I grow a family heirloom from my wife's family. We call it Barksdale Wax Pole bean. But I think perhaps it is not technically a wax, since its pods aren't shiny (without fuz) They are yellow however and about 8" long by an inch wide and flat. I believe I posted a picture somewhere on this forum. Barksdale is a good bean, but will probably never attain any great popularity as it is not as sure fire as some others. Some years we get a huge crop and sometimes it kind of fizzles. It is a challenge, also, to produce quantities of seed. Barksdale's seed is not very plump. But it's a good one and we love it.

Barksdale's strength is that it comes on strong when cooler weather comes in the fall. Plus, the seed seems to germinate better in cooler, wetter conditions than other beans.

I once grew Meraviglia de Venice, a yellow Romano with black seed. It was okay.

George
Tahlequah, OK

I've heard good things about Rocquencourt (bush), black seeds, but have not grown it yet.

My first priority is taste. Neckargold (pole) is the beaniest-tasting wax I've grown to date. Yellow, round, long pods, but there were some flat pods among them also. Source: Franchi and Sandhill. Slugs loved the young seedlings, so it's best to sow early, before slugs get active.

Gold Marie and Gold of Bacau did not produce good, strong bean flavor in my garden.

White-seeded Meraviglia de Venice (pole, Franchi seeds): mine were inedible (fiberous) as snaps, but prolific for shellies. Beautiful, very large, flat, very long pods. Produced well under less-than-ideal conditions with max 7 hours of sun/day.

In another recent thread, chroni678 mentions a pink bean, which she/he gives high marks for taste and yield.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pink half-runner beans

I love Goldmine from Burpee. (I got mine at Walmart.) They produce well even with a little less than optimal sun exposure. The pods blanch and freeze beautifully and don't thaw out mushy. If I were forced to grow only one bush bean, this would probably be it.

Dean, Golden bush is most likely a cultivar usually sold as Golden Wax, Improved Golden Wax, or Topnotch. I don't care for wax beans so I have not grown any since the 50's.Vendors include Baker Creek, Willhite, Gurney, Henry Field, Reimers etc.

It just picked last night for the fourth time more wax beans from my "Cherokee Wax" and "Golden Rod" plants. They are still more smaller beans on the plants, they just keep producing. They definitely out produced my green bush beans, "Kentucky Wonder - 125 bush" and "Contender", by double at least.

Dean