aggressive colony carbon dioxide?

[Dishmop]

Move the hive 10 feet and place a new hive on the old location. This will get all the flying bees away from the hive with the queen in it. Wait 24 hours to make sure all the flying bees are in the new hive. Next split the old hive into 2 nucs, while doing this find the nasty queen and kill her. Then introduce 2 new queens to the 2 nucs you made up. 9 weeks after you done that all the old nasty bees will be dead and replaced by your new queens brood.

Can you just run thro that again Winker? am I wrong or is there a bit missing? what about the bees that went to the new hive?

 

[wondervet]

further update. All of the sealed brood which we donated to another hive failed to hatch. temperature plummeted down to about 4 degrees by the time we were through with finishing off the bad lot. Obviously 10-15 mins at that temp was enough to do for them. shouldn't have done it so late in the evening.

so never got the chance to find out if the brood behaved better under a different queen.

on the positive side the apiary is a delight to be in for the first time in a year. not having to walk around the field for 30 mins afterwards v good too.

 

[rae]

Can't say I blame you at all. We've just merged our psycho colony onto a known docile queen, initial signs are that they are a bit calmer, but we'll need to wait for the old bees to die off. Hopefully we've stopped the supply of bad tempered drones in the area.

They were on their last chance - if they had failed to merge then they would have been for the chop - too many passers by, and inspections were a nightmare.

 

[merylvingien]

I dont like the idea of petrol(fire/ contamination) and the detergent water as you say is messy. Im also concerned about the distress and cruelty in the methods.
I have my alternative method and kit identified should the need arise ... Mig or Tig welding gas. (Argon or Argon CO2 mix with a low pressure regulator). Which I luckily have on hand or other purposes.
Odourless inert gases.

Soapy water is the fastest way of killing bees that i have ever seen.
Its an instant knock down. And when dealing with a large, highly aggresive colony i would reccomend a back pack sprayer and plenty of padding.

In the USA where they have africanised bees, this is the standard approach to dealing with swarms.
They cannot tell if the african strain is present so treat all swarms in the same fashion. Shame, but thats the result for messing about with nature.

I have only ever had to deal with one of my own colonies in this fashion, extremely aggresive and they had to go. But most the bees i have are overly protective. I think its a local thing due to bad beekeeping and more importantly bad breeding.
I have reduced the amount of colonies i keep down due to this reason as it is no longer a pleasure.

 

[Lesley Hoppy]

The outcome from the aggressive colony saga. May get shot down in flames but I'll report it for what it's worth.

After a lot of agonising we decided to go ahead with eliminating the problem lot. Long story but after fighting with them for a year (one hospitalisation) despite requeening dealing with them was killing the enjoyment of our beekeeping and both of our apiaries have nearby innocent bystanders.

I can recommend a hoover as the weapon of choice (10 extension leads!). Takes a few minutes but v easy. Just seal the entrance, open the hole in crown board and suck them up as them come out. A lot less dramatic than petrol. After 10 minutes the guard bees had gone and the remainder were a lot more handleable. Squished queen. Destroyed all drone brood. Donated the sealed worker brood to a weak colony and all stores recycled.

The queen we put in there last July was still there and loads of brood and no signs of disease.

Have I missed something here? Being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner wouldn't necessarily kill them quickly would it? There could be some seriously angry bees in there for days ....and I wouldn't want to be the one to empty the hoover bag!

 

[Poly Hive]

Can I just highlight the failure with the brood.

I have highlighted this in another thread. If there are not enough bees to support the brood in the recipient colony they will allow the donated brood to chill and in the process the colony is further stressed.

It can be a seriously bad move as has been discovered.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16849

PH

 

[wondervet]

they all seemed pretty dead after hoovering. I think it's the corrugations in the tube that does the damage. Not a peep from the bag afterwards altho it was also quite cold so they would have been v torpid anyway.

just left the hoover out overnight and all dead next morning when changed bag. Mrs need never know.

 

[Lesley Hoppy]

they all seemed pretty dead after hoovering. I think it's the corrugations in the tube that does the damage. Not a peep from the bag afterwards altho it was also quite cold so they would have been v torpid anyway.

just left the hoover out overnight and all dead next morning when changed bag. Mrs need never know.

Since you are a vet I will take your word for it! Just hope it was a speedy death..