Do bees get antisocial before swarming?

[Nige.Coll]

As title really trying to find out why they have become the spawn of satan.
They are not Q- eggs spotted. I can never find the queen in this hive.
They do have odd queen cells hidden at bottom of the comb with larvae and food in (milky coloured). By odd i mean they seem to be inside the comb not on it making it hard to spot them. Made worse by the cloud of bees trying to kill me.
I think they have tried to hide the Queen cells as i have been removing play cups for a couple of weeks.
The play cups never had eggs in when i removed them.

Angry bees are no fun at all sucks the enjoyment out of it.
I have washed all my kit just incase.
I have tried different smoker fuel and different amounts of smoke.
I use a cover cloth .

Confused ... last two or three weeks they have been evil even following me back to the car.
I have to inspect this hive last if i do it first it makes the other one worse.
Starting to ruin my confidence .
I have no idea what has changed their temperament so much. Only change is they are now on OSR but the hive next to them is still fine a little bouncy but nothing too bad.

added
They are buckfast derived bees and i have only seen the queen once in the 8 months i have had them. Judging by her size i think she is a scrub queen . Not a drone layer and has kept the colony numbers strong.

 

[Heather]

I would grab that queen out and requeen with one from a good source.

Yes, OSR can make them 'frisky' but I personally will NOT accept bloody minded rude bees (or people, but sadly cannot cull them). This behaviour is beyond that.

If you are getting reluctant to handle, have you a bee buddy who can bravely help you.

 

[Nige.Coll]

I have no idea why they have changed so much.
they have been fine before . Late autumn i didn't need to smoke them.

No colour change in the bees so she isn't fertilising from a new batch so to speak.
It was a nice evening min 18 degree when i looked yesterday plenty of bees flying.
As soon as i went near the frame lugs they mobbed my hands .
Tried putting nitrile gloves on over my other gloves no different.
Had about 50 of them in front of my veil and more trying to find a gap in the zips.
Tried smoking them away from the lugs and that made more go on defence.
I thought it was hailing the amount pinging my hood lol
Its the closest i have come to saying sod it and walking away .
5 mins later i went back to put the ratchet strap over the roof and collect gear i left behind and got pinged again.

I'm going to split them today or tomorrow and hope that calms them down.

I'm starting to convince myself i'm doing something wrong just have no idea what.
I treat my other hive exactly the same and they are fine.

Not really got a bee buddy. I have a few people i can ring but getting someone to come and look is slightly harder.

Does exposing brood by breaking brace comb drive them mad?
it's all i can think that is different.

 

[beeno]

Hi Nigel,
Have they got enough room? I can imagine that attacking their larvae might just upset them a tad. Last inspection one of my hives got a bit upset. My thoughts were that there is a flow on and they had large uncapped honey coloured nectar reserves to defend.
Sorry Nigel, in answer to your original question I have not noticed aggression prior to swarming, but less foraging activity.

 

[rogerb]

Is this the biggest this hive has ever been? Many colonies can be very easy going till they get to a large enough size and then they can become quite nasty, splitting them I think will make them much easier to work with, but you are storing up trouble as before you know it you will have two large nasty’s. I would replace the queen ASAP if you cannot work with her at full strength.

Finding her may be more of an issue to you, but this may help; take out half your frames c/w bees and put them in another hive with the entrance closed up, walk away for five mins, come back and listen to the two hives, whatever one is making a lot of noise does not have the queen in it, do the same again to the quite one, keep splitting till you find her. Then give her a squish and replace her with your chosen method. It will not be your nicest day in the apiary but it will be well worth it in the end.

 

[Nige.Coll]

They are under a high flow i guess . Smack in the middle of 400 acres of OSR.

They have room and the colony doesn't look as big as it did in autumn but i haven't looked at it when bees aren't foraging.
Frame 1 is stores frame 10 nectar and some brood frame 11 empty. Rest are brood.
They have a super on that they are working drawing comb.

There is a short frame in there for drone brood kull they insist on sticking it to the side of the hive and it breaks when inspecting them.

This colony has an addiction to building brace comb everywhere they can always have.

 

[Tom Bick]

It's often mentioned that bees can get grumpy when on OSR and from experience just before a swarm is about to go lots of foraging bees stay with the hive so as not to miss the swarm and they can be grumpy. If you keep removing queen cells will also make them grumpy and eventually may just leave without building any more. So you should get on and AS them asap. If they are on single brood then perhaps they need more room in the brood chamber.

 

[VEG]

Nige.coll

Take a water spray with you next time the type used to mist plants with. I find smoke upsets some of my colonies, I then use the water spray and it keeps them down. Its also handy when it gets hot to spray through the veil, but only use plain water.

 

[Stiffy]

Nige.coll

Take a water spray with you next time the type used to mist plants with. I find smoke upsets some of my colonies, I then use the water spray and it keeps them down. Its also handy when it gets hot to spray through the veil, but only use plain water.

Although I always have a smoker lit, I don't tend to use smoke on mine as I find it makes them cross. If I use it all, it is to clear them when putting boxes back on top and to save squishing them.
S

 

[Stiffy]

Just re-read your post.
Have you been knocking down queen cells as they are showing signs of wanting to swarm, if so that will pxss them off?
S

 

[Nige.Coll]

Nige.coll

Take a water spray with you next time the type used to mist plants with. I find smoke upsets some of my colonies, I then use the water spray and it keeps them down. Its also handy when it gets hot to spray through the veil, but only use plain water.

Tried that and they stung me for it...

Play cups i did remove as there were no drones anywhere near mature.

I'm almost convinced it's a mess of my own making .

 

[Tom Bick]

Play cups i did remove as there were no drones anywhere near mature.

I bet there are 1000's

 

[beeno]

I would give them another brood box urgently.

 

[drex]

Last year I had a hive from hell. Ruins any pleasure. I united with a well behaved colony after squishing the queen. Luckily she was on the 4th frame I looked at. I had on 3 layers and they still got me loads of times.

Before looking in, if the hive is not too heavy move it aside in its entirety. Put an empty box on the original site and have a cup of tea or two. All the fliers will go to the new box and make your job easier.

I will now not tolerate any nasty bees.

They were OK the season before, original queen still laying well. I could see no reason. The nasty behaviour went on for weeks before I took action. They were so bad I rarely inspected.

 

[Nige.Coll]

I think the best plan for them is to let them swarm into a tree and borrow a shotgun from the farmer and give them both barrels lol.

 

[sunhivebee]

I would grab that queen out and requeen with one from a good source.

Yes, OSR can make them 'frisky' but I personally will NOT accept bloody minded rude bees (or people, but sadly cannot cull them). This behaviour is beyond that.

If you are getting reluctant to handle, have you a bee buddy who can bravely help you.

With respect, I find the passage highlighted above quite offensive.

As for extremely defensive colonies, I would not be so quick to recommend queen culling. Let's just call it killing, There can be many other factors involved, and it is also a possibility to just leave those bees alone for a while.

 

[drex]

I did leave mine alone for quite some time before killing the queen. The trouble is they would not leave me, and more importantly other people alone. I keep my bees on allotment. They are well away from the main area, but these nasty bees were stinging others and I was beginning to get people complaining.
One queen killed and harmony restored.

 

[Nige.Coll]

I went today with every intention of killing the queen but they were fine.
Behaved well no following no stinging , a little bouncy but fine.
I split my other colony so they make a new queen as they were making qcells and i might need a new queen .

The nasty hive has no queen cells but i have made them brood and a half now, if they turn nasty again then she is gone .
Couldn't find the queen as usual but they haven't swarmed and eggs seen.

I have no idea what was wrong with them maybe just had a bad day.

 

[Swarm]

I have no idea what was wrong with them maybe just had a bad day.

They're female.

 

[beeno]

They're female.

There is a reason for everything. Just a question of being interested enough to figure it out