# A Black Beauty Borned Against All Odds



## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Nice looking queen. Congrats!


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Nice photo and great looking queen!


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

Want to sell her


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

tommyt said:


> Want to sell her


I can't get rid of her. I believe she is the chosen one. I have plans for her.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

roberto487 said:


> I believe she is the chosen one.


 By the Queen Bee Gods, even after all of your time & squishing


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

Congratulations Roberto... and I hope this isnt against forum rules, but your Queen is only rivaled by Cleopatra herself  

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Клеопатра_VII.jpg


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## TomG (Jul 26, 2014)

Where'd you order them from?


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## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

She's cool looking. Very nice.
I've got one like that from a local breeder. I plan to get a couple daughters from her this spring.


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## Cyan (Jan 27, 2015)

What a beauty!! Thanks for the picture.


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## Marti (Jun 29, 2014)

Nice!


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## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

Roberto,

So you split off a nuc and despite your best efforts to prevent them, the bees raised a queen. Obviously she did well if they were started in July yet were able to survive the winter.
Boy, you have to give those bees a lot of credit. And people here say emergency queens are inferior. 

Good job.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

As black as she is it is not a pure carnis queen.
The mutt queen has a slight dark brownish/yellowish mix with it.
Nevertheless, she is still a big healthy queen. 
Sometimes nature has its own way no matter how much we tried to
intervene. I'll let nature takes its course.


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## BjornH (Nov 8, 2013)

Nothing inferior with emergency queens. Its all about food and amount of bees. A planned cellstarter with to few recourses vs production hive full of bees ..and we kill the queen without knowing... Will we notice that it is a emergency queen or will we assume later ther original was superseeded?


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

What a gorgeous queen! Thanks for the pic. Nice stuff and good luck!!!


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

Thanks everyone. I like to add that this queen is way darker than her mutt mother that came in the package last March. She was almost black, slender and long when I first saw her. I was mesmerized on how astounding she looked then.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Do beekeepers prefer the black over the yellow bees?
We have 90% carnis here from the bee association member.
I try to go against the trend to keep some yellow bees. 
Must be a preference thing, eh.


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## Cyan (Jan 27, 2015)

There could be some truth to that. Personally, I do like the darker queens and workers appearance but traits matter most in my opinion. 

When I first came across Lauri Miller's FB page, I fell in love with her darker, Mountain Line. Beautiful and possessing many of the traits I was looking for- perfect combo imho. And so far, my experience (a good one for the most part) has been with Italian strains. They have their issues as all do, but there's also a comfort level there.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

beepro said:


> Do beekeepers prefer the black over the yellow bees?
> We have 90% carnis here from the bee association member.
> I try to go against the trend to keep some yellow bees.
> Must be a preference thing, eh.


I started with two hives of Carnis, they did well and are still going.

A couple of years later, I brought in some Italians, nucs and queens, they didn't do so well. I have one hive of Italians left, Winter '14/'15 they were so plagued with dysentery I thought for sure they would die, but they didn't. In fact, last Fall they were booming. The dysentery seems less this past Winter, but it was also a much milder Winter than any of the last 8 or so, I don't know how much of a factor that is.

Last Spring I brought in two nucs of VSH x Carni. Both hives swarmed and when all was said and done I ended up with five hives of x whatever from them. I don't see any sign of Italian in them, but that is no guarantee that there is not. The swarms and original queens were not recovered.

This Summer I intend to generate some queens from the surviving Italian hive and see what comes from them.

Far vision: Most of the Italian blood will probably fade out and Carni will be the dominant line.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Right now the carnis and Italians drones are at 50/50.
I 'm putting more drone comb in the Italians hives to make
more of them to balance out the carnis drones. It is an effort against
the carnis trend. Maybe one day I will have the Italians/Cordovan
to dominate the landscape here. Keep on going!


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