# What kind of Bees are these?



## Bee_Sweet (May 27, 2008)

I was in the hive approx. 7 days ago, I had plenty of fresh single eggs per cell and I did find the Queen. There were NO Queen cells and everything looked great. However, today I was out feeding the hive and I noticed some different looking bees mixed in with normal looking bees.

They are in the pics provided, and they have pointy black abdomins with like two yellow stripes near the mid section. Also, they have what looks like a Queens black back... In a way they look like Queens of some sort 


Please, if you have any info as to the type, I'm very interested to learn more.


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## Brent Bean (Jun 30, 2005)

Since the queen mates with many drones on her mating flights, the number varies but could be 25 or more.The sperm is stored in the spermatheca, and used over her entire reproductive lifespan. All the bees will have the same mother but not the same father. That is why you will see a variation of color patterns.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

I agree with Brent on the surface.

But I also have ideas about late summer bees that have this black end as seen in your picture. I don't know if its a genetic thing, a seasonal thing, or a survival thing in conjuction with other things....but I see this type bee usualy late summer and early fall. It seems these bees are good at robbing, are slightly more agressive. I am not sure if they are older bees that have somehow changed their color with age.

But no doubt, I see these bees at the feeding stations and they seem to fight more, I see them alot in robbing scenarios, and I see them late in the summer/early fall. I don't really notice them earlier in the year.


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## Bee_Sweet (May 27, 2008)

*Could they bee?*

Bjornbee, do you think that they might not even bee a part of that hive?


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## Bee_Sweet (May 27, 2008)

*More pics of those wierd bees*

Here are a few more pics of these bees


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

*robber bees*

All bees are black under their body hairs.That odd bee is not any different than the bees in the colony. They are colored like that because they have lost their hair from fighting while trying to rob. Seen queens that were young look like that after I had fill the feeder and she about drowned in it and in the process of getting her cleaned she lost her body hair.


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## BerkeyDavid (Jan 29, 2004)

As I understand your question you are thinking that recently the bees with the black butts showed up.

Assuming they are from this hive, then I would say you had a supercedure queen that mated with one or more carni drones.

The black butts are from carnis.

On t he other hand if the bees with the black butts are robbing, then they are not from that hive, but from another hive with a carni / italian cross queen.


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## ScadsOBees (Oct 2, 2003)

Naw...it looks like an old bee or one that got wet. She looks like all of the other bees without the fuzzy hairs. You can especially see that on her back, she looks bald. Especially the first picture, the hair is there, but looks matted down with sugar water or something.

There is a virus that can cause that too, but I don't think that that is very common, this looks more like wet/sugarry bees.


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## chief (Apr 19, 2005)

I will second what velbet has to say. They are the same as the others but have just lost their hair. You will notice hives that have different colored bees in them but this looks to be just bald bees. It could be from robbing or just a rought life out foraging.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Bee_Sweet said:


> I was in the hive approx. 7 days ago, I had plenty of fresh single eggs per cell and I did find the Queen. There were NO Queen cells and everything looked great. However, today I was out feeding the hive and I noticed some different looking bees mixed in with normal looking bees.
> 
> They are in the pics provided, and they have pointy black abdomins with like two yellow stripes near the mid section. Also, they have what looks like a Queens black back... In a way they look like Queens of some sort
> 
> ...


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## dragonfly (Jun 18, 2002)

I don't know, but they look JUST LIKE my bees. Beautiful, aren't they?


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