annamac
New Bee
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- 58420, France
- Hive Type
- Dadant
- Number of Hives
- 2
Hi
I wonder if anyone can give me any advice about a problem I have with some very angry bees. I was given this colony in a hive about a year ago and they have always been very bad-tempered. Given how unpleasant it was dealing with them, I rarely looked in the brood box as I could barely see for bees pinging off my veil.
They were very active though so this year, I decided to put a super on and harvest some honey. I put the super on in early April and left it for a couple of weeks before adding a queen excluder to give them some time to draw comb. I thought everything was fine until I went to harvest some honey yesterday and discovered the super was full of brood. I suppose I very stupidly trapped the queen upstairs.
I decided today to have a look in the brood box to see if there is brood or honey and I braved the attacks, took the super off and then tried to get out a frame. Problem is, I'm just not physically strong enough to get the frames out. They have been moved so infrequently (mea culpa) that they are virtually superglued in place. Eventually I managed to hike one out, but it came apart and left big pieces of comb in the box. It seems to be all honey but some cells are unfilled and very dark brown.
It's a big colony and seems to be very productive, so I guess the logical thing to do would be to requeen it, but I'm a bit of a novice and a bit nervous about intervening. Also, I'm not 100% sure where the queen is - i did have a look through the supers and couldn't see her but i'm not an expert in queenspotting. I also feel I ought to be inspecting and surveilling the brood box but it's like it's all stuck in one big propolis coated lump.
Has anyone got any brilliant ideas for what I should do? I'm at a bit of a loss.
For info, I do have another hive of lovely calm bees.
Thank you very much for any advice.
Anna
I wonder if anyone can give me any advice about a problem I have with some very angry bees. I was given this colony in a hive about a year ago and they have always been very bad-tempered. Given how unpleasant it was dealing with them, I rarely looked in the brood box as I could barely see for bees pinging off my veil.
They were very active though so this year, I decided to put a super on and harvest some honey. I put the super on in early April and left it for a couple of weeks before adding a queen excluder to give them some time to draw comb. I thought everything was fine until I went to harvest some honey yesterday and discovered the super was full of brood. I suppose I very stupidly trapped the queen upstairs.
I decided today to have a look in the brood box to see if there is brood or honey and I braved the attacks, took the super off and then tried to get out a frame. Problem is, I'm just not physically strong enough to get the frames out. They have been moved so infrequently (mea culpa) that they are virtually superglued in place. Eventually I managed to hike one out, but it came apart and left big pieces of comb in the box. It seems to be all honey but some cells are unfilled and very dark brown.
It's a big colony and seems to be very productive, so I guess the logical thing to do would be to requeen it, but I'm a bit of a novice and a bit nervous about intervening. Also, I'm not 100% sure where the queen is - i did have a look through the supers and couldn't see her but i'm not an expert in queenspotting. I also feel I ought to be inspecting and surveilling the brood box but it's like it's all stuck in one big propolis coated lump.
Has anyone got any brilliant ideas for what I should do? I'm at a bit of a loss.
For info, I do have another hive of lovely calm bees.
Thank you very much for any advice.
Anna