They are indeed wound beads, and they also look a lot more irregular than strung. See how one or two of the beads have a slightly more transparant look near the hole? Shows they are wound to me. There are quite a few glass types that produce a variety in transparency depending on how the heat was applied and what the flame proportion was. A flame with less oxygen can for example produce different results with exactly the same glass than an other flame. This is one of the magical things about glass, I think.