caucasia). They are pure Georgian. Generalized names caucasian bee, caucasian shepherd dog (that one is pure Georgian as well), caucasian dishes are introduced by the government of soviet union and since then people in all over the world are using them by mistake. Everybody can find that information in internet, if she/he would like to. So, please use correct origin name. Thank you and regards.
@@bobbinnie9872 Bob, I have a small apairy in Georgia. I could send you a pure Georgian queen (In spring 2022) as a kind present from me, if you could organize the transportation issues somehow.
@@lashakozhoridze5598 Thank you, I would love to get one of your queens but our government won't allow it without special permission, which I would not be able to get. Thanks.
Hey Bob, Im close your old neck of the woods, 20 miles north of Portland ,or. are the qeens out of old sol apairy ok?.Im gonna try put a caucasian again after 23 years. thanks. do you know of any good caucasion queen breeders.thanks
I've heard Old Sole queens are good but I have not personally used them. For an artificially inseminated breeder queen I suggest contacting Shibu Raj in Tennessee. Shibu's Website address is www.tworivershoneybees.com/ and email is tworivershoneybees@gmail.com.
Enjoyed the information, has me second guessing my queen purchases. Its tough to find Caucasians it seems. I often wonder about the swarms I’m catching from a few feral colonies. They have a lot of the same characteristics as the Caucasians, lots of propolis, gentle, and don’t swarm as bad as the carniolans.
I appreciate the care and attention to detail that you put into everything. Any chance you'd consider shipping ? Short of that do you have any suggestions for queen breeders ? Thanks for the great content
We've been considering wether we will ship queens or not next year. So far we sell everything we currently offer with pick up only. We'll see. A late friend of mine, Steve Tabor, wrote in his book "Breeding Super Bees" (worth reading if you raise queens) that he felt attention to details was more important than the breeders used when it came to high quality queens. I hope to put out a video in the near future on requeening where I will address some of this. Thanks for the comment.
Bob, I have Steve Tabor's book & he autographed it for me. Very informative. He used to speak at our bee club in Florence, SC, often. He lived in Columbia,SC.
Thanks for the response. I have found attention to detail to be the most important component of just sbout every endeavor worth pursuing. I hope that you will. It would be great to get some of those carefully orchestrated Genetics spread around.
We like the Caucasians. They are very gentle and easy to work with as can be seen in our videos. They overwinter on less food, build up a bit later and swarm less. I also like Carniolans and have purchased Carniolan queens inseminated with Caucasian semen for grafting in the past and will probably do it again.
Hi Bob, I love watching your very informative content, just watched your video on introduction of Caucasian queen bees, it got me thinking about a hive that swarmed here a few weeks ago, I use the native Irish black bee and this perticular hive swarmed which I caught a d placed in to a nuc, they built up the frames and I later removed them to a full hive body, in this case I have never seen a colony to produce so much propolis, its mother hive has propolis but nothing like this, after inspection it is everywhere on my fingers, hive tool. I just found it strange because the hive in which it came from had nothing like the amount. Regards Michael
That sounds just like a caucasian trait. People dislike that trait and try to breed it out but studies done lately show it's healthy for the bees. Embrace the sticky.
I wonder how swarming will affect the caucasian hives when the virgin queens get mated with the wild and/or surrounding bees? I used to have a problem with the hybrids swarming out and then, when I came back to the apiary, I suddenly had a super mean hive or . . . . . worse . . . . . runners!!!! I hate working with running bees!
Are you talking about the old starlings or midnights? They do not do well with daughter queens or grand daughters. Almost Africanized in nature. Also, be careful with the Buckfast. They do the same thing as the lineage continues. They get very mean with grand daughters ( I believe)
Since the only dumb question is the questioned not asked: Here's my question Sir, if I have my Caucasian queen and my R. Weaver Buckfast drones in a mini queen rearing nuc box, have I eliminated the need for a mating flight? And I absolutely know the specific genetics in my apiary? And thank you for your time Sir.
Will Caucasian queens (mated) be available in late spring 2024? Caucasian/carnolian cross would also be acceptable. I am trying to avoid Italian influence due to Maine's weather. How about an update on your move towards caucasian bees?
We'll have some Caucasian queens available starting in May but they will be pick up only. We'll start taking orders for these in February. I'll try to do an update this spring. Thanks.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you for the response. Georgia is a long way from Maine to drive down and pick up queens. Do you have and recommendation of were to source a few Caucasian queens?
i'm not bennie but if you are in maine i believe i would go with caucasian or russian queens or even canadian buckfast they are in my opinion better for cold climates hope it help
Great video. I am a rookie beekeeper that caught a swarm on my first try this year. I have 120 acres here in Southern Indiana, with about 100 in mixed woodlands... lots of persimmon, wild cherry, locust, oak, maple, etc. The ash has sadly succumbed to the Emerald Ash Borer. I am hoping to expand up to ten or twenty colonies, and you have piqued my interest in the Caucasians. Will you be selling nucs from these in the future?
Sounds like the caucasians would do well in nucs up here in the north for overwintering. Your thoughts? A super less of honey with the Caucasian or feed the italians your profits in sugar syrup? I've considered Caucasians specifically because of the propolis. I lost the opportunity to a certified extracting facility and so I'm going to look for other ways to make income from the hives. Propolis and bee hives would do it.
Caucasians would definitely be a better choice for overwintering as a nuc in cold climates. If you can connect with a good buyer propolis can make good money.
Nice info. I'm new this year. I have Russians and they seem good to work with. They filled up a medium and working on a second. The brood has honey around it. I was wondering How long a queen will last? And will they try to swarm every year?
A queen that is good from the start will last 1 to 3 years, occasionally longer. Yes, many Russians colonies may try and swarm every year if not managed correctly. They are known for it.
@@bobbinnie9872 We've had Russian bees in our area because of the sales pitches to get the sold. I personally don't like them because of their behavior. We have the genetics in the area now. The bees (natural supercedure) seem to swarm with little reason anymore in the area. I think it might be the Russian genetics. What do you think?
Thank you for taking the time to make these wonderful videos to help beekeepers like myself? These may sound like silly or dumb questions but have your ever lost a breeder queen by accidently killing her or the bees just taking off? Can you buy any type of insurance on breeder queens in case something like I mentioned would happen? Are breeder queens shipped like package queens? A $1000 queen in the hands of USPS would make me nervous especially coming from the West Coast. I get upset when I lose a $30-$40 queen....I couldn't imagine losing a queen like you have invested in. Thanks once again
Hi Dewayne. So far we've not accidentally killed a breeder queen but we have lost them to supersedure and such things. I don't know of any insurance policies for these queens but as you might imagine we're really disappointed when we lose one. We have them shipped guaranteed by noon, overnight UPS and so far have had good luck.
Hey Bob, great queen. In regards to those numbers that you add to the queens thorax--can you use TiteBond Ultimate Wood Glue to adhere that number down? This is what BetterBee recommended but what to as a pro. Thank.s
Hi Brad. I've never actually glued a number on a queen. The artificially inseminated queens we purchase come with them. I know that some people are using TiteBond and Elmers wood glue to do this.
In indirect examination of the record bee colonies, I see in all cases significant signs of Caucasian bees. Namely, a large percentage of dark printed honey, peacefulness, small and gray bees, significant propolisation of the nests, and others. And the main feature, huge honey yields, which in many cases exceed the bucfast by 100%.
I can't find a followup to this video, did introducing caucasians not work out well? Was this just for one yard or were you making queens for the fleet (re-queening with her daughters).
Bob when you say heavy do you mean they glue the whole bottom of the frame to the one below it on every single frame cause that's what our Feral bees do here in the Ozark Mountains
I tried a couple hundred Buckfast Queens from Canada about 12 years ago and found them very interesting. They did have a low tendency to swarm and were very gentle but their honey production was noticeably lower than the other bees I had at the time so I let them go. The Buckfast bees from Texas have a very bad reputation with beekeepers I know that have tried them.
I've read that the lineage after the mother queen isn't calm but aggressive. That's with open mating after supercedure or swarming. IF you used Buckfast have you seen this with the grand daughters?
@@bobbinnie9872 Good morning Bob, here in europe the majority of professional Beekeepers work with Buckfast Bees, but apparently there are not a lot good Buckfast breeders in the US. Many of them are based in northern europe. You should try Buckfasts from Keld Brandstrup @ Buckfast Denmark. Extremely calm and gentle, no swarming and a lots of honey. They keep their good properties even as F1.
@@bobbinnie9872 thanks Bob. I live in a "EFB-country", I really like the idea about the propolis envelope and the thinn sucrose feeding wich produces N2O2, for me both are very important for social immunity! since I`m away from thick sirup, inverted sirup and fondant feeding, I rarely see signs of EFB or chalkbrood... think I have to try Caucasians, Dr. Spivak has very good arguments on propolis!!! Guess the longer tongue would match for meadow clover too! Pat
You are a natural at conveying thoughts
Thanks Ian. I intended to ask a question on your syrup situation so I'll ask it here. Do you do anything to keep your Sucrose 67 from fermenting in summer?
I’ve never had that problem, I pour a gallon of HBH ontop to eliminate the top layer from moulding
What’s your strategy?
@@aCanadianBeekeepersBlog what`s HBH..., please explain..! Pat
@@patrickwalther1074 honey bee health I believe
@@bryanbetournay5557 thanks Bryan
Hi bob you are a very switched on beekeeper one that other bee vloggers try to emulate but you’re always first with the best info!!! Glad you decided to give this TH-cam thing a go...
Thanks, it seems to be my new hobby.
I enjoy listening to this calm, analytical voice of experience. It's nice to know that there are people out there that are scientifically and practically pursuing excellence in this trade.
I started my beekeeping with Caucasians. So Glad I did. They are super gentle! I love the color of them also. I always said I could tell which bees were mine! But as a 1st year beekeeper, my Caucasian survived into the next year and the same queen lived for over 2 years, productively. They didn't swarm the entire first year! As far as propolis... not bad. I know it is good for the hive and considered painting the inside of the boxes myself with melted propolis. I purchased mine from Winter's Apiary in Tennessee and my most recent queen from a place here in N. Florida. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find breeders of this race. I recommend Caucasians to any new Beekeeper. I hope to take a class from Sue Cobey this summer, learning to inseminate queens. Maybe that way I can get the Caucasian bee established in my area.
Same here! I just got
My Caucasian honey bees from Mountain Sweet Honey. So happy with they,I’m feelings in love with them❤❤ from Meriden Connecticut.
Hello Bob, Methylated spirit, or sugical spirit works well for me in the UK, where I get a lot of propolis. I have also found disolving propolis in alcohol and using it as a varnish inside my boxes after scraping and lightly blowlamping then ready for the season, works well. Kind regards,
Tony Marsh, ( 60 years with bees ).
Thank you. 👍
Absolutely a awesome man!! Thank you Mr. Binnie.
Thank you Bob for sharing all your wisdom, knowledge and learning
Thanks.
I have 4 hives now with a 50/50 ratio of your breed and they are so gentle. I have yet to be stung from any of those 4 hives and I have gotten my share from the other hives. You are right about them keeping more honey in the brood box but they seem to forage better in the cooler weather of MN also. I remember what Micheal Palmer said " the Italian bees would rather rob than forage". I still have not seen a swarm cell and they are a big hive now in late June. The propolis is something I had not thought of but maybe another added benefit. Thanks for sharing this info.
Thanks.
Thank you...
I have been breeding for propolis production for years and everyone thought I was crazy .....like a fox
2 things that I like dark bees and propolis
Hello Bob,
I had to chuckle when you mentioned fingers being sticky after working with Caucasian bees. Over the last 60 years hear in the UK, I have always had heavy propolisation of all parts of our hives. Some have been worse than others, with some stocks propolising the bottoms of the frames to the floorboards a gap of around an inch.
I had WBC hives when I first started, the bees loved them, but they were the worst hives I have worked with, and often hive parts would break off through being so stuck with propolis. I burnt all of mine and have used MDs ever since, top bee space is definitely best.
The best thing for cleaning propolise off of hands and hive tools is Alcohol, surgical spirit or methalated spirit works very well. Kind regards,
Tony Marsh.
Bob, love your videos; very easy to watch with your calm confident voice. I have been keeping bees for 40 years now; never more than a dozen colonies. If I recall correctly, I purchased Caucasian bees from Dadant under tradename Midnight many years ago (and Italians under tradename Starline). Yes lots of propolis and very gently; however, once crossed with Italians I had after a swarm the offspring was very hard working but extremely ill tempered. Had one hive that easily chased 100 feet and wouldn't let my nearby dog out of her kennel dog house. I ended up moving that hive 20 miles away to my in-laws farm (lol) until I could re-queen. Dadant even acknowledged this potential in their sales literature; again, if I recall correctly.
Thanks.
Thank you for another terrific video.
Excellent video Bob ,thanks for posting. A funny little true story here. 15yrs ago I started beekeeping as a hobby here in rural SW Indiana. My birthday was coming up and I gave my mother a Brushy Mountain Bee catalog and pointed out a few items I would like. My birthday came and I unwrapped one of my presents and it was still in the cardboard box it was shipped in from Brushy mountain, and low and behold it had Sue Coby's name on it but moms address, somehow. I think at that time she was at Ohio State University. Ha, I contacted Brushy Mountain and they figured out the mistake and I later got the correct package.
Fun comment, Thanks.
Great video Bob I to have been moving my Apiary here in Florida to bees that are propolis producers the health of my Apiary has improved. The funny side effect is they seal the hive bettles in the traps
Entombed!!
New subscriber here.. Im from philippines.... Im so glad i found found your channel your vids help me a lot in taking good care of my 2 colonies.. Im a newbie beekeeper.. Just finished my training about beekeeping
Hello Bob you are correct about the Caucasian I'm in Greece some beekeepers has bring the Caucasian bee but they don't work with them because we have hot summer and a lot weather changes we have the local bee makedonica cimillar the Carniola.The name propolis is Greek and in our language means before the city ( προ- πόλης ) and that because the bee's close the door of the hive when the winter come.
Black bullet queen :) i had one like that, they produced more propolis and honey than any other hive, but they were quite agressive.
Great channel btw.
Bob I use the gel hand sanitizer from Mann Lake to get my hands clean from propolis. I have a gallon jug with a pumper on it so I don’t even have to deal with opening a bottle. Lorie 😁🐝
Good video Bob. Thanks for all the info definitely interested in that line of bees. Can’t wait to see how they do.
Thanks, I'll be reporting next fall.
Thank you for your thoughtful insight and getting old isn't easy
Thanks and no it isn't.
I'll be ready to buy some queens from you when you get these bees established. Great video!
Thanks.
Thanks very much Bob, great information, not many people can talk knowledgably about bee species, so while things do differ slightly in the UK its all good to know.
Thank you.
Very informative. I've also read studies on the benefits of propolis. I even take a propolis supplement. I may look into incorporating a small percentage of Caucasians in our Apiary. Great video Bob!
Thanks.
Like from Russia, watch your translations of videos.
Very interesting, thank you!
Good day Bob,
Excellent video,very Good assessment of the Carneolans Bees using propolis,
They keeps out intruders of every sought,even you the Beekeeper has to think before you entered ,
Asking yourself questions what am I going to do,and so on,in my area I found them to be very trifty,always have a reserve, when they dont have no one else likely to have.
That heavy Propolis keeps them so Healthy it's not funny.
CONTINUED loving Bees,and. Caring for them.
Thanks.
I have Caucasian and Anatolian bees together. That's true they collect a lot of propolis. Anatolian race is quite aggressive but very resistant against varroa. A combination with Caucasian works really good for me. Also, even under rain and on cold days they continue working.
Thanks for the videos. I just installed two open mated Caucasians, will check acceptance mid week. The main reason I got mine was that they have the longest proboscis and can work all the clovers. Germ-X hand sanitizer, if you can find now, works well for removing propolis.
Thank you.
Love listening to you speak. Love the bees too. You’re expertise is something impressive too. Fascinating. Cheers from Ontario.
Thanks, appreciate it.
I love Caucasian bees. I have purchase 4 queens. One was a half caucasian queen, the other were products of open mating. Very difficult to find.. almost impossible. I love this breed! So gentle. I wish this breed would come back. I have since lost any major Caucasian blood in my apiary. My inspector was very impressed as I was the only one in this part of the FL Panhandle that had one. Mine came from Tennessee. If you start selling high percentage Caucasian blood, I would like to order some.
Hi Bob thank you for yet another wonderful and informative video. I'm watching your "bee hive management" series from oldest video to the newest, and I absolutely love what I'm learning. I'm a backyard beekeeper in NorCal and decided to try single brood chamber method on one of my colonies. You mentioned that two of your colonies died because they stored all honey and pollen in the honey super. I've been moving any honey/pollen from the brood box up into the honey super with the idea of giving them more space for brood. And if they need food for the larvae they can just run upstairs and grab some...is that a recipe for for disaster? Thanks!
That will work fine. The problem comes when the supers are removed and they haven't any food. In some cases feeding is needed immediately.
There are different populations of bees in the Caucasus. Georgian gray bees are distinguished from them. Meat length 7.15 - 7.25 and more ... It is distinguished by high labor capacity, calmness, resistance to diseases ... In the literature it is mistakenly referred to as the Caucasian bee. He is a Georgian gray bee ...
Гамарджоба. Разные линии карники отличаются очень сильно, оставаясь карникой. Так же и у вас
You need to check out New River Bees out of West Virginia too. The dude has top notch equipment and does top notch work. He's climbing right up there with Sue Cobey.
Thanks
I look forward to future videos following the progress of this project.. Super video, thanks for sharing your experiences.
Thank you
This is so interesting, glad I found your channel!
Can't wait for an update on this project!
Thanks for sharing Bob I really enjoy your videos can't wait to come and visit your place i'll be down next month hope to see you.
Thanks. Ask if I'm there when you come.
Please keep us posted i am very interested in the Caucasian bees as well. Thank you!
I'll report on them next year, Thanks
Are you gonna have any caucasion nucs for sale and if so what do you charge?
Hello, I'm in West Virginia and I also have 75% or greater Caucasian breeders and lines from WSU. I'm in touch with Sue and Brandon and Steve quite often at WSU. I do my own ii and selection. I've been maintaining these lines for about 4 years now with new stock or drone semen from Sue or WSU every year. We should stay in touch for the potential of crossing our different lines in the future if the new genetics become unavailable at some point? Because of different selection methods our two lines would loose relationship over time and maintain their diversity. Thanks! -Jason
Thanks for reaching out. I agree. Perhaps we can share in the future.
Great video Bob!
Propolis is also very good for tincture making for humans, a great tincture to put in your emergency box. Propolis is a much sellable product
I am also glad you started doing these videos. Another good one. I raise queens here in ohio and would definitely like to try some caucasians when you start selling. My problem is people have bees everywhere up here so open breeding is ...well you just don't know.
Thanks. I've been there in the past.
Thank you for this video. I use push in cages myself. I'm glad you shared this for others, I believe people will have better acceptance. I don't think people understand that a mated queen isn't a laying queen and smells different.
I don't want bees that early either. In are local area beekeepers are worried about space in early spring and we are 6 weeks away from our flow. Mine build up in time,Love my Carnies!
I didn't have to worry about the shortage of hand sanitizer, because I have cases as rubbing alcohol.
Alcohol for the mite wash and I have the gel alchohol hand wash pumps in my truck doors, because it takes off the propolis!!!
Thanks, and thanks for the tip.
Out of my 8 hives in one place the Caucasian colony were the first in spring to be strong build up, no interest in swarming was very late when queen cups started to appear even then no eggs in them. I have heared the same as you propolis being really good for the Colony. So I would take a frame of brood from my Caucasian and put it into my Italian hive Italian frame of brood in the Caucasian I would do this with healthy colonies my idea was the Caucasian brood would hatch in the Italian hive producing extra propolis for health reasons for my Italian hive so far had low mite counts and healthy bees.
Very Helpful. I do feel that somewhere down the road I will try them. But living in NY, when we Bloom early like in April, I need early foragers. Yet I have an idea of getting a caucasian queen for a year so that they can propolis' the entire hive then re-queen with a Mutt from Wolf Creek? they are a mix breed with a little of everything and hear great things about them. I would do this simply because I like the idea of having a hive completely covered with that healing propolis. Thanks again.
Thanks Bob always interesting!!!🐝🐝🐝🐝
Thanks.
Hey when U gave talk on raw honey about freezin it i remembered my mother used to freeze milk that way. It stopped the aging process on the milk. She would buy 5 or 6 gal jugs of milk when she found them on sale then put em in the freezer. Then she took em out one by one & they never spoiled if we drank them normally.
Interesting, thanks.
I have read a lot on different breeds swarming and what I can gather is to do with honey management. Russians tend to manage honey very well thru winter and then tend to manage it more precisely. So all of a sudden they decide its time and they go very fast. Before a person knows it, they're ahead of the Italians next door and they swarm. So we all call them swarmy. Seems maybe caucasians manage their build-up slower and as you say frugal. That's how the russians are described, but when they do begin to gather in a heavy flow, they just move fast. Just some stuff I read. Can't remember of it was Cornell or Clemson where I read that. Hoping to be stopping by y'all's store this week on the way to the NC mountains!!
Ask if I'm here if you come by.
Hi Bob like your videos looking forward to the next one thank you
Thanks 👍
Thank you love your bee mannerism.
Thanks.
Would like to see some updates on how your Caucasian introduction adventures are going. We are roughly two years out from this video. Seen anything exciting to report?
We're trying to come up with a video on that. Hopefully soon. So far we like them.
Hard to show differences between bees species that couldn't be contributed to other things, but it might be interesting to see an extreme case of their propolis tendencies. Had some feral bees about 6 years ago that I put into new equipment.. They put a 1/4 to 1/2" layer of propolis on everything that wasn't bee space in the span of a couple months. Never seen anything like it. Ended up killing the queen because her offspring wanted to kill anyone that even tapped on the hive, much less open it. But it was something unique, I just couldn't have them where my hives were at the time.
Always great information!! Thanks for the videos
Thanks.
Great video, Bob, Thanks for sharing!
Thank you
Thank you Bob! Very interesting and informative.
Thanks.
Lots of good info. Just getting started and haven't decided what breed or lines to go with. Thanks for sharing your past knowledge and the crosses you have worked with. Having healthy bees and good pollinators is more important to me than honey production. I hope to trap some wild swarms but I will definitely be looking at Caucasian replacement queens.
Hello Bob that was great information. Here in NC I have all Italian bees . I think I would like to see what Italian & carniolan would be like. 🤷♂️🤷♂️
I like how it shows in your yards.. who's who and the different ways they do stuff for winter. But I'm not so sure you guys in US have the original Ligustica Italian bees. Those bees look too blonde. I'm here right in the middle of the species. I don't think I would ever work with Ligustica again... we selected our own subspecies of carnie that reacts to the pollen from nature and knows better than me what they should be doing and are pretty resilient to drought and varroa by themself.
I really like how you setup your operation every year. Almost the same as us here.. a lot of small yards
I believe you are right. The type of Italian bees we have now have been selected for light color for many years.
@@bobbinnie9872 i used to work seasonal a couple months every summer for a big operation in Italy. Their bees were more brownish than gray and had 2 orange or reddish rings.. there would be a rare bee with 3 rings. The overall color was more brownish. Not grayish like yours or mine are.
I know if I get some Italian drone by chance those bees end up smaller in the first generation and have usually only one orange ring.. rarely two. Some people here like them and work with the carnie queen and Ligustica drones. They are fast workers and can pass the excluder easy. But I don't like the trend of mixing everything now when we still have our own very good selected bees.
I found it interesting hat you said about the Golden Italian bees starving after you took off the honey supers. I used mostly Italian & Carniolan cross queens when I kept bees. I didn't like the swarming tendency or that they were more aggressive but they made it up in honey production. One year I got some of the Golden Italian queens and in the spring I would feed if necessary, however the Cross bred bees were usually okay and didn't need feeding. The one Golden queen hive in that yard was removing brood because they had no honey and if I had not caught it when I did they would have starved. It seems that the Italian bees build bigger hives of bees but not necessarily more honey.
I concur.
Bob,
I am wondering how the Caucasian bees are doing after a year. They look like an excellent option for piedmont nNC.
We like them a lot. Mainly because they're more gentle. They have also been doing a good job in every other respect. They do build up later than the Italians which we actually prefer. Your comment reminds me that I need to do a video on them. Thanks.
@@bobbinnie9872 Maybe an update on the propolis buildup in the hives. Maybe there wont be quite as much because they are 75% pure.
Thanks for this wonderful video u do a great job and I always look forward to seeing u/ Please keep them coming. A 1000 queen and u got 2 of them do u cry when they die., I spent 2000 but they were on 15 queens and 8 packages if u have time maybe u can use them to make queens and sell them.. I did 7 splits this week using the devider board that u tought me about shook the bees down like u said and used queen excluder. also on 2 I just devided the hive equal like u said I will go back and check for queen cells next weekend. U are great thanks for shareing your wisdom with all of us. U have a great day and Thanks again
Hi Frances. I don't cry but I sure am disappointed.
Thanks Bob, I don’t understand why you don’t have a 100k subscribers! Do you have any idea if you will open up on preharvest sourwood honey sales?
Thanks. Betting on a Sourwood crop is precarious. I've learned not to take orders until I see the crop come in. We usually know if we'll have some by late July.
Hi mister Binnie I dig through some books and papers belonging to my late grandfather about study conducted in former Soviet union republic of Belarus on caucasian bees, they called it grey caucasian mountain bees which is native to northern caucasians Mountain , study was conducted for 3 years and report has been published in October 1984 , study compared 6 strains of bees, Russian , grey caucasian, carpathian, Ukrainian plain, yellow caucasian and carnica, there is some comparison between Russian and grey caucasian it will be interesting to hear your opinions on it and compare nowadays bees with it some information is from old book and some hand writing by my grandfather. Russian: mass of one day old bee 110 mg , mass of virgin queen 190 mg, fertile queen between 200 to 210 mg eggs lain ability during peak season 1500 to 2000 eggs in 24 hours, body color dark gray plain, behavior during inspection aggresive bees running on comb hangs in clusters at bottom of a frames always move from light to a darker place in hive, poorly protected nests from robbing by others bees and insects, honey capping white, during honey flows starting storing honey from the top, swarming behavior extreme in some years up to 90% colonies may swarm , more tolerant to faulbrood and nozema than southerners strains of bees overwinter well, bees use heavy nectar flow such as linden trees, buckwheat very well, during honey flows 3 or more kilograms swarming diminish to a minimum , average productivity per year per colony 28.2 kg, use of propolis by the bees medium,bees develop poorly in southern regions with a hot weather, lengths of tongue 5.9 to 6.3 mm . Grey caucasian bees : mass of one day bee 90 mg ,mass for virgin queen 180 mg, mass of fertile queen 200 mg, eggs lain ability during peak season 1100 to 1500 per 24hour, bees very gentle, during inspection continue working on a combs, swarming behavior very low 3 to 5% of colonies may swarm , nest propolisation very heavy, bees very hardy workers they easily switch from one nectar source to another, during honey flows bees fill brood nest first before deposits any honey in to a suppers , honey capping wet dark, not very good for comb honey production, tendency to robbing very high, bees protected their own nest very good, not suitable for a mix strains apiary, bees have longest tongue from all known honey bees strains in a world 6.6 mm to 7.2 mm, which allows for them to collect nectar from some plants that not possible for other bees do to a depth of a flower, less tolerant to faulbrood and nozema than Russian bees, overwinter well on quality food with proper ventilation
Hi Sergey. This is very interesting information. May I have your permission to share this? Some of my experiences with the behavior of Russians and Caucasians are much like what is described here. The Russians being used in this country today, although probably not as aggressive and nervous as the ones described here, do have a reputation for being aggressive. I had few hundred Russian colonies for several years and did not like them because of their tendency to swarm and their temper. The Caucasian bees talked about in this video are the Grey Mountain strain and sound much like the description here. Thanks for sharing. Good stuff.
@@bobbinnie9872 You welcome to share this information, I translated it from Russian so it you find any grammatical errors or some words need to be replaced you can do that too. There is three pages of information on caucasian that are in observation book that my grandfather left for me , which includes behavior before swarming during the swarming and after swarming, also ability of the bees to forage in different weather conditions, according his notes during 3 days of light rain with a temperature between + 18 to + 23 from all strains of bees they had on control scales only caucasian added weight not much on average . 7 kg per day about 1 1/2 lb. all others was negative
@@bobbinnie9872 Hi Bob enjoyed your video and description of Caucasian traits. My late father was a breeder from the mid sixties through to the last few years. He had an enduring soft spot for Caucasians and your description matches perfectly. In Australia Caucasians are favoured by those working in hot/dry locations as much as cold ones as their conservative nature accounts for a hardiness when times are tough. They are also good for non migratory operations in rural Australia for the same reasons- long periods of dearth. Dad imported mountain greys over several years from Everet Hastings in the late sixties/early seventies and maintained those bees for many decades. Exceptionally gentle, steady on comb, resistant to swarming and good honey production and overwintering etc. He was also involved in an importation I think in the early 90's of some Carpathians. A very different story and the painful memories live long with those unfortunate souls who encountered them! Thanks for your good work.
@@davidbriggs1148 Hi David. Very interesting comment. Thanks.
Hello Sergey, would you be willing to sharing this Caucasian and Russian bee study material with a beginning bee keeper?
Thanks, Hendrik
Went back to watch this video again. I don't know how the situation with Carniolan is over there.. but when you talk Carniolan here it's a lot of different- similar bees that act accordingly to the location where they are selected for. They can be Slovenian, Austrian and going down the Balkans Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia... they are all a bit different. The two mountain ones from Slovenia and Austria are nothing like mine down by the sea.. or the Serbian ones that are selected for black locust flow.. those will swarm immediately May first if you put them in your climate and conditions. Seme ting with the propolis and pollen collecting. Mine are made for it.. even have a bigger basket on the legs to adapt to the summer dearth.
In general, the Carniolans we have now are the type from Slovenia and Austria.
@@bobbinnie9872 l switched some with a friend breeder from Slovenia years ago. His looked a bit bigger when you watch them next to ich other.. the queens looked to be bigger moving east.. the Serbian ones have giant butts. (But the mixing slowly started. The Buckfast guys will ruin everything importing German queens). I remember when German breeders used to came down to buy carnies from us so they can get rid of those disgusting black bees that lived up north.
Haha, it's always the same. The Egyptians imported from the Greek thousands of years back for calmer, more productive bees.
Anyway the purebred Slovenian didn't do good without additional breeding in my area. My bees would start working 2-3 hours before these would look out the entrance. They were not used to early flight. And mine up there on the mountain tought they are in haven and constantly tried to swarm.. they never seen so much flow all summer when it supposed to be drought without a speck of pollen. They were so different.. just there in 500 miles radius. My grandfather used to say that before when he was young every village had their own bees. The therein is like that.. all hills and mountains and valleys.
I don't want to bother you anymore. This is stuff for the table, not for comments.
Enjoyed this video, Very informative. Hand sanitizer will take that propolis off your hands. Keep a bottle in your truck, Learned that from Joe May.
Or rubbing alcohol, that what I use
Thanks.
Mr Binnie how can one identify Italian, carni, & caucasian bees? Thank You sir for any info
Italian queens are generally lighter in color and have some yellow or orange in the mix although the originals that were brought in to this country were a mixture of different leather colors. Carniolan queens are usually dark and at times black and Caucasian queens are often much like the one shown in this video or occasionally black. All of this is a generalization and can vary some. We can also tell by traits in colonies which would make a long answer. Perhaps I'll do a video on it some time, Thanks.
Please make the propolis available for purchase, I need some for my tinctures!
Thanks but we're using it all.
Thanks bob , I’ll want to be on that gueen list and if make Carniolan caucation nucs in 21 I’ll buy 10 of them , I believe the nucs I got this year from you must have little caucation in them every time I work them my gloves stick to everything , but those bees are best I’ve seen . Very pleased !! Thanks god bless!
Thanks. If you get some next year get used to sticky.
Bob I am curious about who the Mississippi beekeeper was that you talked about.
Holder Homan.
My Uncle Holder great beekeeper.
Such nice bees
Bob, how important is it to have an isolated location for your bees so that the strain remains strong? Seems reasonable to assume that your bees would turn into mutts if there were other bee colonies in close proximity. And not being able to ascertain bee colony density in my area has stopped me from trying to raise bees of a certain type. Am I wrong in such thinking? Another great video.
Thanks. You are right in you're thinking. We're lucky in that we dominate our local area by a lot. There aren't any other large beekeepers near us and not very many small ones either. Most of the smaller ones don't mind our presence and buy nucs and queens from us. There are a a couple of side-liners just south of us and we try to stay a least a few miles away from them. Also, many of our yards are completely isolated from other beekeepers so we're able to mate almost entirely with our own stock in those locations. Check out our video "Our Unique Area For Keeping Bees" and you'll see what I mean.
@@bobbinnie9872 Gerry - I am one of the smaller beekeepers (10-15 hives) in Bob's area and I can attest to his statement. I don't mind his presence and in fact would welcome getting some of his genetics in my bees. There's plenty of forage in the area. Bob - another great video! My first bees were a black German strain from a swarm I caught here in the early 80's. Aggressive bees but great honey producers! I wonder if anyone uses them anymore?
@@patrickhopton4609 they've gone extinct in North America about 1990s. Last one I even heard of in North America was that fossil of one found in 2017 in a dry Nevada lake bed. They said it was identical in every way to the German Black bee aka apis mellifera mellifera but to give credence to the find named it apis mellifera neoartica. I miss the black bees too
Hi Bob, I apriciate your desire and love to that bees, they are something we are very pruod of. But, just a little remark, correct name is Georgian bee (republic of Georgia in Caucasia). They are pure Georgian. Generalized names caucasian bee, caucasian shepherd dog (that one is pure Georgian as well), caucasian dishes are introduced by the government of soviet union and since then people in all over the world are using them by mistake. Everybody can find that information in internet, if she/he would like to. So, please use correct origin name. Thank you and regards.
Thank you for that information.
@@bobbinnie9872 Bob, I have a small apairy in Georgia. I could send you a pure Georgian queen (In spring 2022) as a kind present from me, if you could organize the transportation issues somehow.
@@lashakozhoridze5598 Thank you, I would love to get one of your queens but our government won't allow it without special permission, which I would not be able to get. Thanks.
Any update on your love for Caucasian bees?
Still liking them but I'm also playing with some other lines which I hope to do a video this winter.
Hey Bob, Im close your old neck of the woods, 20 miles north of Portland ,or. are the qeens out of old sol apairy ok?.Im gonna try put a caucasian again after 23 years. thanks. do you know of any good caucasion queen breeders.thanks
I've heard Old Sole queens are good but I have not personally used them. For an artificially inseminated breeder queen I suggest contacting Shibu Raj in Tennessee. Shibu's Website address is www.tworivershoneybees.com/ and email is tworivershoneybees@gmail.com.
Enjoyed the information, has me second guessing my queen purchases. Its tough to find Caucasians it seems. I often wonder about the swarms I’m catching from a few feral colonies. They have a lot of the same characteristics as the Caucasians, lots of propolis, gentle, and don’t swarm as bad as the carniolans.
We hope to have daughters of these queens available next year.
I appreciate the care and attention to detail that you put into everything.
Any chance you'd consider shipping ?
Short of that do you have any suggestions for queen breeders ?
Thanks for the great content
We've been considering wether we will ship queens or not next year. So far we sell everything we currently offer with pick up only. We'll see. A late friend of mine, Steve Tabor, wrote in his book "Breeding Super Bees" (worth reading if you raise queens) that he felt attention to details was more important than the breeders used when it came to high quality queens. I hope to put out a video in the near future on requeening where I will address some of this. Thanks for the comment.
Bob, I have Steve Tabor's book & he autographed it for me. Very informative. He used to speak at our bee club in Florence, SC, often. He lived in Columbia,SC.
Thanks for the response.
I have found attention to detail to be the most important component of just sbout every endeavor worth pursuing.
I hope that you will. It would be great to get some of those carefully orchestrated Genetics spread around.
Is there a update video on this type of bees?
Probably soon.
@@bobbinnie9872 Looking forward to hear your conclusions after introducing the Caucasians. Recently purchased some as well.
So it's been 3 years how did the Caucasians work out over all. What are the benefits that you have experienced?
We like the Caucasians. They are very gentle and easy to work with as can be seen in our videos. They overwinter on less food, build up a bit later and swarm less. I also like Carniolans and have purchased Carniolan queens inseminated with Caucasian semen for grafting in the past and will probably do it again.
Hi Bob, I love watching your very informative content, just watched your video on introduction of Caucasian queen bees, it got me thinking about a hive that swarmed here a few weeks ago, I use the native Irish black bee and this perticular hive swarmed which I caught a d placed in to a nuc, they built up the frames and I later removed them to a full hive body, in this case I have never seen a colony to produce so much propolis, its mother hive has propolis but nothing like this, after inspection it is everywhere on my fingers, hive tool.
I just found it strange because the hive in which it came from had nothing like the amount.
Regards Michael
That sounds just like a caucasian trait. People dislike that trait and try to breed it out but studies done lately show it's healthy for the bees. Embrace the sticky.
@@bobbinnie9872 thank you for your reply and yes I will embrace the stickyness 😁
@@bobbinnie9872 thank you for your reply and yes I will embrace the stickyness 😁
I wonder how swarming will affect the caucasian hives when the virgin queens get mated with the wild and/or surrounding bees? I used to have a problem with the hybrids swarming out and then, when I came back to the apiary, I suddenly had a super mean hive or . . . . . worse . . . . . runners!!!! I hate working with running bees!
My past experience with Caucasians is that they crossed well.
Are you talking about the old starlings or midnights? They do not do well with daughter queens or grand daughters. Almost Africanized in nature.
Also, be careful with the Buckfast. They do the same thing as the lineage continues. They get very mean with grand daughters ( I believe)
Since the only dumb question is the questioned not asked: Here's my question Sir, if I have my Caucasian queen and my R. Weaver Buckfast drones in a mini queen rearing nuc box, have I eliminated the need for a mating flight? And I absolutely know the specific genetics in my apiary? And thank you for your time Sir.
Hi Troy. They must fly to mate.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you Sir.
Will Caucasian queens (mated) be available in late spring 2024? Caucasian/carnolian cross would also be acceptable. I am trying to avoid Italian influence due to Maine's weather. How about an update on your move towards caucasian bees?
We'll have some Caucasian queens available starting in May but they will be pick up only. We'll start taking orders for these in February. I'll try to do an update this spring. Thanks.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you for the response. Georgia is a long way from Maine to drive down and pick up queens. Do you have and recommendation of were to source a few Caucasian queens?
Old Sol in Oregon.@@williambates6811
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you
i'm not bennie but if you are in maine i believe i would go with caucasian or russian queens or even canadian buckfast they are in my opinion better for cold climates hope it help
hello Bob,, God bless. how do you keep a $1000 queen from swarming ?
We keep their colony small (five to six frames of bees) and check on them very often.
Great video. I am a rookie beekeeper that caught a swarm on my first try this year. I have 120 acres here in Southern Indiana, with about 100 in mixed woodlands... lots of persimmon, wild cherry, locust, oak, maple, etc. The ash has sadly succumbed to the Emerald Ash Borer. I am hoping to expand up to ten or twenty colonies, and you have piqued my interest in the Caucasians. Will you be selling nucs from these in the future?
Perhaps some of our later date nucs will have this stock. We will have a better idea what we're doing after the first of the year.
I got a Nuc of Caucasian bees from Hansen honey farm here in Wisconsin, I want to add more Caucasian genetics 🧬 next year.
Sounds like the caucasians would do well in nucs up here in the north for overwintering. Your thoughts? A super less of honey with the Caucasian or feed the italians your profits in sugar syrup?
I've considered Caucasians specifically because of the propolis. I lost the opportunity to a certified extracting facility and so I'm going to look for other ways to make income from the hives. Propolis and bee hives would do it.
Caucasians would definitely be a better choice for overwintering as a nuc in cold climates. If you can connect with a good buyer propolis can make good money.
@@bobbinnie9872 Finding a Caucasian is next to impossible. I've looked and looked and can't seem to find anyone.
You seem to be getting the hang of keeping bees, and also the TH-cam thing! Lol
Another great video, thank you!
Thanks.
The drones from these crosses will spread the new genes into bee colonies nearby hives, which is a great thing.
Are they good for more southern areas like Southern Florida?
No, they do better in cooler temperatures but when crossed with Italians they work well about anywhere.
Nice info. I'm new this year. I have Russians and they seem good to work with. They filled up a medium and working on a second. The brood has honey around it. I was wondering How long a queen will last? And will they try to swarm every year?
A queen that is good from the start will last 1 to 3 years, occasionally longer. Yes, many Russians colonies may try and swarm every year if not managed correctly. They are known for it.
@@bobbinnie9872 We've had Russian bees in our area because of the sales pitches to get the sold. I personally don't like them because of their behavior. We have the genetics in the area now. The bees (natural supercedure) seem to swarm with little reason anymore in the area. I think it might be the Russian genetics.
What do you think?
Mine looks exactly like one in picture. Dark with bands.
Great video bob
Thanks 👍
So now that you have had more time with them, what would a queen cost from your stock in the spring?
We sold them for $32.00 this year. I'm not sure about next year.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thanks I've always enjoyed them since they seem to work harder ,and their a lot calmer. I'll check back in the Spring!
Thank you for taking the time to make these wonderful videos to help beekeepers like myself? These may sound like silly or dumb questions but have your ever lost a breeder queen by accidently killing her or the bees just taking off? Can you buy any type of insurance on breeder queens in case something like I mentioned would happen? Are breeder queens shipped like package queens? A $1000 queen in the hands of USPS would make me nervous especially coming from the West Coast. I get upset when I lose a $30-$40 queen....I couldn't imagine losing a queen like you have invested in. Thanks once again
Hi Dewayne. So far we've not accidentally killed a breeder queen but we have lost them to supersedure and such things. I don't know of any insurance policies for these queens but as you might imagine we're really disappointed when we lose one. We have them shipped guaranteed by noon, overnight UPS and so far have had good luck.
@@bobbinnie9872 Thank you Bob for taking the time to answer all my questions. Hope you and your family have a Happy 4th of July !!
Butter or margine works well to take it off too.
Yep. Need an organic solvent. Lotion works.
Hey Bob, great queen. In regards to those numbers that you add to the queens thorax--can you use TiteBond Ultimate Wood Glue to adhere that number down? This is what BetterBee recommended but what to as a pro. Thank.s
Hi Brad. I've never actually glued a number on a queen. The artificially inseminated queens we purchase come with them. I know that some people are using TiteBond and Elmers wood glue to do this.
In indirect examination of the record bee colonies, I see in all cases significant signs of Caucasian bees. Namely, a large percentage of dark printed honey, peacefulness, small and gray bees, significant propolisation of the nests, and others. And the main feature, huge honey yields, which in many cases exceed the bucfast by 100%.
I can't find a followup to this video, did introducing caucasians not work out well?
Was this just for one yard or were you making queens for the fleet (re-queening with her daughters).
I do need to follow up on this. We're happy with the Caucasians which we've been pushing into most of our outfit.
aRE THE cAUCASIAN what Sears used to sell as the midnight bees?
Yes. Midnite bees were a hybrid line of caucasians that are no longer produced.
Bob when you say heavy do you mean they glue the whole bottom of the frame to the one below it on every single frame cause that's what our Feral bees do here in the Ozark Mountains
They will if the bee space isn't right.
Did you consider Buckfasts as an option, since they have a low swarm urge?
I tried a couple hundred Buckfast Queens from Canada about 12 years ago and found them very interesting. They did have a low tendency to swarm and were very gentle but their honey production was noticeably lower than the other bees I had at the time so I let them go. The Buckfast bees from Texas have a very bad reputation with beekeepers I know that have tried them.
I've read that the lineage after the mother queen isn't calm but aggressive. That's with open mating after supercedure or swarming.
IF you used Buckfast have you seen this with the grand daughters?
@@bobbinnie9872 Good morning Bob, here in europe the majority of professional Beekeepers work with Buckfast Bees, but apparently there are not a lot good Buckfast breeders in the US. Many of them are based in northern europe. You should try Buckfasts from Keld Brandstrup @ Buckfast Denmark. Extremely calm and gentle, no swarming and a lots of honey. They keep their good properties even as F1.
@@stefanwyss5495 I would love to try them but we can't import bees from Europe.
@@bobbinnie9872 Ohh ok, that's a problem
Hi Bob, question on caucasians.., how they do with honeydew and meadow clover?
I`m really thinking about it.. Pat
On honey dew it wouldn't matter. On meadow clover I honestly don't know.
@@bobbinnie9872 thanks Bob.
I live in a "EFB-country", I really like the idea about the propolis envelope and the thinn sucrose feeding wich produces N2O2, for me both are very important for social immunity! since I`m away from thick sirup, inverted sirup and fondant feeding, I rarely see signs of EFB or chalkbrood... think I have to try Caucasians, Dr. Spivak has very good arguments on propolis!!! Guess the longer tongue would match for meadow clover too! Pat