Changes
Changes in external circumstances (phenology, weather, food balance) have a powerful influence on the performance of the ''A. m. mellifera'' bees. Brown bees are calmer in spring and fall, but they become more aggressive during bad weather in comparison to other bees. They have a wide behavioral ability to react to environmental changes. As a result, you might be very surprised to see very different kinds of bee colonies in different years and places with the same origin of bees.
Some differentiating features of Nordic brown bees in comparison to Italian, CrainiolanCarnica, and Buckfast bees include:
*Worker bees form small clusters during handling and move to the lowest corner of the comb when the comb is lifted up. The [[Check queen presence and egg laying|queen]] can also be in these small clusters. As such, the queen can end up outside of the beehive and can be lost on the ground, because these little groups of bees can easily fall down. Because of this, the frames should always be handled above the bee hive so that falling bees will drop into the hive.
*Bees move remarkably quickly on the frame’s surface. In fact, staying on the comb gets a value of 2 when the performance is evaluated on the [http://www2.hu-berlin.de/beebreed/ZWS/start.php?vRID=M BeeBreed] scale from fast moving 1 to very peaceful bees with grade 5.
