Hello, I'm a new beek located in central missouri. Had my hives for about a month now. I have been reading and watching videos like crazy to understand and be a good beekeeper.
I was given 2 hives from my neighbors wife when he suddenly past away last year. I found a local mentor and he has helped me a ton however I want to see what others are thinking.
Hive "left" is a small weak docile colony. Hive "middle" was walk away split exactly 1 week ago due to #1 there are TONS of bees and #2 they were pretty aggressive. We basically made sure there was brood and honey in 2 deep boxes and then split the one hive in to two. When splitting we found brace comb everywhere.
I let them settle until Tuesday of this week. The first thing I noticed is aggressive behavior has gotten worse. I don't freak out and I do my best to move slow and gentle, however the minute I got my hive tool or hands near the hive I was immediately attacked by hundreds of bees. I was going to try and do an inspection however they attack so aggressively that it's intimidating.
I spoke with my mentor and he is suggestion to walk away split them again.. There are just sooooo many bees in both colonies this makes sense to me. I have extra hive bodies that I have made and have got from my neighbor so financially speaking the walk away split seems like the answer for me.
Thanks!
First, you say nothing about eggs or small larva. They can't make a queen out of larva more than 3 days old.
Secondly, you don't say how much smoke you used. Too much or too little smoke can make them mean.
Now, smoke them at the entrance lightly, wait a couple minutes, smoke lightly again, then remove the lid and smoke the top of the frames lightly. Check the boxes for eggs. One should have eggs, the other should have capped queen cells.
Report back what you find tomorrow and maybe then we can help.
What Iddee said but when you smoke them, with good heavy smoke, puff 3 to 4 puts into the entrance and then wait 10 minutes then do it again and wait 30 seconds, then enter the hive. This puts the bees in swarm mode and really calms them down.
I suspect you are using heavy leather gloves and there are lots of stingers in them. The sting pheromones will trigger aggressive behavior.
Let us know what happens.
Jim
Thanks for the replies!
So yes I do remember my mentor mentioning the eggs and larva and royal jelly etc.. So I'm sure the proper frames were put in the splits.
I have tried different combinations of smoke light smoke, heavy smoke. doesn't seem to phase them until I touch a frame and then they go crazy.
I have not tried the 10min method. Yes, my gloves had TON's of stingers in them.. I have new gloves on the way as I tried ones I had and it created a gap(big lesson learned there). I have a really good suit that kept me safe. However after all of the chaos yesterday I washed everything to make sure my suit is pheromones free.. :)
Honestly these 2 hives have me so gun shy that I probably won't do anything until my mentor comes the week of the 11th.
Welcome. :happy:
I feel your pain with the aggressive hive. I had on that was pretty mean and was packed with bees this year. Although my "mean" sounds pretty tame compared to yours. If I have more than one bee bumping into my veil or if they won't allow me to pull frames without my hands being attacked and posssibly stung, something will be done. By the way I don't wear gloves and I'm usually in t-shirt and shorts so I don't tolerate bad behavior in my bees.
Your splits are now single 10 frame deeps. Correct? If they are full of bees, I would add another box to them both. I did this with my hive. When I went back a week later to inspect and split again, I first pulled that extra box off. That removed a lot of bees. You could even cover that box to prevent them from flying while you check the bottom box. I could then see more of what was going on in the bottom box. In my case, I split them a couple more times(nucs).
Best of luck getting them calmed down.
Don't wear any deodorant or aftershave etc,
If you wash your suit and gloves don't use scented detergent.
May not help but Jim has some good smoke advice.
Cao is right to reduce bees you have to deal with, but I would get some one to help to find queen and bump her off, then take out open brood and put into another hive and add open brood ( shake bees off so you don't accidently transfer the queen)from a quiet hive so the new queen they form may have progeny that are more friendly.
Looking the week of the 11th will tell you nothing. This weekend you should have capped queen cells in one and eggs in the other. On the 11th, you will have eggs in one and the other will look queenless. No eggs, no larva, and "hopefully" a virgin queen that hasn't started laying.
You need to look for queen cells this weekend.
I am not sure a walk away is the thing to do for hot hives. Dividing the hive with the intent on squishing the queen is something else.
It is tough for a newbie to start off with a hot hive. Splitting might make it worse because then you will end up with multiple hives that are hot. I think you and your mentor should have left the hive alone until you had a couple of gentle queens ready to go. Then start dividing the hive. Install one of the queens in the queenless side and divide the queen right hive again. With each successive divide the queenless sides can be added together until you can get the queen right side small enough to find the queen and pinch her. This could be done all in one step taking every box separately away from the parent hive location.
Pitfall: If the parent hive genetics has AHB getting the queens acceptance might not go so well. My solution to that for a newbie would be soapy water.
Ace, what you don't seem to understand is, meaness is normally carried by drones. A mean hive may have a genetically docile queen laying eggs from mean drones. Her offspring queens may mate with docile drones and be very gentle.
I think rockink is doing fine thus far, but needs to check for cells now.
Quote from: iddee on June 02, 2018, 09:23:45 AM
meaness is normally carried by drones.
Where did you come up with that one? I am sure my wife will agree but I don't.
If the trait was exclusive to drones the temperament of a hive would come and go.
The temperament of a hive does come and go with each supercedure. Why do you think a normally docile hive becomes mean?
Queen change, however it happens.
Correct. Queen change equals different drones fertilizing.
So I'm out of town this weekend and unable to look in the hives. Ultimately my goal is to get the hives to a manageable size. I want to enjoy my hives and not dread going to work them. I want to be a good beek but starting with hot bees makes me want to bath them all with soapy water. I'm tired of being stung and just yesterday my neighbor called and she got stung and the kid mowing the lawn was nailed.
Iddee - what am I losing by not getting in there sooner than the 11th? If i wait, won't the end of the story be the same regardless if i open it or not?
Cao - we actually split in to 1 deep and 1 medium super for each and they both appear to have outgrown them immediately.
Oldbeavo - i will try the no deodorant for sure.
Thanks everyone for the replies.
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In my first season, same in your situation, I bought 2 mean hives that nobody want. They were the last 2. One deep and 1 double deep. I had to move them in the farm away from the neighbors. No knowing I had put them on top of an ant hill. So the ants got them all. I collected the equipment and started all over again with gentle genetic bees. Gentle bees are out there.
Then last summer I got one mean hive from a big operation queen producer. This company I will not buy queen from again. I ended up taking the 4 frames nuc to the open grass field after reducing it to manageable size using the following method. The bees also stung my new neighbor and his guess's small child in a backyard birthday party that summer. I learned that some bees are more sensitive than others especially the bees carrying the AHB genes. Even when down to 4 frames that raised a new daughter queen that summer they are still mean and sensitive bees.
When I retrieved this nuc hive in the early Autumn it was defending itself against an ant colony where I laid the hive on the ground under a big mulberry tree. Even the homeless people not dare to live under this tree. I felt sorry for my action not knowing that it will affect the homeless people.
My recommendation to you is to completely get rid of this hive by reducing the queen to 2 frames all by itself in a new location if you don't want to kill her. Take all her cap broods without the attaching bees to the gentle hives, distribute the brood frames evenly. Brush the attaching bees off into 5 drawn comb frames in the original location and put a new gentle mated queen there cage her first. This hive will start with eggs from the gentle queen. So no cap broods just the foragers and the nurse bees from the frames you removed to the other hives. The aggression will stop because they are too busy tending to the new larvae.
So, 1) Put the queen in 2 frames at another location and 2) take the cap broods to the gentle hives without the attaching bees. This is how I would clean up an aggressive hive. Found out that this was the most effective and fastest way to do it. You have to wear a full suit to avoid the stingers. To make the process easier, you can move the other boxes to a nearby location that way there won't be that many boxes and aggressive bees to deal with-- divide and conquer. Ask your mentor is this process is doable in your location so that the neighbors will not get sting. Tell them to go inside until this process is completed.
Beepro, your method will work............... As long as your bank account is larger than Warren Buffet's or Bill Gate's. My method will work if you want to play with bees for free.
Rockink, the new queen will emerge and the bees will remove her cell approx. June 7th. The virgin will mate and begin laying approx. June 21. Between those times, your split will look queenless, but may not be.
For the queenrite half, the time won't make any difference.
Okay that makes sense! So if i find one hive queenright and one with queen cells what are your suggestions from there? I'll plan on going in Tuesday. I will just gear up with layers.
I would like to do as much moving and shifting as possible all at once.
Luckily I have access to a few complete hives (cover, deep and bottom).
Thanks,
RockinK
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"....and one with queen cells what are your suggestions from there?"
I say not to keep aggressive genetics at all. Brush off the bees and donate the QCs frame to your
gentle queen right hive. They know what to do with these QCs,.
You can also donate eggs/young larvae frame from your gentle hive into the splits that have the aggressive
bees to see if they will make the gentle QCs. If they do then you can keep them until the virgin is mated.
WOW. I don't know where beepro gets all his ideas, but I won't be following many of them.
Rockink, if there are more than one frame with capped queen cells, and you can find the queen in the other half, kill her and add a frame with queen cells in that half. That leaves you with two halves with new queens emerging and "hopefully" mating with gentle drones and giving you two gentle hives. The broodless time will also reduce the numbers in each hive, which will help to gentle them down.
Alternatively, only one frame has queen cells. Gently cut one or two cells and move them to a frame in the queenrite half after dispatching her.
Alternatively, if you can't find her, wait until the requeened half has brood, then repeat the whole procedure with another split.
My idea is from the experience of keeping aggressive bees from last summer and in my first season. Let's say that your area has the aggressive bee genetics and you keep the split QCs to requeen (from this aggressive queen.) Then you will have the virgin (from the aggressive hive) and the drones of unknown origin from the local DCAs (which might carry the aggressive genes) mated together. This will make the hive aggressive again.
My method is to eliminate the aggressive QCs by replacing it with the gentle QCs from the
gentle hive. Now you will have a gentle virgin coming from the gentle hive mated with whatever drones are out there in the DCAs. This way at least 50% of the genes will come from the gentle virgin queen. A method that the bee farmers in S. Am. use to not have a full hive of AHB down there. I've used this method before trying to conquer an aggressive hive that I suspect carry the AHB genetics last summer. The hive is still aggressive enough to defend themselves from the ants but not enough to deter me from going in. In the end I did not keep this daughter queen. Or better yet find a known gentle mated queen to requeen all your splits. I'm sure your mentor can help you in this area.
I have 3 hives hive left is the weak docile hive. Hive middle I split and to make hive right.
That makes a lot of sense. I seriously doubt I will find the queen. These bees are bat s@#$ crazy and there are so many bees in the 2 hives. I will give it a try but i just don't know if I the nerve to hang in there long enough to get anything productive done.
I guess if nothing else i bathe the two mean hives with soapy water and hope my 1 weak hive makes it.
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Just a side note. If the hive is under attack by robbers or pests (skunks, yellow jackets....) they will be more defensive. Not saying that is whats happening but its something to be aware of.
Quote from: Dustymunky on June 02, 2018, 10:04:55 PM
Just a side note. If the hive is under attack by robbers or pests (skunks, yellow jackets....) they will be more defensive. Not saying that is whats happening but its something to be aware of.
I have heard this as well. I don't think this is the case. I will be setting up a game camera next week as well just to be safe.
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I think you need to re-read reply #8. I have requeened many aggressive hives by just pinching the queen and walking away. The emergency queen that was raised was just fine.
I think soapy water would be the very last thing. I do agree with what beepro said about divide and conquer but that's all. I agree with iddee with the rest. My mean hive was split several times until the bee numbers got down to a manageable amount. I think that is the first priorty. Some of the splits ended up queenless, some made new queen cells an one had the original queen. Since you have the eqiupment, I would split them several more times. I wouldn't worry about if they had brood or not. You said you have one deep and one medium for each split now. I would split them again, and again, if necessary. I would have 2 bottom boards with empty deep boxes ready. Remove the medium super an set aside. Pull five frames from the deep and put in new hive. Then add a super and add five frames from original super. The rest empty frames. Repeat with the second hive. If you find queen cells and can divide them that would be great. If not, you can add a frame of eggs later. Check on them in a week for queen cells and such. If by chance you find the queen, you could pinch her like iddee said if you wish. In my case I didn't. Just the reduction of number of bees calmed them down enough for me.
So your saying take 5 deep frames from existing hive and put in new hive and then put a super back on both. So now both hives have 5 deep drawn frames and 5 empty frames. Then repeat and do the same thing with the other hive?
I understand what your saying about the queen cells and will split accordingly shod i have the chance.
Thanks,
Rockin K
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Yes. Adding the super on each is dependent on how many bees are there. Basically splitting your two splits into 4. That spreads out the bees so when you inspect them you can see what you are doing.
Quote from: iddee on June 02, 2018, 09:23:45 AM
Ace, what you don't seem to understand is, meaness is normally carried by drones. A mean hive may have a genetically docile queen laying eggs from mean drones. Her offspring queens may mate with docile drones and be very gentle.
At least, that's the theory ... (which appears to have substance to it).
But it's worth bearing in mind that the 'meanness' isn't down to the drones themselves - it's that they are carrying the DNA of the queen heading a mean (or potentially mean) colony somewhere within distance. That characteristic is coming from
her - via her drones.
The commonly-heard concept of 'the local drones' (as if they are something over and above beekeeper-managed colonies) is something we should be treating with scepticism - imo.
LJ
Quote from: rockink on June 02, 2018, 10:00:08 PM
I seriously doubt I will find the queen. These bees are bat s@#$ crazy and there are so many bees in the 2 hives. I will give it a try but i just don't know if I the nerve to hang in there long enough to get anything productive done.
I guess if nothing else i bathe the two mean hives with soapy water and hope my 1 weak hive makes it.
That is
THE problem - lots of good ideas being expressed - but exactly HOW do you achieve access in order to deploy them ? However, there's no need to resort to using soapy water - ever - as there's another 'solution' (pun intentional) which can be used.
One of the persistent myths perpetuated in beekeeping is that when a hive is smoked, bees will load-up with honey and thus become less aggressive. So - try smoking (even heavily), then lift the lid off quickly. Do you see bees rushing off to their stores combs in order to gorge themselves with honey ? No chance - they keep carrying on just as before - either that, or they become irritated and start focusing upon the beekeeper instead. It's just one of those myths which keeps 'doing the rounds'.
However, there
IS a way of achieving this - it's called 'Drumming the Hive'. Historically, this expression has had two uses: the first refers to beating on hives (usually skeps) in order to move bees from one hive into another. In this case it was often called 'Driving the Bees'.
In it's second sense, 'Drumming the Hive' was a technique employed by early beekeepers, but which has fallen out of fashion - I can't remember reading about this in any modern beekeeping book.
The technique involves smoking through the entrance of an aggressive hive very heavily, then 'drumming' the box - meaning hitting or slapping it - whatever takes your fancy. Then smoke heavily again, then 'drum' again - keeping that sequence going for at least 5 minutes, even 10 if you can manage it. (which seems a very long time when doing this)
Inside the hive the bees will think that Armageddon has arrived: the End of the World - or at least the end of the world as far as this particular hive is concerned - and so
WILL load-up with honey, ready for an instant evacuation. Perhaps this is where the original myth of "smoke equals loading-up with honey" originated ?
Anyway - the technique works, and works well - and will grant you a brief time-window of 20 minutes or so, which gives enough time to separate boxes and thus begin the process of weakening the colony in order to find it's queen.
'Drumming the Hive' is probably best seen as being a last resort - when you can't even open a hive to begin dealing with a problem without being mobbed.
Once a multi-box hive is split and separated by (say) 10 feet - it should become obvious which box contains the queen, and so that box can then be further sub-divided the next day. Best not to hang around too close or for too long after drumming, as when the bees realise they've been tricked, they become particularly cranky.
I've only ever needed to do the above 2 or 3 times in my life, but on each occasion it worked extremely well - and was seen at the time as being 'a life-saver'.
LJ
I had a really bad hive last year. It was 4 boxes high because I use only 6 frame boxes. What I did was made a new hive out of each box. All the field bees returned to the original spot. So I had 3 boxes with mostly young bees to work with. I came back a few (4 I think) days later and the hive with young larva would be the one with the queen. Based on an educated guess the first box I opened had the queen and found her on the second frame I looked at. Then recombined the boxes and re-queened with a purchased queen. Problem solved.
With a smaller hive you can move the entire hive and put a dummy in the original location to collect the field bees. Then you can look for the queen in without the aggravation.
Quote from: rockink on June 02, 2018, 12:33:46 PM
Cao - we actually split in to 1 deep and 1 medium super for each and they both appear to have outgrown them immediately.
If I had bees that would do that I'd keep them in a back yard away from the mowers, super them up and let em rip. I'd put up with getting stung all to hell a few times a summer for all the honey and drawn comb they'd make.
Don't tell nobody that I said thon they'll get mad.
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Thanks everyone for the help!
To make it easier my hives are L2 & L3.. my 2 new ones will be L4 & L5
Today I was able to get 2 complete hives together, to split my two hot hives tomorrow. I should have 1 queenright(L2) and another with queen cells(L3).
My plan is 1st to see if i have Queen Cells. If i do i will try to split them between the 3 hives. (L3,L4,L5).
If queen cells are not on multiple frames than i will make sure my new hives have a good mixture of eggs, larva, capped brood, pollen, nectar and honey.
If my queen cell hive only has 1 frame of qc's than i probably shouldn't split it right? Or would it be okay to grab 2 frames from L2 of eggs from the queen right hive and then just shake nurse bees?
I would shake bees from L2 to L4 and L3 to L5.. Making sure i don't mix them.
Thanks,
Rockin' K
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Quote from: rockink on June 03, 2018, 10:28:05 PM
If my queen cell hive only has 1 frame of qc's than i probably shouldn't split it right?
That would depend of how mean they are. If they are calm enough for you then leave them be. If not then I would split them. To me the goal is to get them to a manageable state.
I make splits as small as two deep frames or 3 medium frames if I have a capped queen cell. I usually don't shake extra bees unless there aren't many on the frames and its going to be cold. If I'm making a split with eggs then I do because they need to make and feed the queen cell. If I need to grab frames from more than one hive I will smoke them a bit to cover the scent a little and chase off a few foragers(nurse bees will stay on the frame). I have been guilty of mixing and matching frames to make splits on more than on occasion.
Hope everything goes well.
I take every opportunity I can to do my little bee experiment over the years. Because my aim is to keep all gentle
bees in my local area sending these docile drones to the DCAs every season, I cannot take any chances. The experience from last
summer in dealing with a mean hive that multiply like crazy gave me a valuable lesson. Her daughter mated with the local carnis drones also
produce these sensitive bees. They are able to defend against the carpenter ants there. But I will certainly not keep this type of bees
around my home yard. So yes, in the absent of the aggressive drones, her daughter mated with the local gentle drones will produce calmer bees. It all
depends on what type of drones you have at the local DCAs. And every beekeeper's yard is different with the drones they have.
Keep track of these daughters after they are mated. Mark each hive or queen to track them over time if you have to. When these hives are
big and strong, let us know if they are gentle, half-gentle, or fully aggressive hives. I still blame it on the aggressive local drones should you live in the
AHB country. Every beekeeper's situation is different!
Update on my hives.
Tonight my bees were totally different and not the big a-holes they have been. I'm glad i had my gear on but wasn't so intimidated! I'm not sure what was different. We didn't start until 6pm!?!?
L1 - Not weak - Not Strong - just perfect and queenright.
L2 - Is extremely strong! After checking all of the top frames my mentor spotted the queen in the upper super! We put her in a cage and did a reverse split. Which after moving frames in to a another deep we created L4 and released the queen there.
L3 - Was created when we split L2 a few weeks back on May 24th. Only one queen cell was spotted. A few queen cups. Just in case we added another frame of eggs/larva. Should have a queen soon.
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I have found that sometimes just splitting a mean hive can calm them down. It's like putting the big bully in his place. Glad it is working out.
Glad to hear the good news.As I have said before, there's no need to spend a lot of money to enjoy beekeeping.A little patience and common sense goes a long ways.
Congrats.
Glad your bees have calmed down. What was different? Did you wash your gloves or use different ones?
Jim
Thanks everyone for the advice.
Jim, I washed everything.. Gloves, suit, veil.. So maybe that was it. However when the suit was new I still got attacked.
That brings up another question how often should a person wash their suit? I wasn't mobbed last night but I know my gloves and suit were stung several times?
Lastly, seeing the queen for the first time was a really cool moment for me.
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Glad that you did not squish this queen. She's a fine specimen! Keep her for a backup just in
case the other splits cannot produce a mated queen. In a small nuc hive they will not be mean as there are hardly that
many bees to keep the hive going. Issuing the guard bees is out of the question!
Quote from: rockink on June 06, 2018, 10:12:29 AM
Thanks everyone for the advice.
Jim, I washed everything.. Gloves, suit, veil.. So maybe that was it. However when the suit was new I still got attacked.
That brings up another question how often should a person wash their suit? I wasn't mobbed last night but I know my gloves and suit were stung several times?
Lastly, seeing the queen for the first time was a really cool moment for me.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
I do not wash my suit very often but mine is a vented, I also do not use it very much. The bees do not tend to sting the vented suits because they are mostly netting. If you know your suit was stung I would wash it. If your spouse does not get stung regularly, wash it your self. Just handling the dust from bee venom without being stung can cause a future severe reaction.
Jim
Quote from: sawdstmakr on June 06, 2018, 10:04:33 PM
Quote from: rockink on June 06, 2018, 10:12:29 AM
Thanks everyone for the advice.
Jim, I washed everything.. Gloves, suit, veil.. So maybe that was it. However when the suit was new I still got attacked.
That brings up another question how often should a person wash their suit? I wasn't mobbed last night but I know my gloves and suit were stung several times?
Lastly, seeing the queen for the first time was a really cool moment for me.
[attachment=0][/attachment]
I do not wash my suit very often but mine is a vented, I also do not use it very much. The bees do not tend to sting the vented suits because they are mostly netting. If you know your suit was stung I would wash it. If your spouse does not get stung regularly, wash it your self. Just handling the dust from bee venom without being stung can cause a future severe reaction.
Jim
I have seen that a lot but is there some sort of science behind it?
I read about it on BeeMaster years ago and have seen a case where it happened. The wife needed stings every day to live/get out of bed for 25 years and the husband did the wash and ended up in the hospital years later when he got stung.
Jim
Quote
I do not wash my suit very often but mine is a vented, I also do not use it very much. The bees do not tend to sting the vented suits because they are mostly netting. If you know your suit was stung I would wash it. If your spouse does not get stung regularly, wash it your self. Just handling the dust from bee venom without being stung can cause a future severe reaction.
Jim
My suit is that vented 3 layer netting. So saying that I know it was stung is only an assumption cause i know my gloves were stung so i just assumed my suit was. I guess i will base my next visit to the hives on whether or not I wash it more often.
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Quote from: rockink on June 07, 2018, 09:07:14 AM
i know my gloves were stung so i just assumed my suit was.
I would assume your suit was not stung if you didn't feel it. The bees sting gloves because they are made of skin. They sting through rubber or cotton gloves to get through to your skin. Similar to your suit. I have never been stung through my suit or clothing.
I did not know about washing bee suits could be a problem. I try to learn something every day, I have, so I guess I can go back to bed.
I think I'm going to requeen my big hive. My sister-in-law got nailed today she was over 50ft away.
I have got 2 splits from it and it's still has bees for days.
I did decide to install my game camera tonight so maybe I'll see something that will explain the aggression.
They have only been queenless since tuesday and I can have a new queen by the 13th or so.
This makes sense to me. Am I completely insane?
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Rock,
Give them time to settle. I was told years ago by someone here on BeeMaster that if you walk into your apiary and get stung at a fair distance, that is a sign that you probably have a queen less hive. Once they have a queen cell developing, they should calm down.
Jim
I like to take the analogy that the mean bees are like certain breeds of the mean dog. If their genetics are mean then this is what they are. No other way to change it other than taking the mean hives out to an open grass field. For weeks, the mean foragers still linger around the original hive location even though it had been removed already. This was what I had to go through last season in dealing with an aggressive hive.
You can never change its aggressive nature just like the mean dogs. Either requeen or get rid of this hive. No need to kill them all because with an ads on CL they will be gone within an hour.
If you leave them there you will be dealing with the queen less and queen right mean hive for months to come. I took my neighbor's words that my bees stung them. And took them out to the open grass field until late Autumn when I retrieved the hive again. With the mean genetics they may or may not be the gentle type bees after requeening. The local drones also contribute to the other half of the genes either gentle or aggressive.
Beepro,
Last year I had a hive that was I knew was rather rough and when I opened it, it unloaded on me and sent me and my wife running. Right after that I learned about using the 10 minute and 30second smoke rule and from then on that hive was as calm as can bee. I have a new hive in the back yard that was mean right after I installed it. You could not get near it. I was out there today around it with no problems.
I agree, some hives can be consistently mean and need to bee requeened.
Jim
>I think I'm going to requeen my big hive. My sister-in-law got nailed today she was over 50ft away.
Was she wearing perfume or other "smelly" stuff? That could have been the reason for the sting. And do you know that the bee came from that hive? I agree with sawdstmakr, let them settle into their new situation.
Quote from: beepro on June 09, 2018, 12:01:27 AM
You can never change its aggressive nature just like the mean dogs. Either requeen or get rid of this hive. No need to kill them all because with an ads on CL they will be gone within an hour.
That has not been my observation. My "mean" hive this year has already calmed down. After splitting it 4 or 5 times, and them producing new queens and reduction of bee numbers they are back to normal. Even the original hive with the original queen has calmed down. It has only been about a month. If you are in or are close to an area that has AHB then this might not work. But it is no guarantee even requeening will do any better. And IMO it is not good to advise someone to sell(or even give away) a "hot" hive.
To a first year new beekeeper, dealing with aggressive hives are stressful to say the least. When it involves family member or neighbors then it is out of the
question. Better get rid of this mean hive than keeping it around the yard. By now the family member who got stung will think twice before heading out to the yard. Until this hive is gone the image of the bee sting will linger around her head. No pun intended.
It just take the fun out of beekeeping! Get rid of it, even for a small price and then buy another gentle type bees hive to keep. Only an unsuspected new beekeeper like myself or a seasoned beekeeper will buy these mean hives. An experienced beekeeper will know what to do to calm things down. At every change you made there will be issues that needed to be address. You don't expect a new beekeeper with enough experience to deal with these new issues when they come up. I have 5 years of experience under my belt before knowing what to do with an aggressive hive. Even then I still made some errors that should of been dealt with better solutions. This cannot come from a first season of beekeeping!
Remember that everybody's beekeeping experience is different as our bee environment is different too. What works for you might not work in my area.
So I have only been a beekeeper for about 6 weeks. Since then i have split 1 hive in to 3 hives because of aggressive bees. I'm tired of being afraid to go in the vicinity of my hives just to see how they are doing without the fear of being stung. I get it, you will get stung. But i want to earn that sting not just get stung from walking around. I have been stung about 20 times. They aren't fun right now.
I have decided to requeen, I have ordered 2 Italian Queens. I should get them next Wednesday or Thursday.
I'm going to split the hive, it has been queenless since Tuesday(6/5).
This hive consists of 1 medium and 1 deep brood box and a medium super. My plan is to evenly split the resources making 2 hives.
Once that is complete i will move the boxes about 75ft to a new hive stand late at night. I will leave an empty hive to catch the field bees.
I will place brush around the entrance to force them to reorient themselves.
Then finally requeening. I will inspect each frame throughout the hive removing any queen cells and introduce my new queens and then leave them alone for about 7 days?
Please let me know if I should do something differently.
Thanks,
Rockin K
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Sounds like you did your homework. When you remove the queen cells, make sure you get every one of them.
Twice I have removed every queen cell/queens from my 8 frame observation hive and l marked a queen and put them in the hive. Both times another queen was hiding in the hive and killed my marked queen.
Jim
...."And IMO it is not good to advise someone to sell(or even give away) a "hot" hive."
Cao, I just don't yap my mouth without the experience to back me up. Having bought 2 aggressive hives in my first season and dealing with one last season, I already know the psychology that one has to go through in handling a hot hive. Even with experiences, it stressed me out alright. And with newbie without the experience I can see the fear of being sting again in the yard. Not going out will not solve this problem at hand. Not sure if there are neighbors nearby involve either.
If Rock follow my advice, he will be less stress out with beekeeping. If I'm in his situation or facing another aggressive hive in the future, I would do the same thing. First and foremost is to get rid of these aggressive hives. The stronger the splits, now 3 hives, the more aggressive bees will be issued (within 1-2 weeks) from these 3 hives. Now instead of one hive, he has 3 hives to deal with.
That is why I recommend to get rid of this aggressive hive on CL ads; give the buyer this queen also. Then he can get another hive with the gentle type bees to keep. This is the fastest method to tame these stinging bees in his yard. Been there done that before!
The flying bees will go inside the gentle hive and with the queen they will calm down also. But if he want to explore the option of bringing in 2 mated queens trying to calm the queen less hives down then it is his choice. For sure, if he does not get rid of the original queen or break it down to only 2 frames of bees, then they will sting again when this hive grow more in the future. The aggression will never stop until you have break them down so that no more foragers are issued.
beepro
We obviously disagree with what to do with a mean hive. In my case, ALL the splits I made from my mean hive turned out to be gentle as the rest of my hives(including the one with the original queen) . Could be location, luck, nature or whatever but it worked for me(I don't have to worry about any AHB in my area of the country).
Rockink has a plan and more importantly a mentor to help. I think his plan will work and hopefully in a few weeks he can get back to the fun part of beekeeping. The only thing that I would do different would be I would let them raise their own queens but it is his choice to buy queens.
The one part of your advice that I strongly diasagree with:
Quote from: beepro on June 09, 2018, 12:01:27 AM
You can never change its aggressive nature just like the mean dogs. Either requeen or get rid of this hive. No need to kill them all because with an ads on CL they will be gone within an hour.
Quote from: beepro on June 09, 2018, 01:29:29 AM
Get rid of it, even for a small price and then buy another gentle type bees hive to keep. Only an unsuspected new beekeeper like myself or a seasoned beekeeper will buy these mean hives.
How can you advise a new beekeeper to get rid of a mean hive to an unsuspecting new beekeeper as a way to solve his problem? If you had a mean dog that you couldn't control, would you put it on CL to solve your problem?
If I love my mean dog then it will go through a series of modules at the dog training camp. If not then it will go to the pound or up for adoption.
In this case we're talking about bees which is quite different than dogs. Talking about higher level of intelligence here. Dogs can be train but bees only react and cannot be train at all.
If a suspecting new beekeeper, after knowing that these are the aggressive hive based on the ads, and still choose to buy it then it is not the seller's fault. Who would buy such a hive knowing that they are mean, especially from a new beekeeper. If I'm a new beekeeper I would not after reading the CL ads. Only the seasoned beekeeper will buy them. And has a method to calm them down afterward. If you are new after knowing all the facts, would you buy it too?
Beepro,
When I bought my first Nuc, a guy had just left that, with no protection on, lifted the lid of each of the available nucs until four bees came out of one and stung him. He then took that Nuc. He was looking for the meanest hive. He said they were the best producers. If he advertises they are mean he will get someone who wants them.
Jim
No one wanted more than me to give this hive a soapy water bath however through advice from here and my mentor I have decided to requeen.
This hive was given to me by my neighbors wife this year. My neighbor who was my first mentor past suddenly last june. I didnt buy it but I do want it to work.
I'm bringing in a bred queen to hopefully replace the genetics in those 2 hives.
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Update.
Okay, so today I split the L2 hive in to 2 hives and moved it 50 yards. I split the resources as evenly as I possibly could.
I killed about 20 queen cells!! I wish I would have made sure that the first split we a few weeks back was queen right but oh well it was an after thought.
On Thursday the queens I ordered will be here then I will put them in the hives.
I put another hive with a few frames in L2's place. My goal is to replace the genetics in the hives, so I'm thinking I just let those bees that returned to the old spot in the replacement hive just live out there days over there.. The split hive's seemed to still have LOTS of bees so I'm not sure if I'm doing all of this right but if felt good to get this accomplished today
-Rockin K
As long as your split hives are rather weak then the foragers/guard bees will not bother you. Keep them small so they cannot get mean. No guard bees to sting you.
On your splits, be sure to have enough mated queen to requeen them all. It will be another month or 2 before the mean guard bees are dead. Dividing them is to weaken the hive so that not many guard bees are issued.
Today I checked on all 5 of my hives. I found the queen in 3 of them. My 2 marked Italian queens were doing great. Both are laying and seemed content. I spotted my first unmarked queen in another hive.
My other 2 hives, I found eggs in one and the other was pissy so I left the one alone.
So only beeing a beek for about 1.5mo I will take this as a huge win!!
-Rockin K
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Quote from: rockink on June 21, 2018, 03:00:10 PM
Today I checked on all 5 of my hives. I found the queen in 3 of them. My 2 marked Italian queens were doing great. Both are laying and seemed content. I spotted my first unmarked queen in another hive.
My other 2 hives, I found eggs in one and the other was pissy so I left the one alone.
So only beeing a beek for about 1.5mo I will take this as a huge win!!
-Rockin K
Good deal. The bees usually work things out if we let them.
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