East Coast Reptile Breeders » bumble bee

Welcome to the World, Little Man

Colin Weaver — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:13:37 +0000

…hope you enjoy your stay.

The one moment in time toward which all other efforts point; that brief instant when a baby snake pops its head out of the egg for the first time. After all these years I still get excited. 364 days of cage cleaning, record keeping, feeding, water bowl changing and male/female pairing all comes to a conclusion at this moment:

Bumble Bee Ball Python Hatching

And it is so worth it! I’ve seen it time and again but it never loses it coolness. Earlier today I was checking eggs (and happened to have my camera) and caught this bumble bee just as he pushed his head out for the first time. Seeing their first tongue flick is such a cool thing to witness. In the photo this little guy is about 3 seconds old. How awesome is that?!

This is the best time of year.

Click the image below for a close-up.

[View with PicLens]

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

A Few of This Season’s Pairings

Colin Weaver — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:10:23 +0000

I made a quick trip through my building with a camera earlier this season. Here are a few photos of who happened to be locked up at the time. It’s kind of like looking at a precursor to Christmas (Christmas being the day eggs hatch, of course). I continue to love the whole cycle. It’s filled with milestone all along the way. You’ve got breeding followed by ovulation followed by pre-lay shed followed by egg laying followed by hatching. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year through.”

Click on each thumbnail for a full-size view.

[View with PicLens]

Albino X Albino Het
Albino X Spider Het Albino
Super Pastel X Black Pastel
Bumble Bee Het Ghost X Orange Ghost
Clown X Pastel Het Clown
Ivory X Yellow Belly
Pastel Lesser X Black Pastel
Pinstripe X Pastel
Pinstripe X Spider

Ivory Ball Python X Spider = Spider Yellow Belly

Colin Weaver — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 08:10:55 +0000

I took this picture with my phone (which had a crappy camera in it) back in early 2008. I bred Ivory balls to a few Spider Ball Pythons in 2008 because I saw Spider Yellow Belly’s at the 2007 NARBC show in Chantilly, VA. To me they were absolutely stunning. They were the best looking Spiders I had ever seen. And that seems to be the way it goes with Yellow Belly Ball Pythons. Add that gene to anything and it makes it better. The Yellow Belly Bumble Bee (aka Bumble Belly) is ridiculous. I saw a few of those this year and remember thinking, “And I thought Bumble Bee’s looked awesome…”.

Take everything that has been done with designer Ball Python morphs and add Yellow Belly to it and it will be better than the original. The only exception I’ve seen to this is the albino. Albino Yellow Belly’s look like albinos. The difference is too subtle to be visually appreciated. I am interested in seeing what happens with Albino Spider Yellow Belly’s, though. Since Albino Spiders’s tend to be an overabundance of yellow/orange with the white of the spidering not standing out in most specimens I wonder if the Yellow Belly gene can clean that up and get some nice, high-contrast spider albinos. Time will tell.

Having a Yellow Belly Spider in your collection is a good idea if you want to make cool combos like Bumble Belly’s (aka Yellow Belly Bumble Bees), Spinner Belly’s (Spider Pinstripe Yellow Belly’s) and to the best of my knowledge no one has yet produced an Ivory Spider. My best guess is that it won’t be anything dramatically different than an Ivory but what if it does something else? You just never know with the Yellow Belly gene. It can unlock some really unexpected and cool stuff.

As I write this I have 1.0 2008 Spider Yellow Belly still available. Drop me a note if you are interested in adding him to your collection.

Colin Weaver