The Scoop on Russian Bees

USDA-ARS www.ars.usda.gov

A while ago I said that I would tell you the story of the Russian bees, and why I have decided to raise them this year in Minnesota.

As I love my honeybees, I read a lot about them, and always look around to improve what Ben and I  are doing with our colonies to make our lives and the bees' more enjoyable!

When one takes a beekeepers' class more than often it is encourage to raise Italian bees because of their docility, resistance to several diseases and large amount of honey production. They were imported to the United States in the late 1880s and early 1900s, and became very popular. Even today Italian bees are favored by most queens producers in North America today. So, as a good student this is what I did, I started with Italian honeybees. They were and are fabulous, easy going and very gentle. However, as my knowledge of beekeeping developed, and the mites came along, and the losses started happening....I started to wonder.

Maybe I should look into a bee that is better adapted to my climate, and my region. I then decided to raise the honeybees developed by Dr. Marla Spivak from the University of Minnesota, called Minnesota Hygienic: They were bred for their sensitivity to detect when a bee at the very early stage(pupa) is sick, and remove it from the colony preventing a possible "crisis". I was successful with those, and still have many MN hygienic queens in most of my colonies.

But, still this bee is mostly raise in California or warmer climate, and is after all originally from the temperate region of Northern Italy. The fact is: I live in Minnesota! Not is some nice, sunny, blue sky 72-75F every day kind of weather . Oh, I wish I did:) I got very interested in the study done by Dr. Thomas E. Rinderer, a bee geneticist. Over the past 20 years, leading scientists observed the continued decline of the honeybee population around the world. At the beginning this important vanishing of the bees was solely associated with a pest (Varroa destructor) that had been found in Wisconsin in 1987 in colonies belonging to a migratory beekeeper. This pest was probably in the United States several years prior its detection.
For more than a hundred years, all American beekeepers were relying on honeybee stock imported from one European place, and were bred, and bred and bred without any new "blood". In the last decade or so, importation of new stock of honeybees have happened, and new breed have emerged, making the honeybee population a little bit more diverse.

In 1994 Dr. Rinderer working for the USDA, Honeybee breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana took a trip to Russia to investigate some honeybees which were possibly resistant to the Varroa mites, in response to the terrible bee population decline in the USA. The Russian Queen Project was born!

The latest in Chanhassen is all good news: All new colonies started from packages are well on their way. The bee population is now increasing rapidly. I mostly stopped feeding pollen patties as I am assuming pollen is available, and also the foragers' population has increased allowing them to feed the colonies adequately. I still give them some sugar syrup because the weather has been very strange...very hot for a couple of days, then rainy, windy and gray! Honeybees are finicky, they love sunny, calm and dry weather...otherwise they get grumpy, and stay home!

In Shakopee, the colonies are strong and are very busy, collecting a load of nectar and pollen. We have 2 supers already (will be our honey later) on top of the hives, and summer is not here yet.