requeening mean hive

BeeMaster2 · April 12, 2016, 01:08:58 PM

Clive,
Time to take a trip to your farm and let them cool down there. I have one neighbor who out right threatened to kill me if his wife got stung, when I told him I was planning on getting bees.
I normally about 10 or more hives and they have never had a problem in the last 6 years.
Jim

CliveHive · April 12, 2016, 04:48:49 PM

Well - - no choice - - the hive has to go. I gave it a good shot, but Mrs. is mid-70's & Mr. is 80 and walks with a walker. Neither one has changed their mind since grade school - - They saw their lawn-man getting hit, and it scared the stuffing out of them - - - one step short of hysteria - - - just not worth it - - . I did pretty well on the phone - - I was out of town, or it would have been face-to-face, and that might not have worked-out too well - - - but the forth time Mrs told me it was illegal to have a hive within the city limits (when I knew it was legal to have up to two) I understood fact and logic were not going to win this one - - -

So the hive will move to the farm, and visits will be once or twice/month - - .

I really feel bad about it - - the old queen's bees should be all hatched-out and starting to die-off - - - but - - -

Anyway, I don't have a pick-up, but do have a Sequoia (Toyota's answer to a Suburban) - - Is there a net bag available to go around the hive for transport inside a vehicle??
Any idea where to get one? Just one brood hive to cover - - -

BeeMaster2 · April 13, 2016, 12:00:46 AM

Clive there is a net that you can buy. I only know this because I had a customer come and put their new hive in one and they put it in their suburban. I would not have sold the hive to them with out it. They drove over 3 hour of to get here. I do not know where they bought it.
Time to build an observation hive. That way it is in your house, out of neighbors eyes but you can watch it all you want. You really learn a lot about bees with one of these.
Jim

KeyLargoBees · April 13, 2016, 09:27:56 AM

Clive....whats the visibility of where the hives were? Move the old hive to the farm...test the temperament... give it a few months or till next spring and then sneak in a NUC or 2 of good tempered bees in a place hidden from casual view. I had bees in my back yard 5 " from a 6' privacy fence for 10 months before my neighbor found out....and only then because I brought him in the back yard to let him borrow a tool out of the garage.

If the flight path and exit path takes the girls out and up and they are 10' or so before they cross your property line NO ONE will ever know unless you get sloppy and let them swarm ;-)

CliveHive · April 13, 2016, 06:39:10 PM

Thanks KL - - They are behind a 6' fence now, and nobody would have known if they hadn't gone next door to buzz the lawn man - - - didn't like his weed-eater, and let him know about it!

No, I gave my word they would be gone, so I will move them - - . I'm close enough to farm land I expect to find a cotton or sorghum field that a farmer will be happy to have pollinated - - - My German short-hair pointer needs a 2-mile run every day, so I am out in those fields on a daily basis - - . I'll look for a spot 4 or 5 miles from here and see if I can out-live the &*&%$. Still planning to put one at the farm.

City of Corpus Christi Pest Control was by this afternoon. Seems they had received an "anonomous' call that there were bees behind the fence that separates our properties - - - . I asked what time the call had come in - - if it had been after I had talked with them and agreed to move the hive, they would have had a look at MY ugly side - - - but they made the call before I got hold of them, so they got a 'pass'. Life is hard enough when you're old - - being stupid doesn't make it any easier - - -

I printed out the city ordinance for the guy who showed-up, gave him a short tutorial on the lifecycle of bees, and explained what I had done. He was nice as could be - - a little embarassed to have bothered me, so I don't expect any trouble from that direction - -

Sure is a lot more exciting than collecting stamps!

CliveHive · April 13, 2016, 06:51:55 PM

Thanks, Jim - -

My bee guy solved the problem for me by suggesting one of those cooler/luggage carriers that fit into your trailer hitch - -
Perfect size for two hives, side by side, with plenty of places to secure tie-down straps - - aluminum (no-rust) 500# capacity
and on sale this week at Harbor Freight Tools for $80 - - Yee Ha!

BeeMaster2 · April 13, 2016, 09:35:10 PM

Clive,
I was on the road today and saw one on the back of a suburban and was going to mention it. I have one at the farm. I picked it up at a yard sale for $15.00, I could not turn it down, but have not had the need for it yet.

Jim

CliveHive · April 13, 2016, 10:10:51 PM

Hey, Jim -

Looks like the perfect fit - - but in my dreams it is a flatbed full of hives on pallets that I load with a forklift - - :) - - Just a little pipe-dream.
Not anything I plan to actually DO

BTW - - looks like a happy ending - - - kind of a trashy place, owned by a friendly fellow who moves houses for a living - - - his 'street' of
old buildings, junk trucks and other assorted junk, is about a quarter mile long, and ends with a small river that runs along the north side - - -
It is surrounded by several hundred acres of cotton and sorghum fields - - - . Possible problem when cotton fields are sprayed with pesticides??
I will check with my local beekeeper club(s) - - they should know, but it is not common to see hives along the fields

He thinks that might be a good place to put a hive - - - I think so too - - :) We'll see - - -

BeeMaster2 · April 13, 2016, 10:43:19 PM

Sounds like things are working out for you Clive.
Jim

CliveHive · April 13, 2016, 11:21:41 PM

Many thanks for sharing your knowledge and patience - -

I feel like living through "mean-queen" is a right-of-passage, and since everything appears to have worked-out well I would like some course correction if I am heading down the wrong road now. Good advice on the front-end is so much easier to implement than repairing messes later. - - - Here is what I am thinking - -

On April 10 inspection , my first 10-frame deep brood box has a 3 week old Italian queen, after about 4 weeks of an ugly queen - - It has (roughly)

A - 1.5 frame capped brood
B - 1.5 frame wet brood
C - 1.5 frame capped honey
D - 1.0 frame uncapped honey
E - 1.5 mostly drawn-out frames
F - 3 partially drawn-out frames
G - (blank - new frame)

It also has 2 queen cups

In about two weeks, I am planning to add a 2nd 10 frame deep brood box when I move the colony to a new location. I plan to split upper and lower boxes as follows - -

Slot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
A G B G C G D G E F

- - and leave it like that for the remainder of the season - - - maybe have a look in the top box every three weeks or so - - drop on a shallow super over a queen excluder about three weeks after the move - - maybe a 2nd super 6 weeks later - - and then start thinking about end-of-season strategy - - -

Point is - -

1. After 2 deep 10-frame brood chambers , I expect to be done for first season (but will watch for queen cells, and split if necessary - - but I don't expect that to be necessary (reasonable?)

2. I plan to leave the brood chambers & whatever stores they contain to the bees for winter stores, and plan to harvest whatever shallow supers I can stack on top of them for myself. (Maybe 2? 2.5 on a good day, in a good season?)

1. Are my assumptions (as a 'rough' gameplan) reasonable?
2. Should I make plans to feed my bees over the (short in South Texas) winter season, or will they have enough honey stores in the 2 brood boxes?

Once again (I can't say it enough) thanks to the pros for helping the newbees figure out what they are doing - - - -

cao · April 14, 2016, 12:19:47 AM

I hope I don't have to go through that "mean queen" rite of passage thing. I'm not sure I understand your distribution of frames though. If you are adding a second box, I would just pull a couple of brood frames from the first box and put in the middle of the second box.

In my neck of the woods, two deep boxes full is enough to overwinter so I assume you will be alright there.

KeyLargoBees · April 14, 2016, 01:43:30 PM

if I am reading your diagram right and A and B brood frame....don't do it. A's and B's should make up the center 6 frames.... let them fill the outer two on either side with stores.....you can drop a drawn frame or foundation frame on the outer edge of the brood for them to draw or use or drop a foundation-less frame in the middle of the brood if you like but putting brood on the outside of a 10 frame isn't natural for them and its also bad to put undrawn foundation between two brood frames.

Also with only 2 frames of brood it doesnt sound like your population is where it needs to be for you to add a second box....the queen will only lay what the nurse bees can cover...so you need to go through several brood cycles to build population before they can cover more frames and she can lay more...its an exponential growth curve thing.

Or am I missing something?

CliveHive · April 17, 2016, 08:18:52 AM

No, Jeff, you're not missing a thing - - I'm just learning the ropes. Your answer is
just what I needed - - perfectly logical.

Thanks - -

CliveHive · April 18, 2016, 03:00:25 PM

A couple more lessons learned - - -

Saturday, 16 April, 23 days after requeening

- - so I decided (reluctantly) to move my hive out of suburbia, after the neighbor's burning torches and rattling pitchforks kept waking up the dog - - - .

I got a carrier for the back of the Sequoia, a couple of tie-down straps and made a plan - - - go in the early morning when it was dark, and all the bees would be in the hive, drowsy - - a three minute job to slip-on the straps, plug the entrance, then have a cup of coffee and wait for the sun to come up - - -

But - - -

Seems the top of the hive was cocked enough to let bees out from the top - - -

Lesson 1: Mean bees don't care what time of day it is if you are messing with their hive - - they wake up real fast. 'All the bees are in the hive? Right! ALL the bees are in the hive, and when the rocket goes up, they ALL answer the call to duty - - - Kill!

Since it was to be a 3-minute job, I dressed for a three minute job. Top was all well and good - - - but jeans (rather than jeans and second layer of nylon jogging pants) and loose boots (rather than duct-taped) . Really determined bees have no trouble stinging through jeans, or finding a way into boot-tops or pant-cuffs - -

Lesson 2: If you KNOW (or suspect) the bees are mean, put on every piece of protective gear you own, and make sure you are sealed inside it. If you do it right, you won't get stung. If you don't have enough good gear - - don't mess with them - - !

So - - I was getting stung (not a whole lot, but 15 hits or so - - enough to hurt) and I was trying to get away from the bees - - - someone suggested 'get in a car!' Not recommended if you have 20 or 30 bees in hot pursuit. You end up in a closed car with 10 or 15 bees, no matter how fast you are. 'Duck in the garage, and lower the door'! Same result. Open the garage door and let them out! OK we can try that, but while they are deciding what they wanted to do, I was busy with the two who had found their way inside my jeans and making their way toward sacred ground. I found them, squeezed them through the cloth - - ah-ha! two down, two hundred to go - - -

Next? A quick dash through the door from the garage to the kitchen? Sure! It worked so well in the car and the garage, why not give it a try? Same result. It took about an hour to hunt down and kill eight or nine of them.

Lesson 3: If you have observed lesson 2, move away from the hive, and wait them out - - don't leave a string of ugly bees in confined space you might want to use later in the day.

Next step was to call my 'go-to' bee guy, an experienced exterminator/beekeeper who got me started, and tell him my sad tale - - - hoping he would offer a visit, and show me what I was doing wrong - - - . Instead, he told me to 'buck-up', find out why the top wasn't sealing the top of the hive, tighten the straps, and fix it. The message was clear enough - - 'You want to be a beekeeper? Do it!'

Last night I took two of my heavy-duty ratchet motorcycle tie-downs and adjusted them for the right size loop around a new hive in my garage. I waited for sunrise this morning - - no more fumbling around in the dark. After observing lesson 2, and double checking every zipper and snap, I lit-up my smoker, and went out to strap the hive.

Tuesday, 18 April, 25 days after requeening

First observation was that I hadn't tightened the tie-down strap very well - - it was slack, laying on the top of the hive. The bees were no friendlier this morning than they were on Saturday. Smoking made no difference. Two bees flew into the smoker, hunting for something to sting. BUT - - 3 minutes into it, I knew that I wasn't going to get stung. Right gear, put on right, makes all the difference - - . So I took the time to do it right - - installed a new top-board, dropped the top on, and everything appeared to fit well - - ratcheted it down. Took a walk to the other side of my lot, and waited for my 'escort to either get bored and go home, or sting my protective clothing and die.

Lesson 4: (The best lesson) You can learn the rules the easy way or the hard way, but if you want to keep bees, you will never have fun with them if you are afraid of them. 'Protective gear is there to make the beekeeper confident'. Got it. I can't make good decisions in a panic - - I need to feel confident around my bees.

Tomorrow morning before sunrise I will 'suit-up' and stuff the hive entrance - - then have my coffee, and wait for sunrise. If I have done this right, there shouldn't be many (or any) bees around the hive, and I can load it on the carrier, and take it to its' new home - - -

I think I'm getting the hang of it - - - a little, anyway - - -

KeyLargoBees · April 18, 2016, 03:49:51 PM

Clive do you have screened bottom boards? If so try this.....

I have found you have fewer bees active a couple hours after sunset than the same time before sunset. I set out a sprinkler and turn it on high and let it run for for 5-10 minutes to simulate a good rain storm....drives all the bees back inside and settles them right down....turn off the water and walk up and drop a piece of wood that will close the entrance in and then go to bed. you can tape the wood in place the next morning or use thumb tacks to keep it stationary if need be for transport.

I have to do this probably twice a week in the summer to put the girls to bed and prevent mass death from the pre dawn aerial mosquito spraying they do down here. Works like a charm for me But then again other than the biotch who stung me on the eyelid for no apparent reason this past weekend I have pretty calm bees and can walk around back and forth in front of the hives with no issues..... ;-P

BeeMaster2 · April 18, 2016, 04:12:42 PM

I never tried the sprinkler trick, sounds pretty good. Especially if they are bearding.

What I do is use a smoker and heard them in using the smoke but trying to keep it out side the hive.
It would not work on a mean hive like this one but I also use a piece of cardboard or the screen to move them into the entrance and then put the screen in place and staple it.
Jim

CliveHive · April 18, 2016, 07:29:27 PM

Thanks! Great tips. I guess one of my earlier questions - - whether a new queen was enough to adjust hive attitude enough to calm everyone down. - - - Ah - - no.
Not always, anyway. Michael Bush was nice enough to point out - three weeks for the new queen's brood to emerge, another three for the 'house bees' to be replaced,
but (the part I hadn't considered) another three weeks for the field bees - - the foragers - - to die-off. You want a full hive - - - during dark hours? 1/3 (or so) will still have
the 'mean-gene'. Based on what I have seen - - it is pretty powerful - -

Blacksheep · April 18, 2016, 09:18:19 PM

You might have a problem until all the old Queen's off springs are dead and gone to complete the clean out of the nasty bees!

GSF · April 19, 2016, 08:39:13 AM

Possible problem when cotton fields are sprayed with pesticides??

Around here, maybe thanks to GMO (I shouldn't have said that lol) the cotton is never sprayed. I'm about 1-2 hundred yards from a cotton field. If it is sprayed the bees and I have missed it. I met a guy that had around 25 hives and several hundred acres of cotton. He puts his hives around his field. Loves the honey and loves the pollination.

CliveHive · April 20, 2016, 10:51:47 AM

Hey, Key Largo Jeff - - -

" - fewer bees active an hour after sunset - - " Exactly right! The first operation I have performed that went absolutely according to plan. Like putting kids to bed - - so much easier if you catch them after they have played hard all day - - - stapled a piece of cardboard and screen over the opening, and those little buggers never even buzzed - - - about 4 stragglers buzzing around the old hive-site this morning - - too bad they will miss the party. The rest are all ready for the trip to their new home.

Thanks. Good advice.