:( I have a hive that is a swarm i caught in the spring from a yard that has had bees for 6 years that is very gentle. Ater hiving them, they starting getting hot. Now they are so aggressive I can't even stand 3 feet away from the hive just to look. Thebees otside of the hive start buzzing loud and within 3 to 4 seconds thay start coming out after me. What's up? The LA ag department just found AHB just 30 miles north and 50 miles south from here. When I open the hive I use smoke wait then open and they just cover me. They follow me away from the hive for hundreds of yards sometimes, most of the time it's about 50 to 100 yards away. What do I do? I put a new queen in about 6 weeks ago but I didn't get rid of the other queen now I can't find the marked queen. I guess she was killed! What do I do? My wife wants me to kill the bees because she thinks they might attack a family member. Any advice?
If they're finding AFB north of you then it's likely they are AFBees. Though they might not have been when you caught them. You could try to requeen again but this time be sure to cut the other queen in two.
Quote from: papabear on September 09, 2007, 11:27:52 AM
:( I have a hive that is a swarm i caught in the spring from a yard that has had bees for 6 years that is very gentle.
This doesn't mean they came from those gentle bees. They could have come from an Africanized colony somewhere. Just because no one has seen them in your area doesn't mean they are not there.
Well I live in L A and I've had hot bees before.All my bees are Feral.It dosen't do much good to try and figure out if they are Africanized or not.If they are to mean to manage read Michael Bush's web page read divide and conquer
that is a very simple effective way to handle hot bees.If you get into all the Think Think Think about Africanized bees you might not manage them correctly.I have Africanized bees from Arizona they are Manageable.Read Bush's site on handleing hot bees its a simple solution like all his subbestions
kirko send me a message if you need any help
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm
you might want to peruse this:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesglossary.htm
and get your acronyms straight...
Let me say this simply:
Requeen
Requeen
Requeen
Also as Michael has pointed out on his links split them down.
I don't have any scientific proof for this but the larger a hive the more aggressive it is apt to be. One of the reasons I limit the size of my hives.
Sincerely,
Brendhan
if you ever have any questions about a hot hive requeen it, if you are not sure they are ahb's buy a queen or move a frame from a gentle hive and kill all other cells on the original frames, from what I have heard you need to release a queen in a AHB hive just like introducing a Russian queen in a Italian hive, put the cage in and dont pull the plug for 5 days, then pull the plug and let them release her from the queen candy side, not the empty side...
Papa bear, I don't know anything about the hive in question, other than they are hot, from what you have described, so I will throw out another possibility. What if you have a large, queenless hive. They would be ugly. Either way, you have to requeen, but just a thought. If you have a queen, and they are AHB, I agree with the M.B. way of thinking, split them down, reduce their numbers and they lose the attitude, and of course requeen.
>One of the reasons I limit the size of my hives.
But if you limit the size of the hives you'll get very little honey. A hive that is twice as strong makes four times as much honey.
I agree with you Michael. Large numbers mean more bees to gather nectar, more production. I like large hives, and my largest make the most honey.
papabear,
When you lift up a frame of brood from the hive, do the nurse bees cover the brood or do they run to the edges and festoon down toward the hive? I have found this to be a pretty reliable indication as to whether or not a hive is showing Africanized characteristics. You can have EHB hives that are just as hot as AHB's, but they still tend to cover the brood when a frame is lifted up. If they are AHB, the best way to re-queen is with a push in cage over emerging brood. You may even need to move the queen and push in cage to fresh emerging brood a couple of times to get them to accept an EHB queen.
Thanks for the help but isn't it to late to requeen now in second week of sep?
So do I understand you find that the Africanized hive festoons on the bottom of the fram when lifting up. The "hot" hive I have does that too. I had not heard this before.
Quote from: genesbees on September 10, 2007, 12:06:44 PM
papabear,
When you lift up a frame of brood from the hive, do the nurse bees cover the brood or do they run to the edges and festoon down toward the hive? I have found this to be a pretty reliable indication as to whether or not a hive is showing Africanized characteristics. You can have EHB hives that are just as hot as AHB's, but they still tend to cover the brood when a frame is lifted up. If they are AHB, the best way to re-queen is with a push in cage over emerging brood. You may even need to move the queen and push in cage to fresh emerging brood a couple of times to get them to accept an EHB queen.
You guys blow my mind with your combined knowledge.
>I have found this to be a pretty reliable indication as to whether or not a hive is showing Africanized characteristics.
This is also a typical characteristic of Apis Mellifera Mellifera or the German black bees or any feral bees that have not been breed to not be runny.
I had a nice calm hive that was verry runny and would festoon off of the frames. It was impossible to find the queen, she was all over the place. They requeened and don't do that any more.
??It is an undesireable trait and therefore an indication of wild or perhaps african genes that haven't been bred out of a cultured hive. ??
>??It is an undesireable trait and therefore an indication of wild or perhaps african genes that haven't been bred out of a cultured hive. ??
It was a desirable trait in the days of skeps and bee gums. You could run the bees out of the hive and then harvest the honey. But since Langstroth hives took over it has been an undesirable trait. It's not that hard to breed out really, but I still get a slightly runny one now and then.
Michael, are you somewhat anal retentive? "Get your acronymns straight"? That was a harsh thing to say and I have no qualms about saying this. I bet most people don't even know what that means!!!! I am a perfectionist at spelling, and definitely anal retentive at many, many things too. So....I know where you are coming from. But....try to be a little more gentle. :-P :)Great day. Cindi
Post modified, and I apologize for being so grumpy anyways. Acronyms get so easily mixed up and I must lighten up with things that I say too, like asking Michael if he is was somewhat anal retentive. My deep apology, just a person who was grumpy and got bugged by something. Sorry Kathy, I apologize to you too, I don't why I typed your name in the original post :roll: :) Have a wonderful day. Cindi
>Kathy, are you somewhat anal retentive? "Get your acronymns straight"? That was a harsh thing to say and I have no qualms about saying this.
I think I said that. Sort of. Actually I said:
>you might want to peruse this:
>http://www.bushfarms.com/beesglossary.htm
>and get your acronyms straight...
I don't think Kathy made a post on this subject. I offered an acronym glossary to help. I did not mean it to be harsh, but it's less confusing if we use the right acronyms. I'm certainly sorry if it came off as harsh.
There is, however, a lot of difference between having AFB and AHB, even if neither is a good thing to have.
Quote from: JP on September 10, 2007, 02:32:35 AM
What if you have a large, queenless hive. They would be ugly.
I agree! One of my big hives went loud and nasty in mid-summer, and I even got stung on the ear from over 30 feet away one day. A few days later I went into it, and there was no queen -- and no brood, meaning the queen had been gone for several weeks. I put a frame of brood and eggs in, and they settled right down. Although the month and a half interval without a queen set them back considerably, I think they're doing well enough to make it through winter. Something to think about as you hived them from a swarm, and a queen can get lost in the process.
-- Kris
Quote from: Michael Bush on September 10, 2007, 10:26:38 PM
>I have found this to be a pretty reliable indication as to whether or not a hive is showing Africanized characteristics.
This is also a typical characteristic of Apis Mellifera Mellifera or the German black bees or any feral bees that have not been breed to not be runny.
I am basing my statement on information I received for beekeepers in AHB territory. Nine times out of ten, when a hive in my area exhibits this behavior, it is AHB. This year I have done perhaps fifteen feral cutouts to date. One out of the fifteen exhibited this trait when I cut it out. If I got the comb away from the cavity fast enough they would even run up my arms in droves. All the other cutouts stayed on the comb covering the brood, even when I strapped them into the frames. Lucky for me, it was the only one out of the 15 that was Africanized. This is also a good clue to beekeepers in AHB territory that one of your hives that previously was not "runny" has become Africanized. Recent TAM studies (Coulson, etal 2005) based on mtDNA in my area have shown that two races of bees dominate our feral population, A. M. Scutellata (43%), A. M. Lamarckii (33%) with the Eastern European races lumped together at 15% and Western European Races (including A. M. Mellifera) at 9%. As you can see my chances of running across a "runny" hive of A. M. Mellifera are much less than A. M. Scutellata. While my experience with this being a good indication of AHB is pretty anecdotal, from a practical standpoint for me in my area, excessive runniness = AHB. Seeing that papabear is also in AHB territory in FL, I felt that this same policy could probably prove reliable for him as well.
When I mentioned earlier that I limit the size of my hives the reasons were two fold.
1. Experience with cut outs has taught me that the bigger the hive the greater the likelyhood that it would be aggressive. Both the original poster and I live in areas that are AHB positive.
I do cut outs and bring those hives back. I will requeen the hive if it is aggressive. But there is definitly a noticable difference in hives based on their size. This does not always means the hive is AHB. It could as others mentioned be queenless recently robbed and pone of many other reasons. With that said also an AHB swarm doesn't have to be large. And when it is small they are not nearly as aggressive. If they do not have a nest to defend you would not notice the difference. As the AHB finds a home and manges to build comb so the queen can lay is when they become more defensive. The larger the hive the more numbers they have to be defensive with.
When I say I limit the size of hive I am limiting it to a total of six mediums. Which is still a very good sized hive. But if the queen is lost and the new queen has bred with AHB drones. It is a lot easier to deal with Michaels method of dealing with a hot hive.
2. If I let a hive build up as much as it wants to. I could end up with 10 or more hive bodies in a stack. I keep my hives 16 inches off the ground. Even 10 mediums is darn tall. Also trying to do inspections on a stack that tall can be a pain.
Since Florida and other southern area states can harvest almost year round. When I remove supers I will pull the full ones off and replace with empty ones. Now if I pull four honey supers off I will replace with one empty so they can go right back to work. As they fill that one up I will add my next honey supers as needed. If may not be the best method but I am doing very well. Even with my having to travel as much as I do.
The first time you endup with a ten stack or more hive that has gotten agressive and you are trying to find the queen so you can requeen you will find yourself saying maybe I needed to handle this differently. Since I have been there done that got the t-shirt I will pass along the information.
Michael has a great saying if you aren't making mistakes your aren't learning. here is mine, learn from others mistakes your own are too expensive.
Quote from: Cindi on September 12, 2007, 02:06:47 AM
.........I apologize for being so grumpy anyways.
Thanks Cindi...........don't apoligize.............I'm glad someone said it........you go girl! :)
Man, this board is a trip! :mrgreen:
I'm amazed at how this board attracts "experts". Whatever happened to just discussing a topic, rather than trying to show each other who knows more about bees? It's a guess, but maybe papabear just wants some practical advise on how to handle this hot hive, rather than all the textbook quotable scientific stuff.
Here's my two-cent's worth:
Let's see, I had a hot hive just like papabear this past spring. These little beestards would run me down almost 100 yards and not quit trying to sting for 30-45 minutes. Stung my kids, wife, etc....days after I went into them. They seem to never quite down. Anyone in the yard got stung.
I had enough hives to do the following.
1. I took an empty deep brood box. Put a queen excluder over the top of it. Put another empty deep brood box on top of it, and bumped each frame........frame by frame, until I found the queen. Then I killed the queen. I had looked for her many many times, but she was a good hider. When you bump each frame, most of the bees will go thru the excluder, alas except the queen...........this makes the queen easy to find.
2. I pulled enough various (good gene stock) brood from my other hives, and replaced the current (bad gene stock) in this hot hive. I distributed the hot hive brood throughout my beeyard, making sure to add them to hives that already had a queen, so the hot brood would eventually die out, once this brood cycle was completed.
3. I then sat back and let the re-worked hive make a new queen. (you can buy a queen and add to speed up the process) Yes, this late in the year, you might have to feed this new re-worked hive. The alternative.......let it over-winter and do this in the spring, 6 weeks prior to the honey flow. I guess it would depend on where you are located, how many hives you have, and if they would leave you alone well enough to let them over-winter.
As far as the AHB issue, why worry?...........look at the facts..........the hive is hot.....it has to be requeened.......
On the other side of that coin, ok.....let's say it is AHB...........ok.........it has to be requeened...........
Not a self-proclaimed expert, just a simple little beekeeper..........(and now a fan of Cindi)
Dr/B 8-)
>As far as the AHB issue, why worry?...........look at the facts..........the hive is hot.....it has to be requeened.......
>On the other side of that coin, ok.....let's say it is AHB...........ok.........it has to be requeened...........
Exactly.
[quote
1. I took an empty deep brood box. Put a queen excluder over the top of it. Put another empty deep brood box on top of it, and bumped each frame........frame by frame, until I found the queen. Then I killed the queen. I had looked for her many many times, but she was a good hider. When you bump each frame, most of the bees will go thru the excluder, alas except the queen...........this makes the queen easy to find./quote]
Explain this technique once again to me please. So you place this box on the side of the hive you are trying to requeen??? You end up with a box filled with bees, and then what do you do??? Just release the bees and they return to the original hive???
Thank you
Annette
You can vary it a few ways. I just took all the frames out of the original hive brood box, and used it for the bottom box, and this way the bees were already in the correct box.
To simplify:
Take all the frames out of the original brood box.
Place a queen excluder on top of this box.
Put another empty "bumping" box on top of this. Take each frame.........frame by frame and either brush the bees off the frame onto the queen excluder, or gently drop the frame in the empty box to "bump" them off the frame. I usually just drop the frame about half an inch and this seems to get all teh bees off pretty good. You can just brush them if you want.
Watch your excluder. Eventually if you are pretty through, you should see your queen wiggling around on the excluder, then ..............kill the queen.
Remove the "bumping" box, and simply put the (good genetic) brood in the original box, which now contains most of the bees, and close up. I don't worry about any loose bees, as they'll wind up back in the original hive, once they settle down.
I only do this if I cann't find the queen by direct observation of the frames (as a last resort).
Dr/B
I have actually had the queen take flight and not know it after searching and searching and putting the colony back together start to brush the bees off of my suit and there she was the air temp was colder than my body heat and she was on my shoulder the hole time go figure al bet she had a good laugh will i was searching :lol: RDY-B
All this bumping of frames..... My bees get mad at the slightest bumping.
Dr/B. I think that you did an excellent job of how you found that ratty old queen and fixed her wagon. This hive was very aggressive and I am very glad that things were not alot worse than you explained about the distance that they would travel on their vendetta against human. Good, keep us posted on how things go. I bet your family and everyone will be very proud when you have lovely, tame little girls that are not putting up such a nasty fight all the time. Yeah!!! Good for you. I don't think that anyone should put up with nasty bees, there is no need for that. Just look at a sweet, calm hive and you will know for surely what I mean. I had a fairly hot hive once, it was a swarm that I caught in my first year of beekeeping. If I didn't have 4 other sweet hives to compare it to, it might have scared me off beekeeping. Even when I came close to this colony, I could feel their defensiveness attitude, just something in the air. Have a wonderful day, best of this beautiful life. Cindi
Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if it caused a problem around here. :(
Papabear. Got got some good responses, we all love to hear peoples' stories. How about RDY-B's and his about the queen on his shoulder the whole time (I laughed at that one, the poor guy!!!!). YOu didn't cause any problems around here, that is what forums are all about, discussions!!! Yeah!!!! Have a wonderful day and a beautiful life. Cindi
Cindi, you are so awsome. You are so positive all the time. God bless you.
>Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if it caused a problem around here.
No need to be sorry. I don't see any problems...
Strength in numbers papabear....................
keep on postin'
Quote from: papabear on September 16, 2007, 11:10:58 AM
Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if it caused a problem around here. :(
This is civilized, no problems here. Come visit the coffee house once in a while and we can bring Finsky in on how a "good" cup of coffee is made.
Keep posting. Cheers.
Sincerely,
Brendhan