Dee Lusby's secret of resistant bees...DNA

[JamezF]

I once had a colony that was psychopathic ! They attacked me . I wandered around trees etc to lose them . I thought I had . I went in the farm house . I was chatting to the farmer when he said . Your mates are after you . I looked up and sure enough the bees were head butting the window panes .
my son in law ( the farmers son ) arrived , walked through the head bangers and entered through the door thankfully closing it behind him .
not one bee paid him any attention.
they hung around waiting for me . I had a brew, then exited via the back door , walked down the back field and hedge and away .
I was the enemy .

In my case I have wondered if the problem was the smell of chlorine.

I spend about four hours each week swimming and sometimes it seems like the smell of chlorine just won't go away, even after several showers. I think I might be starting to sweat chlorine...

James

 

[Fusion_power]

There are lots of interesting comments in this thread. I would definitely requeen any colonies as hot as Dee Lusby's. Solomon Parker lost all his bees on at least one occasion and had problems with winter loss just about every year. All the signs were that his bees were on a cycle of spring swarm, fall mites, next spring build up, dead by fall. It is not possible to breed resistant bees when resistant genetics are not in the bee population.

As for very hot hives, I've had a few experiences over the years. Back in 1991, I had purchased 30 odd colonies from another beekeeper who was retiring. One of the colonies had AFB, was extremely strong anyway, had been blown over by a strong wind, and was being robbed through the open bottom. I decided to set them back up on their stand (not knowing about the AFB at the time) wearing a veil and using a very well lit smoker. They came out after me at the first puff of smoke with at least 5000 bees in the air. I took over 150 stings in less than a minute. That was one time I backed off, got in the truck, and left for another day when I came back wearing a full suit.

I also helped a local beekeeper remove honey from his bees about 6 years ago. One of them turned out to be extremely aggressive. Using a bee blower and smoking them heavily, I eventually got 3 supers of very good honey off. Small tip, if you have a very aggressive hive, put the blower nozzle to the intake on a smoker and you can blow absolute clouds of smoke for about 3 minutes until the fuel runs out. Do NOT do this unless you are in a situation where nobody else is likely to be stung as the bees will spread out and sting anything that moves outside the cloud of smoke. Before anyone asks, this was not an africanized hive. They were mostly black mellifera based bees and they had an extremely good/bad queen. Good because she laid a hive full of workers and bad because they were off the scale aggressive. I had inspected them in the spring with no issues, but when no-nectar August came around and I started removing honey, they went ballistic. That was arguably the second strongest colony I've ever worked.

 

[Sammyangelbee]

A cautionary tale. Some years ago I was living in a bungalow with a foot path on two sides behind 8ft walls.

I had a colony of bees against the back wall facing the building and they were lovely quiet bees. One inspection I spotted very small grubs in queen cups so decided to nuc the queen as I was shortly going offshore for three weeks. I was quietly going through the BB when I found the queen and thought ok so let's be safe and take off a 2nd nuc with a charged cup to be on the safe side. As I was doing that the colony started to make the oddest noise, never heard it pre this time or since, it sounded like a high pitched engine starting to wind up to speed. My partner opened the back door and was promptly stung as was the neighbour who was doing the same. I put the colony back together as fast as I could being very aware of the pathway behind the wall. My partner was stung several times but the neighbour was badly stung and I had to pay her for lost time and distress. It was an utterly horrible experience and thank god for a good bee suit as they went ballistic. So my friends never ever say never. It's just round the corner biding it's time to set you up for a massive fall.

PH

There was a lecture by central beekeepers you may be interested is bees making quacking and whooping noises The Relevance of Virgin Queen Tooting and Quacking – The Central Association of Bee-Keepers