Evil little blighters. How long to calm down?

[aberreef]

Just come back from the apiary and the hive that I've been having problems with is still EVIL!!!

Some of you may have ready my other thread regarding the hive being queenless and turning from gentle to horrendous because of it. They have since produced their own queen who started to lay last week.

How long can I expect them to behave like stroppy teenagers. As soon as I open the hive they come bombing out in their hundreds. The queen is laying well by the looks of things (4 frames of eggs/brood), there's plenty of stores, a fantastic flow on and room for them expand onto the last 5 frames of foundation.

Do I have to wait for the old bees to die and be replaced by the new queens progeny before I can tell if things are getting better or should the new queens pheremones have sorted them out a little?

Thanks

Huw

 

[thurrock bees]

wait for 6 weeks, the new offspring would have taken over by then.

 

[aberreef]

Forgot to add I copped 2 stings on the back of my neck through the veil from these little tinkers today

 

[aberreef]

wait for 6 weeks, the new offspring would have taken over by then.

Good grief that was fast . Thanks.

 

[huntsman666]

When you smoke, do you wait at least five minutes before opening the hive?

If not, try it next time. It gives them time to fill up on honey which should calm them somewhat.

 

[RoseCottage]

Ok so here goes...

Once your colony has a new queen their attitude should change for the better. There is no need to think you have to wait until any bees die off. The strength of the pheromone should be enough to moderate the colonies behaviour.

Do you know what type of queen you had before? Some hybrids are known to give rise to aggressive offspring.

If they are really badly behaved there are a range of controls you can deploy to minimise their impact:

You can improve your protection by wearing scarves, additional hats, thick jumpers, two pair of trousers, and two pairs of gloves, etc

You can use a manipulation cloth (or the first frame from the BB or super) to reduce the area that is exposed during your inspection.

You can divide the hive up and separate BB and supers by several feet during an inspection to reduce the number of bees attacking you.

I actually think that if it were me I would look to re-queen from a more gentle gene pool and potentially remove capped drone cells from the aggressive hive. I would re-queen after killing the existing queen by introducing a frame with brood, eggs, and larvae from another colony and letting the bees 'grow their own' as it were. I would remove all queen cells except for one that is on the introduced frame.

Good luck,

Don't need to put up with poor bee behaviour,

All the best,
Sam

 

[Beezer]

Spray them with sugar syrup.

Quiet bees.

 

[aberreef]

Thanks for the replies.

I don't use much smoke as a rule which probably didn't help this morning. I used to smoke then leave alone for a few minutes but found with my other hive sthat I can usually get by without any. I will return to smoking next inspection though

Rosecottage, thanks for the reply. The queen has only just started laying after the previous one died. It's progeny hasn't hatched yet. The original was a buckfast so I'm not expecting much from the new one

 

[huntsman666]

<I will return to smoking next inspection though>

If you're going to have a look in the brood chamber then and IMO smoke is essential.

If you're only inspecting the supers, you should be fine without smoking.

 

[xgeordie]

<I will return to smoking next inspection though>

If you're going to have a look in the brood chamber then and IMO smoke is essential.

If you're only inspecting the supers, you should be fine without smoking.

I found smoking only made my bad tempered bees even madder. Spraying with syrup was little better (and could encourage robbing?). I'm requeening.

Generally, I only use smoke to move the bees when needed - I've found I don't need to smoke and wait.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

If they were bad tempered and produced their own queen, then there must be a very good chance they will continue to be bad tempered.

In a similar situation myself, found that once the new queen had been raised their temper improved such that I wasnt attacked when getting 10 yards away, but they were and still are very nasty during an inspection. I'm waiting a couple more weeks to see if the new progeny are better tempered, but if not I will put on the chan mail and go and find her and requeen.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Another tip that may help - inspect the brood box first, then the supers. If you do it the other way around you tend to drive a lot of the bees from the supers down into the brood box, giving you move to contend with.

 

[madasafish]

Personally I'd :
wait till a fine dry day (ideally with little wind)
inspect when there are lots of flying bees so the numbers in the hive are less
use a manipulation cloth over the bars asap.

Even my very good natured bees object if opened up on a cold damp windy day - expecially mornings. They are best tempered between 1-3pm when it's warm and there is a flow of pollen or nectar.

 

[Alabamaeee]

I have one nasty colony and even when inspecting them I don't smoke the supers. I remove the supers quickly and as the last one comes off I smoke the top of the QE, lift the last super and set it down. I can them remove the QE and give them a little more smoke if needed.

When I first did inspections I smoked the supers, which resulted in a mass of bees trying to surge through the QE, and ended up with more bees in the BB. Now they seem content to bimble about in the supoers while I try to pacify the rest!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I united two colonies in the Spring - End March and Early April - as both were not well behaved. The queens were killed and the colonies united with others nearby. They were a pain until about 2.5 months later and suddenly they were OK. (Roughly 3 weeks as brood and 6 weeks as bees).

With luck you will have a gentle bee producing queen you'll know in Spetember. However behaviour usually follows the queen which is something to be a little concerned about. Now queenright and with more bees tending brood, they should be a little better than they were though.

 

[aberreef]

Thanks for all the replies.

The colony was fantastic when the original queen was OK, they were by far the most gentle bees I owned. The problems only sarted when she failed.

They've got plenty of room to expand and a brand new queen so I wouldn't have thought there's much chance of them swarming. I think I'll let them get on with expanding for a few weeks before I inspect again. Fingers crossed they'll chill out in the meantime