Nasty Bees

[BearChief]

Hi All,

I have a hive of really nasty bees. They will bombard my face as soon as I open them up, it gets to the point where I cant see through!

What's the best way to deal with this hive?

I have thought about requeening, however I cannot find her. I think my best option would be to kill the lot and start again.

What are the best methods?

Regards,

Bear

 

[Nightynight]

have you tried a manipulation sheet (old tea towel) , a little more smoke and possibly spraying with them with water or sugar water all at the same time? Might help finding the queen at least

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

Have they always been like that?

Are they hungry? Are you sure there is a laying Queen in there, and if so is she laying a good pattern? How old is she?

Is there anything about you (don't take this personally!) that they might object to. I had to lay off the aftershave when it became clear that one of my colonies did not like the formaldehyde.

I also had a hive like that, which turned objectionable about this time last year. Got so that I hated going to check them - to the point that I almost gave up beekeeping all together. In the end, I left them to their own devices (did only the most cursory checks, though I naturally treated them for varroa during the autumn/winter) and they calmed down over the winter (superceded too). This year they are much better behaved - though still a bit sparky. The only difference with me is that they are now the first hive I check rather than the last. Seems to make a difference to them if they get first attention.

 

[kazmcc]

Hi All,

I have a hive of really nasty bees. They will bombard my face as soon as I open them up, it gets to the point where I cant see through!

What's the best way to deal with this hive?

I have thought about requeening, however I cannot find her. I think my best option would be to kill the lot and start again.

What are the best methods?

Regards,

Bear

NOOOOOOO! Don't kill them! I'm pretty sure there are methods for finding your present queen.

Requeen, give them a chance

 

[Midland Beek]

Are they even queenright?

 

[huntsman666]

Two basic questions; what material are you using for smoke and how long after smoking do you wait before you open the hive?

If you want rid of the queen and cannot find her, if you have some spare equipment you can sieve her out.

 

[MuswellMetro]

I have had two colonies like this following supersedure re-queening last September, one apis horrilibus i killed but re queen the other as it was a less ferrious colony

i place a new brood box with two super frames in it on the stand and floor and put on the roof ( to collect returning forage bees and be the new bee hive)

i shook all the bees from the old brood into a super on a floor 1m away and place Queen excluder on top of the super and then the old brood box and beeless brood frames then temp roof (crown board with bocked porter escapes)

after 20 mintues i returned and added from the old brood box ,the majority of, the brood and nurse bees into the new hive on the old stand

i found the queen eventually in the super between the super frames, a very small scrub queen and killed her (no chance of finding her in 50,000 bees)

all bee in the and old brood box shook out infront of the new hive

it was mayhem so left for and hour before adding a new caged queen

 

[melormynydd]

DO NOT KILL THE BEES! i cant understand anyone doing that what a waste!
on a sunny day move the hive to one side, around 2m away from original site, place a spare hive on original site to recive flying bees.
after a few hours hive with queen will have been emptied of flying bees (the ones most likely to sting and fly in your face) so making it easyer to find the queen and kill her.
you can then either requeen hive with a purchased queen or place a frame of brood from other hive and let them make their own. or option b is to unite the bees to the other colony you have by newspaper method(giving a boost to other hives population) much more usefull than a pile of dead bees i think!

 

[Bcrazy]

My advice to you and your nasty bees is this; Kill the whole colony off. because there will be brood being layed by the queen and this will hatch in six weeks time still with the wrotten ness in the make up of the bees you wont get rid of it untill you requuen (then you must take into account the brrod that is still to develope witht the bad genes). I would kill off the whole colony and start afresh from another good quiet colony by making a group of them produce queens in a Nuc then transfere them when big enough to a full hive before the closedown for winter.
Its a waste of time and effort to try to find the queen when being bombarded and stung in the process.

Good luck.

Mo
(No bees myself) so what do i know?

 

[Winker]

Yeah i agree, move them to another location, leave a box with a few frames on it, at the original site so the flying bees have some where to go back to.

This will make it easy to find the queen, kill her. Put every thing back the way it was. Come back after 6 hours and introduce the new queen.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

I have a hive that sounds just like yours, but they only get grumpy when I go into the brood box.
I must of had between 20-30 stings off them today, my fault, I forgot to fasten the leg zip on my suit. To me a bee sting is no worse than a nettle sting, but lasts a lot less than a nettle sting.
However, this hive produces more than my other hives, so i'm more than happy to put up with a few stings.....

Brian

 

[MuswellMetro]

DO NOT KILL THE BEES! i cant understand anyone doing that what a waste!

well the problem i have on my site is someone who would not kill their ferocious bees, fortunately i understand now they have given up the site near me and moved them 5 miles away (they had been in hosptial three times with excessive stings )

But I now have as a result of them not being selectives a horrendous local drone pool , any local mated queen had new brood that follows 100yds, that about ok to requeen but still six weeks of uncomfortable inspection

slowly we are selectively breeding out stock with bad drones and also drone culling but i still kill the worst bees to eliminate their genes totally from the pool on anything that comes up and also follows ,we are a training apairy and near a childrens farm is it worth the pain of 50 stings to collect 20lbs of honey , i will not move bad bees off site as it is not fair on unsuspecting beekeepers i place the ferocious bees near ( even if i requeen their drones are out there mating)

sometimes it is better to cull and start again

 

[melormynydd]

hi MM
i understand what you are saying with being close to children, but if you have an out apiary move them there and sort them out.
it might be the bees i have(and am very lucky i think) but what i have expirienced with re queening is that a nasty bunch of bees will calm down within a few days after the new queen is introduced, it dose not take 6 weeks.
i requeened 2 hives last week, which were bonkers, but yesterday they were grate to go through.
if you kill the nasty queen then unite the bees to another colonie with news paper these bees should calm down to mach the calm hive and help give a beter crop of honey

i try not to allow nasty bees to get to the stage of producing drones, the queen gets the chop well befor that hapens so the genes ar then not spred through the area, like you say its not fair on others.

but we have to remember that bees will sting, and there are many factors that contribute to them stinging, lack o necter/weather/crushing of bees/q-, even calm colonies go bad some times.

 

[Bcrazy]

Members
You are all missing the most imortant point its the bees genetic make up that makes them angry , the quuen carries this makeup and passes this into the eggs larve and ultimately the bees who have yet to emerge and who have emerged. KILL ALL BEES.including the Queen. and all larvea.

It is NO good just cahnging the queen as there is larvea still to develope and bees still flying so in total you will have another 21 days for workers then 6 weeks for fully fledged bee.

Open your minds to what you have or should have been taught.

Mo
(No bees No stings)

 

[Bcrazy]

I have reread your posts and what sticks out the most is not fully understanding the genetic threads in the nasty colony. Why suffer stings when thay could have and should have been avoided?
Mo

 

[melormynydd]

you are right i know nothing about genetics, but if the bees show me one thing and a book shows me another then i will try to listen to the bees rather than go against them. it has worked for me in the past

 

[Bcrazy]

I hope you are right as looking and learning from the bees is good if it can bee mastered. By the way what guides the bees in thier movements and attitude etc >>> Genetics so learn a little of this complex subject and i assure you it will help.

Good luck in all you do with the bees.

Mo

 

[gavin]

I'm a geneticist.

Last weekend I was attacked by two colonies, bees in the face trying to drill through my veil. Horrible, but both were queenless. I fused them with nucs with newly laying queens and today, even in the rain, they were perfectly reasonable bees.

So yes, genetics has an influence, but often there are other factors that trump genetics.

Gavin

 

[huntsman666]

Thanks for the lecture, however you say <You are all missing the most imortant point its the bees genetic make up that makes them angry >

Yes, genetics is the most important point but there are others before it can simply be put down to breeding.

For instance did you ask the originator of this thread if these bees were normally placid? This would prompt one to ask what is causing the change. This IMO for starters would be the most important point.

If you're a geneticist, lovely, but you know the saying; 'If your only tool is a hammer, then all your problems will look like a nail.'

 

[Leigh]

Nearly all of my colonies, from various breed lines are snotty as hell at the moment. They have very little forage or surplus at the moment, and have just scraped through a very long period of no nectar flow - If I were a bee and in their shoes, I'd be hacked off!

Bad temper in bees (and humans) is as often, if not more often a symptom of adverse circumstance rather than purely genetics. It is true of course, that degrees of reaction to circumstances could be governed by genetics.

I'm not a geneticist, BUT worker bees are made fertilized eggs - so carry the genes of the queen and the drone. I also read (in a mainstream book) that the sperm from various drones is stored in the Queen's spermatheca in "layers", and is used in batches rather than mixed up. The characteristics of the different strains of drones with which the queen mated come through in the workers hatched from eggs fertilised by these individual drones....leading to apparent mood/work pattern/body colur changes over the colony. (this would presumably a gradual thing, as bees of one type survive older ones of another).

So, advising destruction of an entire colony just because of bad temper without investigating their circumstances seems rather rash.

Having said that, I've taken about 40 stings to my wrist this afternoon - had to have a rapid go through 20 + colonies in far from ideal weather whilst they were in the middle of their no flow/low stores crisis.....and the thought of burning the blo*dy lot flashed through my mind....but gladly didn't stay!

Anyway, please view destruction as an extreme reaction - seek the help of more experienced beekeepers in your area, who I'm sure would rather take the time to solve your problem than see a colony destroyed.