# Is this an Italian or Carniolan?



## Kevinf (Oct 2, 2019)

I have googled this but don't come up with any sources.

Is it possible to determine the race of a queen by her physical attributes or behaviors? This is not a quiz, but does the queen in the photo look like an Italian or Carniolan? I ordered a Carniolan, but I "think" I got an Italian. The attendants are her offspring. 

Kevin


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Kevinf said:


> Is it possible to determine the race of a queen by her physical attributes or behaviors?


Pretty much any bee in the US (outside of very strict AI) is an open-mated mutt.
Does not matter if they sold you a "Carniolan" - you got a mutt with hopefully some % of contained Carni in it.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> Is it possible to determine the race of a queen by her physical attributes or behaviors?


thats more or less it... they are selected for color and traits and what's really there doesn't matter... ie if it looks like and italian and acts like an italian its an italian

I would say that's not a typical color for a carni 
This is what I am seeing in a f-3 form II carnys







I would say about 6-8% are bolth lighter in color, and lighter in emergence weight showing that while mom/grandma were open mated in a drone statrated area, its not perfect


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Your queen is not a carniolan, this is a carniolan


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

And just so you know, this is an Italian




Your queen is a hybrid but mostly Italian.It is Italian enough that many bees sold as italian would be similar.


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## Kevinf (Oct 2, 2019)

Oldtimer said:


> Your queen is not a carniolan, this is a carniolan


Beautiful comb and beautiful queen.....


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Kevinf said:


> Beautiful comb and beautiful queen.....


My thoughts too...


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## Honeyeater (Jun 21, 2020)

Kevinf said:


> beautiful queen


When people say "*beautiful queen*" what exactly are they referring to? What makes a queen _beautiful_? I never saw an ugly queen bee.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Honeyeater said:


> What makes a queen _beautiful_?


Some things just can't be explained. But fat and sassy are good.


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## Beth (Oct 25, 2020)

Oldtimer said:


> Your queen is not a carniolan, this is a carniolan


Is it even possible to get a true Carniolan colony / nuc in the United States?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Thanks for the good words.
There are two things that i think give a beekeeper more satisfaction than just about anything. One is opening the nuc you put a queen cell in to see if she is mated, looking at the comb, and seeing a beautiful pattern of eggs. The other is seeing the queen herself, and she is big, fat, and beautiful.  .

I should say that carniolan queens if pure or close to it, are usually leaner than Italian queens, and you can see that in those 2 pics. Nothing wrong with that, just the way they are. A good Carniolan queen is still an egg laying machine.


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## Boondocks (Sep 16, 2020)

Bob Binnie made a video about introducing Caucasian bees into his apiary, 



 , and he bought Carniolan queens from Sue Cobey inseminated with Caucasian semen. She started the Carniolan New World project in 1981 and it currently has several universities involved. 
She is located in Washington state and probably will have true Carniolan queens available. 
http://www.honeybeeinsemination.com/home.html 
or she may know other beekeepers who have them available.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

My best queen this season is a mediocre layer of some unclear origin and rather small in size.
She has a "tiger pattern" too, if this means anything.
But you know what?
The looks don't matter.

She produced the lowest mite counts without any treatments.
She is valuable to me as a breeder (especially IF she overwinters).
I also raised few daughters of hers - much better layers, but with slightly worse mite counts.

And some eye candy queens - I needed to get rid of already - worthless junk, if to ignore the looks.

Now, should someone start the "queen modeling show"?
That'd be something - a bug pageant judging.
LOL


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

These two are sister virgin queens that emerged Aug 28 and Aug 29 from eggs laid by an open mated Carni queen that is jet black. I don't think your queen is a Carni.


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## bushpilot (May 14, 2017)

No claim to being a geneticist here, but I think the the idea that one can determine the purity of the lines via coloration is a myth. Even if one could, that does not tell us what the other half of the equation was - the drones the queen mated with.

Is she is a good queen? if so, be happy, and propagate her.


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## BenjaminM (Mar 10, 2020)

Growing up we raises goats as a hobby. What we called "Briar" goats could be bought for about $50 each. A "Boer" goat could be bought for $150 and up. Boer goats are white with red heads. Of course my father would never blow $500 on pure bred Boer billy. Instead he would by Briar goats with "Boer markings". We were never disciplined or organized enough to reach my fathers goals of a full herd of Boer like goats.

Unless your queen came from a top of the line breeder who artificially inseminates, as someone else mentioned above, or they were raised on an island for the last 200 years I suspect they are all mutts. Or at the very least, "Italians with Carnolian markings"


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## n8app155 (Jun 3, 2020)

here is 1 of are Carniolan queens.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

n8app155 said:


> here is 1 of are Carniolan queens.


Looks like an open-mated mutt to me.
I'd never sell such queen and label it a Carniolan.
It is just not a Carni even by the exterior looks of it.
At least it should look like about what OT posted above - a solid dark queen that ideally only produces dark gray bees (IF looks do matter to someone).


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well yes looks do matter. 

There is this growing idea that colour does not matter. It does not matter for some things. But it does, in determining breed.

It would be equally stupid to say a black man is really a white man but just has a black skin, and a white man is really a black man, just got a white skin. There may be a rare freak, but it is not the general rule.

Colour is indicative of race, and origin, in both humans, and bees.

In the case of Carniolans, as per Greg, the queen will be solid jet black. The worker bees will be jet black but have bands of grey hairs, as per my pic. (There is one bee in that pic that is not a carniolan). The grey hairs are how you distinguish those bees from AMMs, which do not have such pronounced bands of grey hairs.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> Well yes looks do matter.


I would agree that the appearance is a part of the specific breed qualification - of course.
There are are some set criteria for sure that define any officially known breed.

As of me personally (being a swarm chaser), I am more after certain behavioral traits, not the looks. Unfortunately, so far any time I nailed a Carni-looking/behaving swarm - they tended to be very mite-susceptible and did not last long with my ways.

I will say, subjectively I do like the dark bees (maybe because they stung me up enough when a kid).... 
I have a soft spot for them (though finding a dark queen can be a PITA).


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well that's why my own belief is that looks matter. Because when I have a bee that looks to me like a pure carni, they will also have those behavior traits. If they are light and look pure Italian, they will have those behavior traits. That is why I think looks matter.

But mutts, they are a crap shoot could be any sort of behavior you don't know.

Finding queens  The hardest ones for me are the stripey ones, they can just blend right in. If I got black queens in a black hive I usually put a white dot on them, makes them pop right out among the crowd. But Stripey ones, the bees will be a blend also, even with a dot they can be hard to find .


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

Oldtimer said:


> Well that's why my own belief is that looks matter


The looks usually match the behavior - agreed.
It is just up here, we have such a melting pot going - hard to say.

Then these people sell clearly mutts and call them "Carni" - adds to the confusion (just as this thread demonstrates).

It is one reason I am really tickled to try the wing analysis on the bees that I capture - to kinda/sorta have some idea of what I have. If the exterior is a good-enough indicator of the make up, then the wing analysis should also be a good-enough indicator (really, the wings are part of the exterior).

Will see how the winter goes but it is the time to do stuff like that (no time in season).


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## calkal (Feb 2, 2019)

I hear too that a lot of people say it doesn't matter what color the bees are. But I guess to me it really does, I really like the look and behavior of the Carniolan so I am always selecting from my darkest and best queens.


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## drmrjen (Oct 24, 2020)

Kevinf said:


> I have googled this but don't come up with any sources.
> 
> Is it possible to determine the race of a queen by her physical attributes or behaviors? This is not a quiz, but does the queen in the photo look like an Italian or Carniolan? I ordered a Carniolan, but I "think" I got an Italian. The attendants are her offspring.
> 
> ...


Possitive its an Italian, I love Italians, laying machines


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## littlegreenbees (Jan 3, 2013)

I know this is an old thread but I just caught a swarm with a dark virgin queen (strange for this early in the year, I thought). Anyway, the bees are very gentle and have polished up the frames in preparation for her being mated. Does anyone think I may have caught myself a swarm
























with Carniolan genetics?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

That queen looks mated to me (they shrink down a bit for swarming), if she is mated she is probably the mother of those bees which are not all as dark as her so presumably she mated with mostly light colored drones, and yes, she looks carniolan but not pure. The bees that are dark have the typical hair bands of carniolans.


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## littlegreenbees (Jan 3, 2013)

Oldtimer said:


> That queen looks mated to me (they shrink down a bit for swarming), if she is mated she is probably the mother of those bees which are not all as dark as her so presumably she mated with mostly light colored drones, and yes, she looks carniolan but not pure. The bees that are dark have the typical hair bands of carniolans.


Thanks! She probably is mated because she's not super flighty but they have been in the box since Sunday with no eggs yet. Just caught a Cordovan swarm last Saturday so I'm excited to get all this variety in my apiaries. I'm a sucker for swarms. 😉

Attaching a couple of pictures of the swarm with the Cordovan genes. ☺


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## littlegreenbees (Jan 3, 2013)

Here's that queen now, nicely mated. Still the most gentle colony I've ever met.


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## Redbarnranch (8 mo ago)

Oldtimer said:


> Your queen is not a carniolan, this is a carniolan


Thank you for these beautiful queen pictures. I am a new beekeeper with both Carniolan and Italian bees. I will be inspecting my hives within the next few days and will be looking for my queens. These pictures are immensely helpful as I failed to take a picture of the queen prior to releasing her into the hive.


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## JustBees (Sep 7, 2021)

littlegreenbees said:


> Still the most gentle colony I've ever met.


Most all of them are, until you piss them off. :^)


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