A co-worker has a hive that was purchased 10 years ago from Miller Bee Supply (North Carolina), the bees have always been aggressive. What stock of breed did Miller provide? Has anyone else purchased from Miller Bee Supply (North Carolina)?
The hive is strong and always swarms each season and builds back healthy. When you mow, trim with weed eater and rob honey they always are ready to defend and chase you! When you open the hive it sounds like a waterfall and they boil out of it.
If they have swarmed every year the original queen probably left with the first swarm.Since then,the bees have raised their own queens,so the original genetics that were purchased are probably long gone
I would suggest requeening.
So how is it Miller's fault? To me sounds like they sent good bees, or at least ten generations back they did. The original maternal genes from miller left with the first swarm but the daughter, grand, great grand all the way to great grand x eight are still alive and kicking. In my book live bees beat dead bees every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Wherein the meanness come from? Who knows? Maybe great x ten grandma was a viscous little bleep but I doubt it. More than likely her younguns took a liking to ne'er do well drones that like to beat on their beeks.
Whatever, they're alive and doing well so go from there. Either immediately requeen (and immediately lose your survivor genes) with a queen from different stock if you must or do as I would and raise some daughters off the survivors and select the calmer ones to work with.
Quote from: David McLeod on July 31, 2011, 07:36:35 PM
So how is it Miller's fault? To me sounds like they sent good bees, or at least ten generations back they did. The original maternal genes from miller left with the first swarm but the daughter, grand, great grand all the way to great grand x eight are still alive and kicking. In my book live bees beat dead bees every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Wherein the meanness come from? Who knows? Maybe great x ten grandma was a viscous little bleep but I doubt it. More than likely her younguns took a liking to ne'er do well drones that like to beat on their beeks.
Whatever, they're alive and doing well so go from there. Either immediately requeen (and immediately lose your survivor genes) with a queen from different stock if you must or do as I would and raise some daughters off the survivors and select the calmer ones to work with.
He is not looking to blame fault, just curious about the strain of bee??? He has learn how to work them as they are! They are strong and productive.
He needs to change hive body and frames, the old hive is in bad condition, one deep & two mediums. Any recommendations on changing out the hive?
Ok, sorry. IDK, what strains miller sells much less what he sold ten years ago. If you play the numbers it was some sort of Italian based commercial strain as that is the most common nationwide. By now you have mutts and IMO that can be a good thing as they have survived right there on site and are as well adapted to your conditions as any are ever going to be.
I assume that the box has not been opened or if so not to the extent of actually taking it apart. If so expect to find a mess once you get inside. There will be burr comb and everything will be glued tight. This is going to be a mess made worse by hot bees but it can be done. Just take your time, use lots of smoke and suit up accordingly. I would be inclined to try to separate one box at a time and take it off some distance to work the frames out if you can. This will get some of the bees off of you as they will return to the hive for the most part. The boxes may be connected by burr comb but you cam use a length of frame wire to slide between the boxes to cut them apart. Now to get the frames out if they are salvageable you can use a sharp thin bladed knife and you hive tool separate them be careful when prying that you don't blow out the box or bust up the top bars. If you can get the framesbout in one piece set them over into new boxes. You will want to trim these up as needed to be able to pull them later as you will need to rotate the old stuff out and put new in as you work them in the future. If you do this one box at a time and let the bees back at the hive settle between boxes you ought to be able to get it done. Just be sure to move everything back to the original location to catch the foragers. If you do get into the boxes and find it to be to much of a mess to take apart your other option is to set up your new boxes right next to the old and set the entire old give right on top of the new and let them "grow down" into the new. Pull the old when they fill it with honey and do a crush and strain.
I had a hive that I took over this year that was much the same. What was suggested to me was to flip the hive body upside down and push the frames from the bottom. This will help prevent the frames from breaking. Before I did this in the hive I was working I used bee quick to drive the majority of the bees out of the box I was working on. I pushed the frames out, cleaned them up and put them in new boxes. Any frames with bad comb I left out of the new box and gave them a new frame. If there was honey in the frame I just put the frame outside of the hive for them to rob back into their hive. Hope all goes well :-D