You may have seen my long running saga with
trying to handle an aggressive colony? Some of the great help on here as gotten me through it...I'm still not certain its worked but what I can say is if bee keeping is about one thing, its about passionately keeping bees....And that means not exterminating them.
Believe me Ive not had this much stress since I started. But what I have learned is significant so you must, if you can, remain resolute to maintaining the colony. Much of course has been said but:
* If you have a place of solitude you can move the colony to, temporarily for a month, move them. Huge stress reliever for all involved!
*Speak to the neighbours and any workman, postman, pub (there is a pub garden close by in may case). If you show care and interest and explain the situation, 9 /10 times you will get patience and tolerance. At least for a while so you can deal with the situation.
*For a single colony, its about the queen not the drones.
* YOU MUST Requeen
as soon as you sense defensiveness above what can be tolerated in your environment (suburban garden being lower tolerance than a farm apiary) after, say, approx 72 hour period of sustained ping activity.
*Bleed off flyers (by hive movement) over two days to give you as much calmness as you can get. This helps you and the neighbours.
*If its a big hive, consider a split to 2 or 3. Easier to handle and simpler to gauge progress.
*After requeen you will get an immediate, noticeable calmness but it does not solve problem completely. However, along with that flyer bleed off, the hive becomes much more manageable (pheromones) but (theoretically, I am in this period now) you have to wait for 4 -6 weeks to get complete comfort during peak season (genes).
I cannot tolerate 1 follower, let alone the 10-20 I have had whapping my veil and head at 20 yards, but I have hung in there and you should too.
