Identifying and selecting stock

[TheHoneyPump]

Will be gearing up to raise batches of queens very soon.  I have two questions. One related to the title of the thread and another wrt the Nicot system I will be experimenting with this season.

In one of my yards there is a good mix of distinct queen types, colours. The queens and the bees vary from jet black, to grey stripped, to tiger striped, to standard orange, to near yellow.  I have past years observation cards for the main target donor/mother queens selecting for this year. The others that have performed mediocre will be eliminated. I am thinking about making a simple summary info sheet/poster for folks interested in the queens I will be raising.

Q 1) Is there a quick reference link to on the web somewhere that has clear high resolution pictures of the different strains? A very clear quality picture of the queen and same of her workers in the same shot is ideal. I can find pictures, just that they are spread across the web. Yes, I am being lazy.   Wrt traits of each strain; I fully understand that any colony really is a mixed bag of mongrels and that selecting behaviour and health dictates over appearance.  However, I would like to compare the dominant traits I recorded on the hive cards to the said pictures and hold those up to the traits seen in some reference tables.  "The Hive and the Honey Bee" mentions honeybee types and origins but does not give pictures of each.  Same for alot of the sites I have visited thus far. 

Q 2) Related but not.  With respect to mounting the nicot laying box in the frame.  Simple enough, yet wondering if there is an best method bragged over.  I use standard Langstroth deep equipment.  A link would suffice.

Thanks!

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswholebee.htm

[TheHoneyPump]

I've been browsing your site and articles periodically, as well as some of youtube videos featuring your talks.  Very excellent, thank you!
Though I have not yet found good close up pictures of each the various honeybees / queens, all in one place.

[Acebird]

If you can't learn enough about beekeeping from MB to be a beekeeper than take up knitting.

[herbhome]

I've been browsing your site and articles periodically, as well as some of youtube videos featuring your talks.  Very excellent, thank you!
Though I have not yet found good close up pictures of each the various honeybees / queens, all in one place.

I'm fairly new, THP, and I have been there. I have tried over and over to get an ideal example pic of all the strains and been disappointed over and over. I suspect that North American bees are so mongrelized that it would be difficult to find any line of bees that consistantly breed true to type. Seems most keeps are shooting for behavior indices as opposed to color.

Hope this is helpful.

[TheHoneyPump]

Thanks AceBird,
However it appears you have completely missed the specific question. 
Which is simply:  if anyone here knows of a site that has some good pictures all in one place.  If not that is fine, I know what they are and can take my own picts.  I was merely looking for easy ones to pick out so I could use for print illustrations.

I've been at this for a very long time. Knowing enough about beekeeping that the bees have endlessly more secrets reveal than we can ever know.  Is not the issue; was not the question.

[herbhome]

THP,

Sorry about the misunderstanding. Wish I could help you out.

[beepro]

Simple:  www.http://glenn-apiaries.com/ 

I read up on the Cordovan bees as they are the backbone to my bee breeding program.  Luckily for me, there is a hive
nearby with 95% Italians trait and only 3% grey bees genetics.   I'm able to get more of these local bees in June.  Ohh, the site might
be copyright protected so consult before using their infos even though this is the WWW.    One thing I learn in beekeeping is that it is
hard work so laziness cannot enter into this equation.   Wait a bit longer then they end up in the tree.    Hope that help!   

[BeeMaster2]

I've been browsing your site and articles periodically, as well as some of youtube videos featuring your talks.  Very excellent, thank you!
Though I have not yet found good close up pictures of each the various honeybees / queens, all in one place.

I'm fairly new, THP, and I have been there. I have tried over and over to get an ideal example pic of all the strains and been disappointed over and over. I suspect that North American bees are so mongrelized that it would be difficult to find any line of bees that consistantly breed true to type. Seems most keeps are shooting for behavior indices as opposed to color.

Hope this is helpful.

The reason for this is that our queens do not mate with just one drone. A good queen will mate with 20 or more males. She may look like one type of bee but throw off 20 different types of bees.
Your queen Rearing Company?s select a type of bee and then saturate the surrendering area with drones of that type.
Queens that mate with numerous types of drones have a much higher chance of survival because some of the offspring are good at hygiene, others at protecting the hive, some at detecting and removing mites and some that are great at collecting nectar.
I think in our environment, our best bet is raising queens that survive.
I know this does not help decide what type of queens you have but unless you are saturating the area with the same drones, you bees will be a complete mixture of the bees in your area.
Jim

[Michael Bush]

Looks are irrelevant.  Their instincts matter only as they contribute to manageability, health and productivity.

[TheHoneyPump]

All good points.  Thank you.
I searched and surfed.  Found bits here and there at various sites to piece together what I needed.

[MikeyN.C.]

Don't know how to post link.
Google. Perfectbee / the common races of honey bees