More nasty bees!

[Zaph]

Hi,

I didn't want to hijack the other thread on nasty bees so started this one. I'm new to beekeeping but have got a hive that has turned very nasty.

We were given a swarm last year and at first inspection at the start of April this year it already had 8 frames of brood. It's now got 2 supers on. The bees are in my mates garden and luckily at least 40 meters away from neighbours. Me and my mate have inspected them each week and they have got worse every time. Yesterday we only looked at half of the brood frames before deciding to close up and get away from them. I spoke to my mate this morning and he sought advice yesterday from another beekeper and has arranged to do the following.

1. Move the nasty hive 2 feet to one side
2. Put a new hive where the old one is. This will have 1 frame of brood and eggs from the other beekeeper (apparently he has nice quiet bees but no queens ready yet). The rest of this box will be filled up with frames of foundation. Apparently we may have to shake some young bees in (not looking forward to that!).
3. Put the supers back on this new hive.
4. Leave the old hive a couple of days and then remove any queen cells (yes we found some on the few frames we managed to inspect) and also find and destroy the queen. Add into this hive a frame of brood and eggs from the other beekeeper.
5. In the old box, keep removing queen cells on all frames except the new frame from the calm stock.

Does this sound like a plan? To be fair, these bees are in my mates garden and short of any other advice he's going down this route (he's putting together a new hive + frames as I type).

Thanks
Zaph Barker

 

[enrico]

Please make sure you are using smoke correctly. It is such a simple mistake. You need to make sure the bees know you are coming. When you arrive on site puff a good quantity of smoke through the entrance and leave the whole hive for a couple of minutes. Poor more smoke through the gaps as you dismantle the hive and on each frame before you lift it. Lie the first frame you remove across the last five frames you are going to check. This keeps those frames busy with dripping nectar etc. When you get to those last frames move the laying frame to the other half. (Hope that makes sense).
The idea of smoke is that the bees believe that a forest fire is coming and they eat loads incase they need to vacate their hive. Eating bees are busy and full bees are not as aggressive and find it hard to sting. We get lulled into believing we don't need smoke with the quiet strains of bees. They may well calm down as the year goes on.
If all else fails then re queen, aggressive bees do none of us any good and get bad press very quickly.
Good luck

 

[oliver90owner]

I would move them. There is little prospect of them improving a great deal until there is a new queen.

Remove queen (into a small nuc colony if worried of success).

Wait until you can make the hive hopelessly queenless and then add a frame, or two, of eggs and young brood.

Split when queen cells are advanced, leaving one or two of the best cells in each split or maybe just the one, as they will be open brood when split. Presumably you are looking for increase?

Reasons for this? Hive moved soonest - no hassle from neighbours, hopefully.

Queen cells produced in a really strong colony.

Only need the one frame of eggs/brood.

Potentially fewer cells produced, so better looked after (not really an issue).

Your plan is OK, but just my thoughts in a rush.

Regards, RAB

 

[Zaph]

Thank you enrico and oliver90owner.

I think we are using smoke correctly, but please correct me if I'm wrong. We start by sending a couple of big puffs of smoke in the entrance or under the open mesh floor. Then we wait a couple of minutes before opening them up. We then carefully remove ths supers leaving them covered with the crown board. Next we puff some smoke over the queen excluder to encourange bees to go back down before taking off the queen excluder. We then only use more smoke if there are too many bees at the top of the frames. We haven't tried laying a frame on top, but will give it a go.

We do want to increase the number of hives, we only have 1 at the moment. I don't think they are bothering the neighbours (yet anyway!). It is only when they are opened up that they start to get nasty. My mate was advised that once the old hive has been moved it should get a little calmer as there will be fewer bees and if need be to move it once again but to the other side of the new hive to "bleed off" more bees. From the books I've read, this sounds similar to performing an artificial swarm.

Thanks
Zaph Barker

 

[For want of a better word]

Consider using a cloth spread as to cover the frames to expose one being inspected,
not often used now as probably "Old Fashoned", but that was the way my Grandfather used to do it (b 1901! so a twenties beekeeper), certainly stops the bees shooting up at you!!!

 

[Busy Bee]

If you have very nasty bees like bees I witnessed which actually killed a dog I would use petrol immediately as they can be very dangerous. Sometimes re-queening in my experience does not necessarilly work. Nasty bees are nasty bees.

Bee keepers with large numbers of hives would remove the queen and disperse the frames to other smaller hives and replace with a nuc and new queen.

Busy Bees

 

[gill68]

,
I have had the same problem with a hive of bees in my garden in which we killed the old queen and put a frame of brood with a queen cell on from more amenable bees.
They were being a general nuisance and stinging people 2 gardens down ( and these aren't small gardens!)
Just remember that you won't see much of a change in the character of the colony until the new queen's offspring are out and about, so it will take a couple of months to really see any change.
We ended up moving the hive from here ( fortunately we had already sorted out an emergency 'cool off zone') where they can't hurt anyone. We couldn't wait and it wasn't fair on our neighbours. It is such bliss in the garden now!Just one or two bees from a little nuc flying around!

 

[Vergilius]

Consider using a cloth spread as to cover the frames to expose one being inspected,
not often used now as probably "Old Fashoned", but that was the way my Grandfather used to do it (b 1901! so a twenties beekeeper), certainly stops the bees shooting up at you!!!

I agree. Bees like the dark, and it stops the flyers "whooshing" up at you.


Ben P

 

[Zaph]

OK, so we put a new hive with foundation and a frame of "calm" brood in place of the nasty hive, and moved the nasty hive a couple of feet to the right. I swear they knew we were coming though, because the moment we rounded the hedge and were within 5 meters or so there were 2 or 3 buzzing each of us.

We'll take a look at the old hive in a couple of days to see if we can find the queen. Hopefully it'll be a bit quiter with fewer bees. I'll also give the cloth trick a go.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Thanks
Zaph Barker

 

[thurrock bees]

,
Just remember that you won't see much of a change in the character of the colony until the new queen's offspring are out and about, so it will take a couple of months to really see any change.

6 weeks for the old bees to die out.