Hot Hives

Keith13 · February 19, 2011, 08:21:04 PM

if i have a hot hive and split them will the aggresive genes automatically move forward or is there a chance they will be more gentle?

Keith

AllenF · February 19, 2011, 08:25:57 PM

There is a chance that the daughter queen may be gentle, as being hot also. But always requeen or pinch a hot queen.

Keith13 · February 19, 2011, 08:30:30 PM

Ok will do in the AM some queens will have a hard time tomorrow

Keith

teezbees · February 19, 2011, 08:33:28 PM

I agree. I'd requeen both of them personally. If you let the split raise it's own queen, you really don't know what kind of behavior patterns the drones she will mate with have.

Countryboy · February 19, 2011, 09:28:12 PM

It depends on what kind of split you are doing. Are you letting them raise their own new queen, or will you be introducing a queen of different genetics?

Supposedly defensive behavior is more determined by maternal lineage than paternal lineage, but I believe the drones can affect hive temperament. Depending on if the defensive behavior was caused by drone fathers of the workers, allowing them to make a new queen may fix the problem. However, if the queen mates with those same mean drones again, your hive may stay temperamental.

Here is how I dealt with a hot hive last year.
Requeening A Vicious Honeybee Hive

organicfarmer · February 19, 2011, 10:02:23 PM

Are they 'genetically' hot or is there something constantly bothering them? In latter, changing queen won't do. changing root cause should. At $25 a queen, i'd check for sure.

wadehump · February 20, 2011, 08:58:32 AM

ok country boy, nice vid good teaching tool. now to my question i have been messin with bees since 1974-75 and have seen a few hot hives but never anything like that. do you know the history of this hive was it a package from the south in ahb territory,was it always this hot , do you have any other hives that have this genetic tie in and are they hot. :shock:

Jim134 · February 20, 2011, 10:50:47 AM

This is a good teaching tool I like it thax.

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

Kathyp · February 20, 2011, 11:33:28 AM

that's good. thanks! i confess that i would have had my pant legs taped up for that one!

Kathyp · February 20, 2011, 11:41:48 AM

? after watching. a little OT...

do you run that many deeps all year, or is it something you do at certain time for some reason? also, are those the polyurethane boxes?

greenbtree · February 20, 2011, 12:16:50 PM

Wow Countryboy, I thought my "Tower of Power" girls were hot, but in comparison to those bees they are demure little ladies! Great video! I have a question for the general population - there was a thread here (I think) on "Raising queen cells without grafting" if you used that method, and gave this hot hive the bar with the eggs in the started queen cells at the same point Countryboy gave them a frame of eggs they would raise up a queen from that correct? From my understanding from the webinars and reading I just did you would have a better chance of getting a nice large, robust queen?

JC

lenape13 · February 20, 2011, 12:30:10 PM

Great video. My last two cut-outs were like that. I requeened one and let the other one raise their own queen from their own eggs (an experiment). Both are nice calm hives now. I guess my drones had a good genetic influence on the raised queen.

JP · February 20, 2011, 06:11:46 PM

Great video Country boy. Have to ask though, you using smoke on that hive, I can only assume so but not seeing it on the towering hive in your video. Alarm pheromone emitted from a large colony without smoke could cause just about any really big hive to go on the defensive and once you're marked they will pursue. No offense as to your practices and if I had to bet, I'm sure you did/do, just didn't see it in the video.

Keith, as mentioned, before you pinch a queen, you want to make certain that the hive is consistently aggressive and not going through a phase. I usually give them about three inspections to prove themselves.

Country boy, I have to admit I cringed when you pinched that big beautiful queen, but its what we have to do sometimes, sometimes even with a glimmer in our eye. ;)

...JP

Bee Happy · February 20, 2011, 07:53:27 PM

Great video CB - the 'hot' was really showing (and audible). I think it was kathy mentioned a good while back dropping the queen in a bit of alcohol. (Isopropyl? tequila? rum?) - for the alcohol to be used (was it swarm lure?) - even if you don't want the lure, I bet a buddy would be glad to have it.

Countryboy · February 20, 2011, 10:32:24 PM

do you know the history of this hive was it a package from the south in ahb territory,was it always this hot , do you have any other hives that have this genetic tie in and are they hot.

The queen was grafted from a queen mother that came from northern California. The queen was open mated in Arizona. I also had a couple sister queens, and they were gentle.

i confess that i would have had my pant legs taped up for that one!

The surprising thing is that they didn't go for my legs. I've helped pull honey on misty overcast days, and my jeans looked like pincushions from regular gentle Italians. These bees weren't interested in my jeans at all.

From my understanding from the webinars and reading I just did you would have a better chance of getting a nice large, robust queen?

Nope. Your chances of getting a good queen are about equal. In both instances, bees have the opportunity to raise queens from the right age larvae, and in both situations, queens would be fed comparably which is the big factor in queen quality.

do you run that many deeps all year, or is it something you do at certain time for some reason? also, are those the polyurethane boxes?

Using deeps as supers is cheaper than buying mediums and shallows, is a good way to get deep frames drawn out, etc. I had some hives that were 5 deeps tall this year. The boxes are a hard plastic, supposedly the same plastic material that milk crates are made out of.

Have to ask though, you using smoke on that hive, I can only assume so but not seeing it

Yes, I did use smoke - I've had a couple other beekeepers mention it too. I had over an hour of recorded time, and I had to condense it down to under 11 minutes for YouTube. When I edited out all the non-essential stuff, smoking the hive ended up being in times that I cut out. I didn't realize that I had cut out most of the smoking parts until after I had the video uploaded.

before you pinch a queen, you want to make certain that the hive is consistently aggressive and not going through a phase. I usually give them about three inspections to prove themselves.

I normally wear a t-shirt and veil. When it was a small colony, they were fine. I supered them up and left them alone. When I came back a month or so later, I smoked them and popped the lid. I got nailed on the arms 15 or 20 times. I suited up. They stayed miserable the rest of the time I was in the yard. I can't remember if I checked back to see if they were still mean, or if my next trip back was with the camera and excluders.

the 'hot' was really showing (and audible)

Speaking of audible, something I noticed was that when I talked for the camera, that really got them riled up worse attacking my veil. I tried breathing out my mouth to see if it was just CO2, but breath alone didn't seem to attract them. It was when I talked that they really went nuts for my veil.

I think it was kathy mentioned a good while back dropping the queen in a bit of alcohol. (Isopropyl? tequila? rum?) - for the alcohol to be used (was it swarm lure?) - even if you don't want the lure, I bet a buddy would be glad to have it.

Yeah, that queen ended up in rubbing alcohol. After I squished her, I just tossed her on the hood of my truck while I finished recording. After I got everything else done, the dead queen was being balled by bees. There was a pile of bees 3 inches across covering the dead queen. Her pheromones were that strong that she was attracting flying bees.

The only thing similar I have seen is when you have a battery box with 20 or 30 queens and you are going to yards to split hives - free flying bees will find the box of queens. Interestingly, those bees will all grab onto cages of one or two queens. You may have one cage with 4 or 5 bees on it, and no bees hanging on any other queens.

I also found it interesting that this queen floated. Normally, when I drop a queen in alcohol, they drop like a rock. This queen floated. I am assuming it is because of physical damage from being squished, but there is a possibility it was caused by something else.

BlueBee · February 20, 2011, 10:35:40 PM

Fantastic video Countryboy! You didn't spray your bee suit with bananas did you ;)

Did that hive suddenly get hot, or do you think it was that way all along? (Never mind, you answered above as I was typing)

applebwoi · February 21, 2011, 12:47:17 AM

That video was great. I've got a hot one and if it remains hot during my next couple of visits I'll use this method to requeen. Thanks.

Michael Bush · February 21, 2011, 07:41:14 AM

When a hive is hot and I like the genetics for other reasons, I've often "retired" the queen (drop her in a jar of alcohol for swarm lure) and let them raise her daughter and they are usually much better tempered. But then I've requeened (when I didn't care about the genetics) and had them in much better temperament in only a few days, which makes me think we overestimate the role of genetics in this. Definitely requeening makes a difference, but the time span is often not long enough for her genetics to have played a role yet.

TwoHoneys · February 21, 2011, 07:41:54 AM

Where do you live, Countryboy? I may have to come visit you and your bees. I'm just north of Cincinnati.

-Liz

Acebird · February 21, 2011, 04:49:06 PM

Great video. I was hoping you would have had the part where you actually find the queen on the frame and how you got a hold of her with those big gloves. To me finding the queen would be the hard part with all those angry bees after you.