Pete Nicholson
House Bee
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2011
- Messages
- 237
- Reaction score
- 5
- Location
- devon
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2
Have two hives that produced a reasonable crop despite disaster earlier this spring when I was queenless in both for a (prolonged) period.
No.2 hive (this years from split) has a 2 year old queen from my local society and is docile, happy to be handled, and gave me the better crop.
No.1 hive has a new queen (superceded this spring) and are total B*gg*rs. Every inspection results in an explosion of bees and even hefting very gently tonight at 20:15 when it is almost dark causes at least 50 or so to pop out of the entrance to see what is going on and are looking for trouble.
The hives are in the same location and separated by a metre.
Q. 1) Is there a prozac for bees?
2) Is it too late to requeen - very reluctant as am starting to winter them down which will include APILIFE VAR treatment when the flow stops - say in around 2-3 weeks.
All comments gratefully received.
Cheers,
P.
No.2 hive (this years from split) has a 2 year old queen from my local society and is docile, happy to be handled, and gave me the better crop.
No.1 hive has a new queen (superceded this spring) and are total B*gg*rs. Every inspection results in an explosion of bees and even hefting very gently tonight at 20:15 when it is almost dark causes at least 50 or so to pop out of the entrance to see what is going on and are looking for trouble.
The hives are in the same location and separated by a metre.
Q. 1) Is there a prozac for bees?
2) Is it too late to requeen - very reluctant as am starting to winter them down which will include APILIFE VAR treatment when the flow stops - say in around 2-3 weeks.
All comments gratefully received.
Cheers,
P.