# carnolian vs italian queens



## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

This season I was running late in preparing my nucs to overwinter. I would like to blame the weather we had here in northeast last 10 days, but like always I underestimate the time it takes to make the last checkings and wrap all my 5 frame nucs. The increased number is probably a factor. (all excuses).
Today I took advantage of the mild day and I finished wrapping the nucs in my last yard.
Normally I start rearing queens in June and the final objective is 5 frame nucs heavy on honey and bees and some 10 frame deeps. 

I keep them in an area where fall flow is really good, so no need for feeding, nevertheless some may be light and I give them a frame or two of honey that I take from other colonies. 
(Some times I think is not good to helps them, everything being equal, they should not need to be feed, probably they may have an inferior queen that does not deserve to be in the system. In the past I have noticed that the biggest losses in my overwintered nucs were of those than needed my attention before winter).

Some time in November, when starts getting cold, I stack them together and wrap them in tar paper, that I get it from Home Depot.
My hope is to have nucs really heavy so they dont need my intervention till I unwrap them in March.

I do the same with nucs that in August I transferred in 10 frame deep. they are the advanced ones and they survival ratio is very good.

None of these small colonies are treated for varroa, my feeling is that they can make the first winter without help, if not, we dont want them, the winter is the great selector.

I bread dark carniolan with some Russian influence, I believe they are better for our climate. There queens make more than 95% or my operation. I did not have a choice, the bees did, my bees were getting darker and darker year after year. 
What I mean is the the dark one were surviving and the italians were having more problems.

So for some years now I just go with the flow and I am glad that I do it.

This does not prevent me to keep Italian stock, that I get from different sources. I love the Cordovans, they are so beautiful and gentle, always had Cordovians. 
This year I reared some Cordovians and integrated them in my overwintering nucs scheme.
Today I saw what I have seen all the time, but in nuc scale.

The carnolian nuc were much heavier, smaller cluster (less bees) winter ready, no need for my intervention, with some luck they will make this winter.
The Cordovians were very light, I had to give them 2+ full frames of honey, They had double the number of bees, and without my intervention they had only 1 -2 weeks of food.

There is nothing new on what I saw today, you all know this, but I felt writing about it anyway because the difference of nucs in the yard was really impressive.

I will still rear some Cordovians, because I love them, It is almost an conditional love, they give me nothing, probably is my strong sense of support for the underdog.

The Carnolians dont need my love to survive, they make it on their own.

Gilman


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## Fred Bee (May 5, 2007)

*NWC and Italian Queens*

Most of my hives have New World Carniolans...but like you, I keep some Italians around just for fun...and I like to compare too. The verdict is still out here although, your observations seem about right. My wife likes the New World Carniolans because they are so gentle. Never had Cordovans, just regular Italians or what they call "Three Band Italians." Wouldn't mind trying the Cordovan just to have that light colored bee.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Gilman:

Where do you get your carnolians?


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## Maine_Beekeeper (Mar 19, 2006)

Hi Gilman - 
I am so very glad to hear that you are going into winter strong and with healthy bees. 
(For all the rest of Beesource readers, I should say now that I bought two nucs from Gilman this April.)
I don't know which strain of bees mine are, they look pretty carniolan to me, dark and conservative... I treated them with Apilife Var starting about 5 days of installing them in their 10 frame boxes here at home, knowing that you hadn't treated your nucs in the fall. I figured that early spring, while building out their first box was a good time to treat for mites - when I know that all of the honey made during treatment would be in that first brood box. 
Anyway, here are a couple of photos - the first one is today. The two colonies, "Bleta" and "Albania" are the second and third from the left in the winter shot. 
http://s76.photobucket.com/albums/j37/Maine_Beekeeper/nuc overwinter setup/
the other photo is from June 9. 
Yes, that's a deep and 3 mediums with a 4th medium containing feed which I removed the day I took the photo. The bees did FANTASTIC on spring buildup (feeding through May to augment the major flow here) and then made a decent crop of fall honey each. 
Now "Bleta" is the parent colony above which I have two of my own nucs overwintering. Albania is the one to the right, in a deep and 3 mediums (I plan to split this colony in the spring.
Anyway, thanks Gilman for raising good strong healthy northern bees. I was very impressed with both your bees and your bee yard, and recommend you to anyone looking for nucs raised "up here" in New England. 
-Erin


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Are you feeding with supers on?

Nice color for the hive bodies.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

They are not Carnolian, the name is Carniolan. The same with Cordovian, the name is Cordovan.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

well... if you want to be technical and all!


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

If I were wanting to search the archives for information, and I used the term, "Carnolian", I would find only the threads that were spelled incorrectly.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

well... no everyone can be perfect... eh!


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I know, hence my post.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Joseph Clemens said:


> If I were wanting to search the archives for information, and I used the term, "Carnolian", I would find only the threads that were spelled incorrectly.


Hi Jo,

Thanks you for the correction, English is only my fourth language, what do I know.
There is only one thing I now, the place Carniolan came from is not from you neck of the wood, but south east Europe, which I am from, hence my bad English.
I bet you gays are having fun with AHB, I will sell you some good queens if you need them

Gilman


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## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

I like the regular Italian Queens as opposed to the Carniolans. The Italian Queens bred off of my "mother" queen I bought from a local beekeeper here produced twice as many bees and thus twice as much honey. However, this strain of bees was engineered by this local beekeeper by over the years combining italians with buckfast, minnesota hygenic, Russian, and Carniolan. These bees require no medications to thrive and make honey. I will mention though that it has an incessant desire to want to swarm.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

If I was living in Tenn, I would keep Italians too. The Carniolans (I got it right this time), winter in smaller clusters so dont need any fall feeding. 
Where I grew up in Albania, we had only dark Carniolans. Last time I talked to Sue Cobey, I told her of very remote isolated in the mountains of Albania, where there was pure Carnicas, you can reach those areas only on horse, no modern transportation available. 
We should find what works for us and stick with it.


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## Jack Grimshaw (Feb 10, 2001)

Hey Gil,
How about bringing a couple of queens to auction at the CT Bkprs summer meeting?
I'll bid them up for you.Or maybe you'll trade for a bottle of mead?

Jack


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Hi Jack,
You want me to wait till summer for mead?
The weather is getting cold, this is the time to warm up. 
My wine in the seller looks better every time a get a bottle.


Gilman



Jack Grimshaw said:


> Hey Gil,
> How about bringing a couple of queens to auction at the CT Bkprs summer meeting?
> I'll bid them up for you.Or maybe you'll trade for a bottle of mead?
> 
> Jack


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

Jack Grimshaw said:


> Hey Gil,
> How about bringing a couple of queens to auction at the CT Bkprs summer meeting?
> I'll bid them up for you.Or maybe you'll trade for a bottle of mead?
> 
> Jack


There is the minor issue of the national importation ban. Such irresponsible behavior is the reason that we now have tracheal mites and varroa.


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## REDTRACTOR1 (Dec 10, 2003)

*Carinolina vz Italian queens*

So the russian bees that the usda got from russia causes this problem also and is irresponsible?


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

i AM NOT BRINGING ANYTHING FROM ANY WHERE. WE SHOULD WORK WITH WHAT WE GOT HERE.

GILMAN



Aspera said:


> There is the minor issue of the national importation ban. Such irresponsible behavior is the reason that we now have tracheal mites and varroa.


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## Jack Grimshaw (Feb 10, 2001)

Aspera said:


> There is the minor issue of the national importation ban. Such irresponsible behavior is the reason that we now have tracheal mites and varroa.


Gilman lives about 30 mi. from me and we both belong to the same Bee club

Jack

Also we both employ fermantation in our hobbies!!


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## GaSteve (Apr 28, 2004)

I love Carniolans for this area. The Italians never cut back brood production during the summer dearth and will eat up most of the surplus -- which is ok I suppose if you trying to make more bees for splits or sale and don't mind feeding. The Carniolans also have much smaller winter clusters which conserves stores especially since we have a lot of very warm days after the first killing frost.


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## Dubhe (Jul 19, 2007)

For those of you who are keeping Carniolans, is it reasonable to raise your own free mated queens? Since they'll probably be mating with italians, will the resulting mutt queens maintain their original characteristics?


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

I will put it simple, I am breeding carniolan because these are the ones that are surviving on my operation. I try to offer to my matting nucs as much as possible drone colonies to increase the chances. 
If a carniolan queen get matted with an Italian drone, that means that Italian colony survived the varroa and the winter and I want and welcome those genes. Some of the bees will be lighter in color but not inferior.
After years of selection I am more interested on what survives and carniolans are surviving.
Few years ago I started introducing Russian stock, which I believe makes an important contribution to the whole operation.
I was never sure about the purity of the Russian queens, but that did not bother me. Purity was not my objective, I think purity has more academic values can be used as a marketing tool, there are people that probably can offer that.


I do treat only once a year for varroa with FA at the end of the summer, starting mid August. My overwintered nucs are not treated till next year in August as big colonies.
This is what is working for me, there are other peoples that may think differently and operate differently. At the end of the day what matter is the % of the colonies that are still flying in the spring. The way you get there is irelevent.

Gilman




Dubhe said:


> For those of you who are keeping Carniolans, is it reasonable to raise your own free mated queens? Since they'll probably be mating with italians, will the resulting mutt queens maintain their original characteristics?


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

bleta writes:
I bet you gays are having fun with AHB, I will sell you some good queens if you need them

tecumseh replies:
oh my...now I don't know if I even want to know what that means. 

my italians are manly-girls... in contrast to those girly-men carnoilans. uh-huh.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

>>>>I bet you gays are having fun with AHB, I will sell you some good queens if you need them

Puts new meaning into "African Queen", instead of just some old movie..


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

That was just a misspell. I am sorrywhat I meant is not what I wrote. It is still my bad English.
I am sure you your bees are fine.


Gilman



tecumseh said:


> bleta writes:
> I bet you gays are having fun with AHB, I will sell you some good queens if you need them
> 
> tecumseh replies:
> ...


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

sorry about the ha, ha at your expense bleta. it did stike me as kinda funny early in the am hours.

as to spellin'... mine ain't so go either.


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## Cristian Radut (Jul 15, 2007)

*Carniolan/Italian*

Both are good sort of bees. In fact, today we can meet them almost everywhere, due to their good results. Of course, there are the small differences between them that matters.

I consider Carniolan more gentle and easier to deal with. Also, more resistant and manages their food better.A medium colony can pass the winter with 8 kg of supplies and that's something that an italian collony cannot achieve. I have to mention that i did not work with Cordovan, but Aurea.

In my country, I produce both strains, Aurea and Carniolan. Carniolan are preffered by far!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I just couldnt get Italians to winter consistantly here. They raise such big colonies, and make lots of honey, but they also eat lots on a warmer winter. It is usually the biggest ones that starve out the first! 

I prefer carniolan basically becasue they are a bit more conservative in thier early brooding, and winter honey stores.


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