New honey bee breed

[pokeyjeeper]

A club member that sells bees is a dealer for these now looks promising here’s the link
saskatraz.com/index.htm
I will be trying 2 queens and see how they do

[swampcat]

Jan 12, 2018 20:39:35 GMT -5 pokeyjeeper said:

A club member that sells bees is a dealer for these now looks promising here’s the link
saskatraz.com/index.htm
I will be trying 2 queens and see how they do

Sounds interesting, Good Luck with them and keep us posted..

[pokeyjeeper]

Well the queen in my hive quite laying and there was no resources for the hive to make a new one and I don’t have another hive so a friend of mine had a extra one of these queens so I put her in today so now I have one I’ll keep everyone posted on how she performs but I’ll tell you that a few beeks around here got packages of these a few weeks back and they tell me they have never see a faster building and gentle bee

[bk]

I'm trying one up here in the WI north woods.  She is building up faster than my Carni queens.  Looking forward to see how she does in the course of the year.  This will be a good long distance experiment we can share with the Swamp.  Good luck pokeyjeeper.

[pokeyjeeper]

Good deal bk yes it will mine is in my Kenya top bar hive so it would be great to see in different style hives how this bee performs

[pokeyjeeper]

Well the queen is out so I’ll give it a week or so and see if she is the rockstar layer she is supposed to be

[bk]

Checked mine the other evening.  Saz was laying very well, but not a great brood pattern.  My new Carni queen has a better brood pattern, but less brood to show.  Both were very gentle and easy to work.
Saz is looking good so far.

[pokeyjeeper]

Well my saz queen swarmed did an inspection today and she is gone but left me 15 capped queen calls a ton of drone brood so I did a small split I just can’t win with my top bar hive this year lol

[pokeyjeeper]

My two new queens are laying machines wish I had them 60 days ago missing out on a huge first flow they seem to be very gentle and hardworking girls a lot of the beeks around here that have this breed are very happy with them

[stomper]

Any updates on how your season has been with the new breed?

[bk]

The Saz line has been great so far. 

I have a Saz located side by side with a Carni.  Both were new 3 pound packages in 10 frame Langs this spring.  Saz has filled three deeps with brood / honey and two supers for me.  Didn't swarm - very gentle.  Carni finally filled three deeps but no honey for me in the supers. 

Thought my Saz hive was dying in early August.  One evening I watched them haul out 100s of dead dying bees and drop them off the landing board.  Then they started removing late stage brood.  In looking carefully, the dead bees had deformed wings and brood was weird looking or had a mite.  Within two days hive was back to normal.  Was impressive to watch their hygienic activity.

Have been doing alcohol washes for mite checks.  Highest mite count in Saz was 1/300 in August.  Carni hive next door had 4/300 in August.  This month Saz was back to 0/300 while Carni was 18/300 - so they got treated.

Interesting thing has been our splits / swarms.  All in five frame nucs, two or three boxes on each.  Splits had lower mite counts than swarms.  Last swarm we captured had a crazy mite load.  143/300. (Pic below)  They are likely dead and they just don't know it.  Treating and crossing our fingers.



This is why we test.  We only treat when mite threshold is reached.  

[pokeyjeeper]

Mine have been great also gentle fast building bees we didn’t get a good summer/fall flow as we were in the drought but I have saz in 4 hives now 3 Lang’s and one Kenya top bar hive we shall see if they over winter

[pokeyjeeper]

Did an inspection today and my 4 sak hives look great good stores and lots of young fat bees my one hive that is not sak is mean as hell and I think tried to supersede their queen I tried to inspect this hive tonight and they started tearing me up so I closed them back up they have been a little spicy all season and got me good about 20 days ago got about 25 stings then