Can honeybees be imprinted to aggressiveness?

van from Arkansas · August 22, 2019, 10:20:29 PM

A friend recently ask me a question: can honey bees be imprinted towards aggression? Imprinted was the exact word my friend used, learned is a better choice of words than imprinted.

My friend explained to me that he had a gentle hive that he had to conduct some very intrusive hive manipulations on. From that point on the hive was very aggressive towards my friend.

My answer was YES a gentle hive can LEARN to be mean.

Furthermore, I learned if I DISAPPOINT a queen, the queen can/will abscond the entire hive. My mistake: I removed an entire frame, about 7,000 eggs and I left the frame sitting next to the hive so all eggs chilled and died. I thought the frame was empty, brand new comb with short cells and a cloudy day inhibited my ability to see the eggs. At least I did not see the eggs until 3 days later, a sunny day exposed my error. 2-3 weeks later ABSCOND: the queen, all the bees, all stores were gone. The queen had stopped laying, so there was no brood. My bad and my only abscond.

May your bees prosper.
Van

Ben Framed · August 22, 2019, 10:37:54 PM

Quote from: van from Arkansas on August 22, 2019, 10:20:29 PM
A friend recently ask me a question: can honey bees be imprinted towards aggression? Imprinted was the exact word my friend used, learned is a better choice of words than imprinted.

My friend explained to me that he had a gentle hive that he had to conduct some very intrusive hive manipulations on. From that point on the hive was very aggressive towards my friend.

My answer was YES a gentle hive can LEARN to be mean.

May your bees prosper.
Van

I agree Mr Van. from experience. I had a very gentle hive that I loved to go through. One day I decided to check them out and didn't have a smoker handy. I went through about four frames and no problem. Finally they got mad and charged!
From that time forth I had to use a very much more gentle approach and smoke more regularly than before. This was not the result of them re-queening themselves. They had the same marked gentle queen, gentle up to this point. No doubt that I made these bees aggressive by my incompetent actions. It seems all Gods creatures have learned behaviors. Deer, dogs, raccoons, etc. the list can go on and on.
Phillip

Nock · August 22, 2019, 10:44:10 PM

Interesting stuff.

BeeMaster2 · August 23, 2019, 08:50:33 AM

I tell new beekeepers that I can make a calm hive mean and a mean hive calm. It isn?t depends on how you handle them. I a skunk or other animal is bothering your hive every night the hive will become more aggressive. It needs to do this to survive.
I have a cutout hive that was very aggressive from the first day that I installed them. They ran me off my riding mower the first time I drove behind the hive. Wednesday my bee inspector came and I was able to inspect this hive with no protection.
I use the 10 minute and the 30 second rule for smoking them and they were calm as can bee.
Jim Altmiller

Fishing-Nut · August 23, 2019, 10:03:49 AM

I did a cut out on an old porch column once and the hive was scary mean. I usually encourage the home owners to come and have a look if they want to but this time I told them all to stay in the house. The bees were down right nasty. I got them installed in my box, sealed them up and left out. After a few days of having them home they were still real mean. Couldn't even get around the box without a few popping me. I told my wife that I'll give them 2 weeks and if they dont calm down they'll get re-queened or get a soapy bath or maybe go to a friends that likes super mean bees. They ended up calming way down. That old porch column was full of holes and rotted wood I think they were having a hard time defending that hive and were pretty ticked off about it. After they got settled and rebuilt in the box they are in now they act just fine.

Beeboy01 · August 23, 2019, 05:35:58 PM

I've found that some hive tend to get meaner during inspections than others. I had one small swarm years ago that was the the meanest box of bees that I ever had. They started out calm but all of a sudden became little hellions with wings. Never could figure out why. Getting imprinted can happen if there is a continuous disturbance to the hive over a few weeks. I'm guessing that an entire generation of workers will get aggressive if the hive gets bothered a lot over an extended time frame. After that it becomes an imprinted behavior, maybe not working them for two or more weeks would help reprogram them, just a thought.
Another cause could be if the queen starts using a different drone's sperm, if the drone is carrying a aggressive gene all it's offspring will tend to aggression. Had that problem with an Africanized hive in my yard, it would overload the area with drones and caused some aggression in the rest of the yard with nucs I was raising. It took a while to replace the queens with new ones but it was worth it. Getting rid of the questionable drones was the first step. It's a good question.

Anonimo22 · August 25, 2019, 04:10:32 AM

I've heard that Africanized bees tend to not like the areas with colder winters. Is that still the case? Someone mentioned them going North.

CoolBees · August 25, 2019, 01:27:37 PM

Quote from: Anonimo22 on August 25, 2019, 04:10:32 AM
I've heard that Africanized bees tend to not like the areas with colder winters. Is that still the case? Someone mentioned them going North.

From what I understand, they are finding some "Africanized Genetics" showing up in northern Bees - not actual "Fully Africanized" bees. I'd hazard a guess that this is due in-part to migratory commercial operations that spend time in more southern (Africanized) areas during the year. Just a guess on my part though.

BeeMaster2 · August 26, 2019, 07:39:48 AM

Quote from: Anonimo22 on August 25, 2019, 04:10:32 AM
I've heard that Africanized bees tend to not like the areas with colder winters. Is that still the case? Someone mentioned them going North.

Some areas of the southern US have Africanized Bees in places that get cold, but not severe. Here in Florida, we have had Africanized Bees south of The I-4 corridor since 2008. They have not moved north of it even though the weather is much warmer than areas in the south west that have cold winters and have Africanized Bees. We do not know what is holding them back. Bees are constantly moving in and out of Florida and Africanized bees are occasionally moved north but they do not survive. A feral Africanized hive was found in Georgia but they do not survive there.
Jim Altmiller

qa33010 · August 29, 2019, 03:07:38 PM

Sometimes it's not the manipulations. In my case, I am gentle during inspections and don't intrude too often (after my first year). But where I use to check them in shorts and T-shirt, I now have to armor up. It happened after I was prescribed potassium on top of other medications. They do NOT LIKE MY SMELL AT ALL! Everyone else can go in with 'minimal' problems (experience), but, if I get within 15 feet they start buzzing and head butting. Even stayed away for a year...same thing. Something I have to live with. Fortunately they are cool hives...living in town and all...I can be standing right next to someone and they exclusively target me... Heheheh..

FatherMichael · August 29, 2019, 07:23:42 PM

Forget what I was doing but thought it would take only a few minutes and so did not smoke the hive.

A couple of bees got very angry with me -- from a hive that let's me mow right in front of it.

For hours those bees tested me every time I went out to the yard. Could not sit peacefully on my patio.

Eventually, one gave up and left me alone but the other one pushed me too far. Had to dispatch her -- broke my heart.

I think that bees are very dedicated to their assigned task. The guard bees probably imprint and, if necessary, spread the word like foragers spread the word about nectar and pollen.