Aggressive bees

[michellehick]

I've been keeping bees for about 3 years now without any problems, however this year my hive have trebled in size, I added more frame boxes and removed the queens excluder because of the amount of broad being produced, however when harvesting some of the honey in a full bee suit they went on a mission to attack me with full force, I got stung 6 times through my suit and leather gloves, I'm luckily not scared of bees and don't react too badly to stings, but I have never experienced anything like this. has anyone got any information on why this might have happened, and how to deal with it

 

[pargyle]

So ... did you use clearer boards to get the bees out of the supers first ?

What time of day did you take the supers off ? Or were you just taking a few frames out of the supers ?

Bees can get a bit uspet when you take their stores but I find that as long as I've cleared the supers and I sneak up on them before or after the time they are at their most active it's not that bad ... I don't take mine off until the end of August when the hive population is starting to reduce a little and that might help.

 

[enrico]

Could be a hundred reasons. The question is was this a one off or is it the norm. You were taking their stores. What time of the day? What was the weather like? How did you handle them? Are they like that when you normally inspect? There are methods of dealing with an aggressive colony but we must know if this is part of a pattern or just a one off

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I've been keeping bees for about 3 years now without any problems, however this year my hive have trebled in size, I added more frame boxes and removed the queens excluder because of the amount of broad being produced, however when harvesting some of the honey in a full bee suit they went on a mission to attack me with full force, I got stung 6 times through my suit and leather gloves, I'm luckily not scared of bees and don't react too badly to stings, but I have never experienced anything like this. has anyone got any information on why this might have happened, and how to deal with it

Initially I'd be wondering why you're using leather gloves with all the potential pheromone retention, clumsiness factor and difficulty of cleaning that leather gloves bring to the table.

 

[Antipodes]

I've been keeping bees for about 3 years now without any problems, however this year my hive have trebled in size, I added more frame boxes and removed the queens excluder because of the amount of broad being produced, however when harvesting some of the honey in a full bee suit they went on a mission to attack me with full force, I got stung 6 times through my suit and leather gloves, I'm luckily not scared of bees and don't react too badly to stings, but I have never experienced anything like this. has anyone got any information on why this might have happened, and how to deal with it

How have they been behaving through the season (whilst doing inspections etc. prior to the honey harvesting)?

 

[blackcloud]

As above
Sometime it's a one off.
I had a lovely nuc go ballistic a few months ago- they were satanic.
I'm fairly used to attitude from one or two of the hives but this attack shook me.
Most of the colony were hanging on the veil howling and it was like being molested with a stapler.
But they've never done it prior or since .
Swmbo says they pick up on my mood - so it's the employers fault!
Time of day sometimes factors- regardless of temperature some plants only relinquish the goods at certain times so you may have had too many foragers in the box.

 

[ericbeaumont]

the amount of broad being produced

Did you see eggs last time, Michelle?

If a strong colony swarms but fails to re-queen the bees can be murder, but if you saw eggs then they're queenright, and the reason lies elsewhere.