Pics from my Hives today....

[deerman]

Sam, you have trouble with bears, see you have your hives fence in

 

[SamG347]

Yep we have a lot of Black bear....Keywest the old queen leaves with half the bees and a new queen will hatch a couple days after the old queen leaves. If there is ever two queens in the hive they will hunt eachother down and fight to the death.

This is very interesting. I think it would be so cool to keep bees. Problem for me is I live in Tucson and EVERYTHING is africanized

I know a beekeeper in New Mexico and all her hives are Africanized bees....Just like deerman said that can be managed by requeening...but that is not always a 100% method of disolving the africanized characteristics.

 

[deerman]

Yes to keep your hive from being africanized. All you need to do is kill any queen cell, dont let new queens hatch, New queens will be bred, so no african bee will hatch.

 

[SamG347]

If your hive ends up swarming....which it probably will the 2nd year...maybe even the first..the new queen will be a Virgin queen and will go on a mating flight. Chances are the drones she breeds with will be Africanized if that is what most bee pops are in your area.

 

[deerman]

Quote:
Right sam, but then you replace that queen, with a pure bred queen. Or kill them soon after the swarm.

 

[SamG347]

True. It will take a little while though for the hive to become all Italians or whatever race....and for the africanized workers to die off. Africanized bees can be worked...just keep them away from any houses/activity and I would only work them in a full suit. I just work my bees in blue jeans and a long sleeve shirt..plus veil. But mine are nooo where near the aggression level of Africanized.

 

[deerman]

No never start with african bee, destroy them, order a swarm and requeen every year.

Bees like chicken come in many breeds.

Really not that many African in the states, some around Mexico boader states.

Italians are the most common honey bees in the USA.