Bee Temper ??

[Cellectronic]

Morning All.
Approx 6 weeks ago I made up a nuc from my strongest hive which included the Queen , This was done to increase my stock and deter the hive from swarming.
The hive in question did not produce another queen or if they did she is not there now. This colony before I intervened was such a nice one to work with and they were never vicious until now.
A test frame was inserted and they started to draw Q cells
I re queened the hive with the one from the nuc and 4 days later they are still angry as when I opened the hive yesterday to check that she had been set free from the candy plugged cage which she had their temperament had not changed.
I will do a full inspection at the weekend,to make sure she is alive and laying,But I am wondering how long does it take for them to calm down after re queening.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

temperament will not change until the old bees have died and the new queen's genes are in the hive

 

[Cellectronic]

Ok, But would they would be the same genes, as the Q I removed is the same one I put back in.
She had been in a nuc for a few weeks.

 

[tonyofarr]

Have they got enough food? If the bees are short on stores it can make them very tetchy. I find most of my hives change behaviour somewhat in August before the honey has even been removed, and I have to take steps to prevent robbing. Also I checked some nucs a couple of days ago and found they barely had anything left when a week before they all had at least one frame of honey, and a large colony will go through a lot of food when the main flow has stopped.

 

[Cellectronic]

Yes, They have two full supers on ,
I have had to feed my nucs though , they were nearly on empty .

 

[Finman]

Morning All.
...
I will do a full inspection at the weekend,to make sure she is alive and laying,But I am wondering how long does it take for them to calm down after re queening.

There is no such thing like "full inspection" .
I do not know what is that.

If you see young larvae in the hive, the Queen is there.

If you are afraid of open the hive, then you really have reason to get a new Queen, which is from calm breed.

The workers of angry mother Queen are still alive there. After 6 weeks. 3 weeks in brood.
.
.
.

 

[Finman]

Have they got enough food? If the bees are short on stores it can make them very tetchy. I find most of my hives change behaviour .

Bees are angry, because they protect their hive. And they have stings for that.

If you do not select calm bees, you propably get angry bees. Defensive is bees' basic nature.

IT has nothing to do with amount of stores. Bees cannot count. And if you open the hive near sunset, even calm bees jump onto your eyes.

 

[Cellectronic]

Not quite understanding me are you ??

The original Q was removed and she was very calm and a good layer (and all her offspring were very calm) , I removed her and a couple o frames to make a nuc. for the purposes of lessening the chances of the donor hive swarming also it gave me a nuc as extra stock.
When the donor hive did not produce a new Queen and all the signs showed me there was no queen in that hive I put back in the original queen via a cage plugged with fondant.
During the operation the bees temper changed for the worse((when the queen was absent (remember they originally were extra calm bees and had been for at least 2 years)). But now I put their Queen back in the temper remains poor,
All the bees in the hive are from the original Queen so no new bees since her last batch emerged.

Point is I would have thought putting their Queen back in their hive would calm them down.

I will look at the weekend to see if she is alive in there ( she is marked) and to see if there are any eggs.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

what's the betting there's a virgin in there and the original Q is no more?

 

[Cellectronic]

Quite possible,
I was going to say I will have a good luck at the weekend but if thats the case its probably best left alone for a couple of weeks,
I just hope if there is a virgin in there she gets mated ok as time is running out for her.

 

[Erichalfbee]

If there is a virgin in there why did they draw queen cells on the test frame?

 

[Cellectronic]

Yes , I wonder . Thats why in put back the original Queen. Maybe as they went bad tempered over a period of weeks, it will take them a similar time to revert .
Just like human women !!

 

[Fatbee]

It's August, bees get tetchy. What were they like this time last year (I assume the same queen was in there last Aug?)

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Yes , I wonder . Thats why in put back the original Queen. Maybe as they went bad tempered over a period of weeks, it will take them a similar time to revert .
Just like human women !!

We'll gloss over the last bit but as per @Fatbee; think of the demographics. Lots of old bees. "Angry old flyers" someone on here calls them.

 

[oliver90owner]

Think about it. It is not so much how much stores they have, it is more of a matter of defending their hard-earned winter stockpile, likely because there is little coming in at present.

Now, why you are shifting queens back and forth beats me! I can't think of any good reason for risking a good queen unnecessarily.

 

[drex]

Yes, you now have mainly old foraging bees all defending their honey. All my hives get extra tetchy at this time of year anyway.

 

[maddydog]

Think about it. It is not so much how much stores they have, it is more of a matter of defending their hard-earned winter stockpile, likely because there is little coming in at present.

Now, why you are shifting queens back and forth beats me! I can't think of any good reason for risking a good queen unnecessarily.

Why didn't you just leave the q in her hive and take a few frames away to try and make a nuc?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

or even better - just demarree them

 

[Cellectronic]

Morning,
I moved the Q back to her original hive hoping that she would be accepted and thing would be ok.
My thought was it would be better to let the nuc raise some emergency cells, which they are doing and have a the hive complete and a laying Q. Rather than a complete nuc and a good size hive with no Q. which would run into more problems.

I do appreciate all your input guys , Thanks.

 

[Finman]

.
Buy a calm mated Queen. That is what you need.