Aggressive hive about to swarm

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dickbowyer

House Bee
***
Joined
May 3, 2010
Messages
315
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3
Location
W Sussex, UK
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
Some hives and a few nucs
One of my garden hives, whose previous carniolan queen was superseded last year, has turned very aggressive in the last few weeks. Two very heavy OSR supers on top. No problem when left alone but multiple stings to gloves and pinging off veil with merest attempt to inspect brood box. Today clearly open swarms cells on very limited inspection. Tempted to just let them swarm with or without collecting emergent swarm and requeen. Will the resultant swarm be just as aggressive when built up i.e worth hiving if i can catch them or not and can i expect new queen to be as bad or requeening essential?
 
If it were me it would not be a disaster to let them swarm once, and I would keep an eye open for the swarm and try to collect. But then you have really got to open them up and reduce queencells to one.

Let the dust settle and in a month's time you might have fewer bees and a new laying queen. Requeen if necessary, or even kill queen and unite.
 
Mine were really aggressive (but I think that was after they swarmed). But it was only for 2 or 3 days. Hopefully they'll settle down soon.
 
Get rid of that queen and as many drones as possible. Why waste your foraging force and part of your crop and leave those grnes in the locale? You might be lucky and get them plaguing any future matings just in your close area, but they might go and aggravate neighbours. Irresponsible just to allow her to leave and proliferate, IMO.

I do note you claim they are OK unless inspected, but it appears they have got very much worse in a short time. I don't think that the weight of the supers is affecting them greatly.

RAB
 
One of my garden hives, whose previous carniolan queen was superseded last year, has turned very aggressive in the last few weeks. Two very heavy OSR supers on top. No problem when left alone but multiple stings to gloves and pinging off veil with merest attempt to inspect brood box. Today clearly open swarms cells on very limited inspection. Tempted to just let them swarm with or without collecting emergent swarm and requeen. Will the resultant swarm be just as aggressive when built up i.e worth hiving if i can catch them or not and can i expect new queen to be as bad or requeening essential?

I wouldn't chance letting aggressive genes spread around your area.
 
I agree with the last two posts: to let them swarm is simply passing the problem onto someone else.
Who knows - it could be a complete beginner having their first contact with bees :( - as well as keeping those drones in the local gene pool, where that aggression stands a pretty-good chance of coming back to haunt you ...
 
I have just culled a queen for that very reason. Next step will be to remove all the QC's in due course.
Much as I would have preferred that she just buggered off and took her miserable bees with her, I could not allow her gene pool to continue.
Cazza
 
For those who like a happy ending, hive swarmed and collected, hived in far away apiary and successfully requeened when aggressive behaviour returned and new queen in old hive has very gentle progeny so far :)
 
:hurray::hurray:

i do like a happy ending :)
 

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