How to Kill Off a Colony??

[drstitson]

"Otherwise, move nasty hive 6 feet or so from original position, leaving an empty hive in its place - wait for flying bees to move to empty box in old position, much smaller colony of nurse bees to go through to find queen."


turned my nasties into pussycats - enabled a full close inspection.

since you wish to unite might be sensible, as mentioned earlier, to move the recipient hive to the old position to collect the foragers returning, deal with the nasty queen at leisure a few metres away and then bung on your newspaper and the queenless brood box bakc on top at the original site. job done.

 

[rae]

We have one that was given to us - not quite as bad, but similar. Probably 150 yards of following, and slightly less kamikaze.

Double suiting and gloving gives a certain amount more confidence when handling them.

We are letting them overwinter and nailing her maj at the first inspection of 2012. They will be smaller then, and as long as we get in early, there should be no drones. We were given them in Aug - they have had apigard thrown at them and enough of an inspection to check they are queen right.

This particular hive was in a field next to ours - we couldn't understand why all our second generation queens turned psychotic. Hopefully the local genetics will improve when she is eliminated.

We always used to wonder why the beek who had them drove away in his bee suit with the car windows open. Now we know....

 

[jakethedog]

"Otherwise, move nasty hive 6 feet or so from original position, leaving an empty hive in its place - wait for flying bees to move to empty box in old position, much smaller colony of nurse bees to go through to find queen."


turned my nasties into pussycats - enabled a full close inspection.

since you wish to unite might be sensible, as mentioned earlier, to move the recipient hive to the old position to collect the foragers returning, deal with the nasty queen at leisure a few metres away and then bung on your newspaper and the queenless brood box bakc on top at the original site. job done.

But Dewin has already moved his hive 90 feet (see op) to no avail

 

[peteinwilts]

the thing which I think should be given some space here is that in many locations such a proceedure is totally inappropriate with such bees.

couldn't agree more.... hence my last line. If he can't do it, give them to someone that can!

 

[Chris B]

As soon as the weather cools down these bees will not be a problem until spring. I find nasty bees often don't reveal their nature until at least May, so April is a good time to be messing with queens. I would delay.

 

[jimbeekeeper]

As soon as the weather cools down these bees will not be a problem until spring. I find nasty bees often don't reveal their nature until at least May, so April is a good time to be messing with queens. I would delay.

Save you petrol for heating your camp stove when the winter comes in about 5 -6 weeks.

A freak bit of warm weather at the moment, dont start jumping into your hives for spring inspections!!!

 

[Arfermo]

To find the queen. Another way in addition or as part ofsome of the previous suggestions.

If you can put up with the aggro, place a couple frames of brood in a separate box on the floor. Shake all bees (all frames free of bees - well, certainly free of the queen) into the bottom box and replace the brood box over a Q/E. Return the following day and remove the top box and then deal with the queen in the bottom box.
RAB

Sorry RAB but am confused by the bracketed element of your post. Surely one has to shake all the bees including the Q into the outside box on the "floor", then using this external box as the lowest unit in a stack of boxes on top of an OMF, move it to where the flyers expect it to be but with a QE over plus original BB/s on top and then wait overnight for Q to be isolated and make a choice as to what to do with her (execution or whatever and requeen). It is an elegant method that one can use merely to find the queen for marking the Q etc of course and I have seen it demonstrated.

Sorry if I appear thick but is that what you meant? Please be gentle with me if you reply.

 

[oliver90owner]

If you took 'floor' as meaning 'the ground'. I could see you may have a problem. I didn't - I wrote floor as meaning floor. I wonder how many thought that?

The brackets? well that would mean that if there were a super above a Q/E, one could expect that the queen was already below that and, further, if nearly all the bees are cleared from the frame one can more easily check that the queen is certainly not one of those left behind. Just simple really; the idea is simply to ensure the queen is where you want her - beneath the Q/E. Nothing fancy, just enough to be sure.

 

[Poggle]

The suggestion of using cans of fly spray did not come from an experienced beek. It is simply a non-starter.

RAB

If you are refering to my post. I did not SUGGEST anything of the kind Sir. I asked a question and, as a new person to Bee Keeping I though it was an decent question to ask.

 

[Dewin Dwl]

I considered keeping the colony overwinter and deeal with Q in spring when numbers are down. If next spring is like this year, I'll open up to find hives in full swing and be back to square one. I have a well mannered little colony in need of extra stores and bees. The plan is/was to steal the bees and stores from the nasty-Q and be rid of her. Not so easy with this bunch.

I have syphoned-off twice. The first time the flyers went back to base and with being the neighbour to the smaller colony, with a litle fussing, drifted in (lots of apirary chaos but the bees sort it out). I then did a second syphon off of the flyers to a super that had been ontop of the brood box but was placed in the old hive position on a spare floor. This went quite well and they are now being newspapered into the small colony.

The hard bit, which is nuts really, was getting the housebees off to one side. It was as if some had turned into flyers overnight.....well I suppose they would! So in the interest of destroying the absolute minimum, I've placed the hive in the freezer and hope this evening they will have clustered and gone a bit torpid, sufficient to have a poke about and find queeny. If this works then it'll be a dawn raid to put the brood box over newspaper above the super above newspaper already sat over the small colony. It'll be a huge column of boxes!

This Q was obviously a little naughty and mixed up wioth some naughty drones too!

 

[jimbeekeeper]

sufficient to have a poke about and find queeny. !

Reading this thread and some of your other posts, a bit of advice is "less is often more".

Most people have packed up their hive inspections several weeks ago.

 

[mystil]

Yeah, that's good advice - someone else's problem eh? very responsible.

What I MEANT was that she may breed out the "bad" bees with her next lot of sperm if you leave her to it. Also if you move them away from anyone (up on the moor miles from anywhere/anyone, for example) you can let them get on with it.

We have places here where you can walk miles and not see anyone or anything for hours. Depends where you are.

Dont always assume the worst of people.
Im not going to say anymore.

Good luck.

 

[mbc]

Sorry RAB but am confused by the bracketed element of your post. Surely one has to shake all the bees including the Q into the outside box on the "floor", then using this external box as the lowest unit in a stack of boxes on top of an OMF, move it to where the flyers expect it to be but with a QE over plus original BB/s on top and then wait overnight for Q to be isolated and make a choice as to what to do with her (execution or whatever and requeen). It is an elegant method that one can use merely to find the queen for marking the Q etc of course and I have seen it demonstrated.

Sorry if I appear thick but is that what you meant? Please be gentle with me if you reply.

Lol. Anything but elegant when carried out on a nasty colony - I cant believe youve ever seen anyone elegantly shaking nasty bees off frames, maybe I'm a brute but evry time I've resorted to this procedure its been anything but elegant !

 

[Hebeegeebee]

The problem with leaving a colony until April is that you will probably have grotty bees for another 2 months.

As for shaking bees off frames, if they are that bad, you and anyone nearby will be stung to buggeree.

Michael Bush has suggestions for divide and conquer.

 

[milkermel]

The bees would just cluster

with regard to my comment about putting the whole brood box into a freezer and you say they will just cluster, surely there is a point where they will become too cold - realise this could take a while, but at least the frames would still be useable an minimal disturbance for all involved?. OMF floor and ventilated top would have to take the temp down. By ventilated top either travel board i would guess (but not having one myself then i would go blue peter style and use one of the new nice wire Qx with stockings streched over and secured in place.) That should let the cold air circulate enough surely?)

 

[user 6228]

if you wish to kill a colony and reuse the frames and hive and a freezer is not availble or practical use dry ice, or liquid nitrogen. it stupify with cold and suffocate them.

 

[Hivemaker.]

if you wish to kill a colony and reuse the frames and hive and a freezer is not availble or practical use dry ice, or liquid nitrogen. it stupify with cold and suffocate them.

Or just knock the lot out cold in about ten seconds with co2 and tip them out.

 

[Bcrazy]

Use Eythal acetate (killing fluid) pour some on a cleaning pad and seal up the hive. it should take about 10/15 mins depending on ammount of acetate used.
Good luck.

Mo

 

[VEG]

the c02 got me thinking what about using a c02 fire extinguisher through the mesh floor?

 

[user 6228]

Or just knock the lot out cold in about ten seconds with co2 and tip them out.

as in c02 fire extinguisher?