Comparison of Russian and Italian honey bees

              Russian Bee Project
Efforts to find a honey bee that is genetically resistant to
the varroa and tracheal mites led researchers at the USDA
Honey Bee Research Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisi-ana,
to Russia. There, on the far eastern side of that vast
nation, in the coastal Primorski region around Vladivostok,
they found what they sought— a promising strain of Apis
mellifera. These Russian bees had been exposed to varroa
mites for approximately 150 years, much longer than other
Apis mellifera strains had, and the researchers surmised
that the Russian bees could have developed a resistance
to the mites. Indeed, subsequent research has shown that
these Russian bees are more than twice as resistant to var-roa
mites than other honey bees. Moreover, they are highly
resistant to tracheal mites, the other mortal enemy of bees.
Russian bees also tend to produce as much honey as stan-dard
bee stocks, if not more.
A number of American queen breeders now produce Rus-sian
queens for sale. These breeders are located all across
the country, but most are concentrated in the South and in
California. Many of the Russian queens on the market are
hybrid daughters of a breeder queen openly mated to any
drone, which may come from a variety of stocks within
two miles of a particular mating yard. The resulting colo-nies
are genetic hybrids. Recent research has suggested the
hybrids are only partially resistant to mites, but studies at
North Carolina State University show that partial resistance
is statistically significant when the hybrids are compared to
Italian bees.
Production of pure Russian queens can be guaranteed only
by truly isolating the breeding grounds, as has been done at
the USDA’s bee laboratory on Grand Terre Island, 25 miles
off the coast of Louisiana. Here the drone stock is also
controlled.
Management of Russian bees
Russian bees are quite different from standard Italian bees
in several ways ( Table 1):
• Russian bees do not build their colony populations
until pollen is available, and they shut down brood
rearing when pollen is scarce. This characteristic
makes them suitable in areas where the main honey
and pollen flows occur later in the year, such as the
mountains of North Carolina. By contrast, Italian bees
maintain a large brood area and worker population
regardless of environmental conditions. This trait can
result in more bees than the hive can feed and may
lead Italian colonies to early winter starvation. It also
explains the Italian bee’s tendency to rob other colo-nies
of their honey stores.
• Russian colonies maintain active queen cells through
out the brood- rearing season. In Italian colonies, the
presence of queen cells is interpreted by beekeepers
as an attempt to swarm ( reduce overcrowding by
establishing a new colony) or to supersede ( kill and
replace) the resident queen. This is not the case with
Russian colonies, as the workers often destroy the
extra queen cells before they fully develop.
• Russian bees can vary in color, but they are generally
darker than the Italians.
Requeening Italian hives with Russian queens can be diffi-cult,
and many beekeepers lose their newly introduced Rus-sian
queens. Russian queens have a different “ odor” than
Italians, and parent colonies must become acclimated to
this odor before they will accept the newcomers. Beekeep-ers
who intend to go from Italian to Russian bees should
requeen a colony in the fall by splitting the hive in two with
the use of a double screen ( see highlighted information).
This will permit the odors to mix but, at the same time,
prevent the workers from interacting with the new queen.
The old Italian queen should be kept in the lower half, and
the new Russian queen should be placed in the upper half
in a cage. If a separate entrance is provided to the upper
half, only young nurse bees will enter the top portion, and
the older foraging bees will return to the lower hive.
Table 1. A comparison of various colony characteristics of Italian and Russian honey bees
Characteristic Italians Russians
Varroa mites More susceptible More resistant
Tracheal mites More susceptible Highly resistant
Brood rearing Continuous throughout the summer Usually only during times of pollen availability
Robbing High Low
Queen cells Only during swarming or queen replacement Present most of the time
Pollination skills Small difference from Russian bees Small difference from Italian bees
Temperament Gentle, less defensive; not likely to sting Gentle, less defensive; not likely to sting
Color Light Dark