# Open mated Russians and trait loss?



## JC1 (Jan 27, 2014)

I have been lurking around here for sometime now, and have learned a tremendous amount. So thanks to all of you that post to this site.

I plan on purchasing some Russian queens this spring form one of the certified breeders. Will I have to continue to buy queens from the breeders to maintain the beneficial traits? My plan would be to start with the pure Russian queens and let their daughters open mate. Will their daughters' traits be reduced? Specifically mite resistance and the ability to over winter? Also, will the first generation of open mated daughters be more aggressive? That is a comment I have read more than once.

On a side note I also plan on getting some mutt survivor queens from some treatment free breeders, and hoping their daughters will also improve my genetics.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

JC1 said:


> I have been lurking around here for sometime now, and have learned a tremendous amount. So thanks to all of you that post to this site.
> 
> I plan on purchasing some Russian queens this spring form one of the certified breeders. Will I have to continue to buy queens from the breeders to maintain the beneficial traits? My plan would be to start with the pure Russian queens and let their daughters open mate. Will their daughters' traits be reduced? Specifically mite resistance and the ability to over winter? Also, will the first generation of open mated daughters be more aggressive? That is a comment I have read more than once.
> 
> On a side note I also plan on getting some mutt survivor queens from some treatment free breeders, and hoping their daughters will also improve my genetics.


Unless you maintain a closed breeding population through AI you might as well kiss the idea of the russian stock staying russian.

Have you asked what those where you are purchasing your original stock from happen to be doing to maintain a 100% russian line? I personally think that most of what people sell now days as Russians are a highly diluted version of the mothers that came from across the western pond.

Your best bet might be going here: http://www.coybeecompany.com/


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## Rusty Hills Farm (Mar 24, 2010)

My personal experience with VSH is that by the F3 generation the VSH is pretty much gone, baby, gone. I would assume the same thing happens with anything that is open-mated. I used to be able to maintain Cordovans through open-mating. However, the last year or so, I find that the local stock does indeed make a substantial impact. I have resigned myself to the need for a constant influx from F1 queens --or-- open-mating and using the best of the best from that to develop my own resistant line --or-- some combination of the 2.

HTH

Rusty


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## JC1 (Jan 27, 2014)

Thanks. These answers are basically what I suspected, but wasn't sure. I planned on purchasing the Russian queens from one of the members of the Russian Breeders Association. I believe Coy Bee Company is a member. I am fine with periodically adding new queens to keep improving the diversity or try to introduce certain genetics. However, I do not want to have to purchase every queen that I need to maintain the traits. Overall I think I will stick with the mutts, and add a couple Russians and see what happens.


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## Eric Crosby (Jan 4, 2015)

Hi Jc1, another thing that you may want to consider is what exactly your goals are. if one goal is to keep these Russian bees treatment free you may want to verify that they have been maintained treatment free for generations. Do t assume that just because you are buying Russian stock that they are treatment free Russian stock.


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## McBee7 (Dec 25, 2013)

Welcome to BeeSource JC1..
You won't be able to have pedigree russian bees but if you bring in some russian blood when possible and pick mother queens to head your hives that have the traits you like, or the ones that seem to be the most russian, will give you a reasonable facsimile of the origenals.....If you save and use some of the queen cells from your best hives and use them to queen your others you can somewhat control the blood of your apiary...Good Luck..

==McBee7==


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## Jim 134 (Dec 1, 2007)

JC1
I do hope the best for you of keep you Russians bees.There is a learning curve of keeping Russians than any other bees. I see quite a few statements in this thread there are not even close to being accurate especially about the breeding program.The average beekeeper has no idea what russian Queen breeders go through to be certified and maintain their certification.
Remember one thing these is not your grandfather's bees. 


BEE HAPPY Jim 134


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## joebeewhisperer (May 13, 2020)

JC1 said:


> I plan on purchasing some Russian queens this spring form one of the certified breeders. Will I have to continue to buy queens from the breeders to maintain the beneficial traits? My plan would be to start with the pure Russian queens and let their daughters open mate. Will their daughters' traits be reduced? Specifically mite resistance and the ability to over winter? Also, will the first generation of open mated daughters be more aggressive? That is a comment I have read more than once.


This popped up under one of the recent discussions so I thought I would pass this along as I found it interesting. The Russian trait of keeping emergency (or “quick-swarm” cells) is well documented but goes a bit further than I thought in age. I’ve have had capped QCs in a hive and come back 1-2 days later intending to remove the QC frame for a split only to find my old queen walking around laying eggs and all QCs torn down.

As it relates to the OP’s question, first generation queens open-mated from these RHBA Russian queens producing any variety in the worker population will completely eliminate the maintaining of these spare QCs. If you see QCs capped (or probably even loaded) in your daughter colony, swarming is imminent. No so in the pure Russian colonies. My theory based on very limited experience is the workers must all be in agreement (pure Russian) to build, load with royal jelly, and periodically and systematically eliminate these cells. i.e. 10% Italians or Carnies or whatever in the workforce will squash this trait.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Joe, 
you are correct, take the cells when you see them basically.

I like to pull the queen when several are started, then come back with the NUC stuff and split away.

BTW the OPs question was from 2015   last seen here, 2017

GG


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## joebeewhisperer (May 13, 2020)

Gray Goose said:


> BTW the OPs question was from 2015  last seen here, 2017


Yep. I’ve been doing these lately from my phone. At the bottom of the thread there are some very relevant-looking threads. Many of which are a decade old. If I notice I don’t usually resuscitate them.


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