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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alastair" data-source="post: 13819" data-attributes="member: 13">In my view, the colour of the queen may be important, depending what you want.So for example, Carniolan bees (if pure) winter in smaller clusters than Italian bees, and use a lot less honey. And these race related traits can be identified by colour. Likewise, Carniolans will swarm more than Italians, and this applies even to the hybrids between the two. So yes, colour can matter, depending on what you want.Of course in todays world where nearly all bees are hybridized to a greater or lesser degree, much of the understanding of this has been lost on a lot of beekeepers because almost no bees are purebred, so the colour is less related to certain traits. To many beekeepers, they are all bees, they make honey, and that's about all that matters.</blockquote>

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