I used to have bees until they started spraying all the fields around me with insecticides that killed a lot of my bees.
I preferred either Buckfast bees or Starlines. They were pretty good honey producers and fairly docile.

I have never owned a Russian bee but have worked other peoples yards that have Russians and they are some of the meanest bees out there. I would not wish those bees on anyone. I had a neighbor that had some about 1/2 a mile from me and I was raising Carniolans my Carnies queens were very gentle but there daughters were mean. All I can figure is that they were breeding with the Russians from his hives. If you have a long nectar flow the Russians would be great but they come out of winter small. It is hard to beat an old calm Italian queen in my book.
As for Swarms if you catch 10 of them you might have 1 that will be a decent hive, The commercial beekeepers make a living with there bees and they have good stock. If you want good honey producers start looking at there stock.
As for Survivor stock that everybody claims is so good, They are just a bunch of swarming machine that will swarm at the drop of a hat and that is the reason for them surviving.

That's interesting. I bought one Buckfast nuc a couple of years ago. They wintered well the first year and died just before it warmed up around here this spring.

By far the meanest SOB's I've ever been around. Really quick to attack without provocation and they'd chase you for a hundred yards. That was one hive you didn't walk in front of.

ETA- My buckfast bees came from Texas. Little buggers...mean little buggers.

Got into my hives this morning at the house. I have 8 here and only 3 looked good wit young brood when I left last week for work. I saw 2 queens in 2 of the other but no eggs or brood so young queens not laying. One of the others had caped queen cells. That left 2 with no queens..

I ordered 3 Saskatraz queens and had them on hand. So I introduced them to the hives with no queen, and made 2 nuks from queen cells from the other hive removed the rest and put my 3rd queen into that hive..

My thinking was to avoid the couple week wait and uncertainty untill the queencells would hatch mate and start laying. Also if the nukes take off I will have extra resources if I need them and 2 more hives if they do well.

I even have a hand full if honey frams I need to get spun out...

Things are looking up and I'm sure learning a lot this year.

Now to research the best things to plant for honey crops. I plant buckwheat staggered a a few weeks and timed during the Darth. I just planter about 1/2 acre of sun flowers, my peach and pear trees are still small. I have places I don't mow probably 15 acres that is covered with golden rod and milk weed.

I think I will plant some areas with crimson clover again and some white clover.

This is what I did, let the hive develop a queen. My first hive came from a wild bee tree and they were great honey producers but tough to work unless you had a great nectar flow. Kent has some good info, joining the weaker hives with newspaper above the supers will get 2 weak hives stronger.

Most Buckfast queens are out of TX. Texas has a sustaining population of Africanized bees. Any Buckfast queen any one receives in our club is fine until superseded, which they do regularly, and then the Africanized heritage kicks in and they are mean as snakes. Their disclaimer states they can not warrant no Africanized heritage. Canada would be the only place to get pure Buckfast queens but cost is prohibitive unless a large order is made due to a tax they charge at the border when crossing.

When using queen cells for raising queens in another hive, do not shake the bees off the frame as this will shake the queen larva down to the bottom of the cell and she will die. Use you bee brush and brush the bees off. When looking at at hatched queen cells if the cell still has the hinged lid on it is is a fresh hatch within the last 3 days as the bees remove the lid around the 4th day.

A swarm that is not the prime swarm can have 3 or more virgins in the smarm due to the weather not be conducive to swarm for two or 3 or more days and the queens just keep hatching out. When you have them hived look for little knots of bees in front of the hive. They will be workers with a virgin in the center. These can be picked up and put in a queen cage by themselves and introduced in a queen less hive.

I am in AR and the first warm day in February I go into the brood nest and they will have started raising brood. If brood is on one side of two frames I put a full frame of honey between them, Most bees starve to death February and March here. Once they have a patch of brood and it turns cold they will cluster on the brood and even if honey is two to three inches away they will not break the cluster on the brood and move to it thus they starve with honey inches away. I am also feeding a heavy mix.

If low on supplies I put a queen excluder on top of the brood box then tips 6 quarts of heavy mix on top of it trying to get one or two right above the brood. They can feed on these even when the weather does not allow them to work the outside feeder.

TrapperKent