Hi All, New to Bee Keeping this year. First post here. I have really enjoyed this forum and hope someone can help me. All has gone well up till this week. Currently have 2 hives each with 2 deeps and 1 deep super. My plan was to remove the top super and incorporate the capped honey into the hive. (I was not keeping any honey for myself this year)On 1 hive only, I flipped the 2 deeps putting the brood on the bottom. The deep now moved to the top has 10 frames consisting of capped honey, brood, pollen, nectar and empty comb. I realized I would not be able to incorporated honey to last them the winter so I put the hive back to the original 2 and 1. I removed the deep super on 9/9 and put back on the 10th, flipping the 2 deeps back to the original order. My problem now is my docile hive that I could stand right next to to observe without any protection on have become very aggressive. I don't know why this would be. Is it possible I killed the queen? Do they need time to readjust? Should I have immediately added sugar water to supplement? Really concerned because you cannot enter the back yard too far before they come at you. It was my understanding that I should be using only 2 deeps through the winter in Connecticut. Would leaving the 3 deeps through the winter be OK? Really upset that I may have screwed up here!!! The whole personality of the hive has changed for the worst...Any ideas are appreciated. Thank you.
Quote from: LAC on September 11, 2008, 10:29:36 PM
Is it possible I killed the queen? Do they need time to readjust? Should I have immediately added sugar water to supplement?
Yes it is possible to kill the queen. Sounds like lots of manipulations going on. Bad time of year for it too...population is still high and timing is sketchy as to if they have enough time to raise and mate a new queen. If you can, check back next week and see if there are eggs and brood and queen cells.
Yes, sometimes it takes a while for them to readjust. Are they attacking anything and anybody or just you? Sometimes mine will get my smell and then go after me anywhere in the yard.
It wouldn't hurt to feed them, but I also don't think it would help out much with the aggression unless you have a dearth right now.
Other possibilities:
All of the manipulations could have triggered your other hive to start robbing them. This causes aggression.
Autumn is not a good time for happy bees.
One other possibility and it would be a bit of a coincidence, but an animal such as a skunk could be bothering them, scratching at night and eating them.
I hope that it all goes well for you. Mean bees suck.
Rick
LAC, welcome to our forum, you should officially introduce yourself in the Greetings/tell us about yourself forum, hee, hee. I will only add one comment to your questions. I don't think that you should attempt to overwinter a colony in three deeps, two would be the maximum. Three deeps, the colony winter cluster would have too much room and chill. I don't think the queen is dead, the bees are more in a defense mode coming into wintertime. You will hear more comments, enjoy this day, and have a wonderful enjoyment of this day too, Cindi
A couple of questions.
When you "flipped" the deeps did you by any chance seperate the brood cluster? I see that your post mentions that it had no brood. So that probably isn't a factor.
How is the weather been? has it been hot and dry? looking for signs of a dearth. When the nectar is flowing well they are much more generous with their space. When flows slow down, they aggressively defend their livelyhood.
it does seem like a lot of manipulations in a short time. Maybe they will adjust quickly and become the friendly girls that you remember soon.
Steve
I live fairly close to you in MA. My bees are more aggressive now than they were over the summer. I noticed the change about 3 weeks ago. Shorter days and cooler temps will do it. I am more cautious when I go to the bee yard now.
It is possible you killed the queen but not likely. I was always nervous about killing her when I started but have never done so. The queen will generally go to the same frame in the hive when you open it. If you have noticed which frame that is you could always check and see if she is there. It is good to mark that frame by the way when you do discover it.
I would not recommend doing too much manipulation with the bees especially your first year. Its hard because you want to be in there all the time because it is so interesting and new but I have found it is better to let the bees do their thing more often than my interfering. I am bot saying be totally hands off but just appropriate.
I recently came back from vacation to learn of the Jekyll/Hyde personality of my colony. The good doctor had left the building and Mr. Hyde was in charge. They were PMS'ing and attacking any human within 75 to a hundred yards on my first quick inspection after about three weeks. Went in with a 50mm hive tool and assassinated the problem, requeened and the hive was noticeably better practically over night. I don't know about requeening this late in the year though.
I just thought I was doing the correct thing by removing the super and flipping the brood boxes to reduce them down to two deeps. The super was originally added to give them more room. I would like know if this was the correct thing to do for fall preparation. What would be the proper fall preparation for the North East ? One of my problems is a need for a time schedule when to perform certain hive tasks. Oh by the way my bees seem to be calming down but you still have to keep on your toes. One more question would a queenless hive toss out drones? Thank you all for your help.
[I noticed the change about 3 weeks ago. ]
Good observation - make sure to mark it on a calendar, it normally only varies by a few day or maybe a week.
[Shorter days and cooler temps will do it.]
Exactly. The bees work on a light time schedule. So when the days start getting shorter, they change gears. Instead of being focused on swarming, they change to preservation of the colony.
With preservation come increased defensiveness. It also means a deeper hoarding instinct and the beginning of placing stores in the brood nest.
So first off, you breached their security, and so they won't be nice.
Sometimes extra smoke helps, other times only a suit of armour.
Second you moved boxes, and this disrupts their plans. Again it makes them mad.
Doesn't mean you weren't right, because I think you were.
What you did when you flipped boxes was open the brood nest.
This makes the queen lay more eggs and inhibits the bees from backfilling as soon as they might like.
So it also means the bees must move the new nectar up into the supers.
This is good because it centralizes the nectar/honey, but it can be dangerous.
You do not want to do this swap too late in the year because the bees will not have stores near the cluster. This can be offset if the season allows the feeding of heavy syrup. One should try to avoid late feeding as it can contribute to hive moisture and cause a wet freeze that will kill the colony.
On the flip side... If this was as obvious as you note, its a good sign, the hive is strong enough to react to changes and efforts to begin to prepare for the winter. If the hive was weak and rolled over and pee'd on itself when you did this, it would demonstrate that it might need some help.
Drone eviction is typically more related to pollen stores and nutrition. If your bees are starved for protein, they'll toss out the drones. If the hive is demoralized by missing a queen and pollen collection ceases, they may toss out the drones. So your answer is, it depends. Tossed out drones however doesn't signal queenlessness.
-Jeff