Nasty but vigorous bees

[exmoorbee]

The Basic facts
1 hive on double National Brood
In West Somerset near the sea in a sheltered low spot
It was kept on the Heather and neglected all last year and still produced 2 supers of heather honey
Over wintered on double brood with very little feeding which is now full of bees with lots of brood.
But the bees are very bad tempered and follow for ages.

The Question
Does the vigorousness make up for the bad temperedness?

The Full Story
At the end of last summer (Late August) we were given a hive of bees. Double brood, two supers containing heather honey. They had not been looked at since the spring when the supers had been put on and the original owner had received lots of stings and this combined with a bad back had them off the idea of keeping bees.

We were told if we took them away we could have them, for half the honey in the supers. Seemed too good to be true (as 1st year bee keepers).

We went through the hive the bees were feisty but not so bad as described, no sign of disease any where in the double brood. We even saw the queen. Put on the clearing board, removed the supers a few days later, and moved the hive to it’s new location and treated for varroa the week after.

All fine, we treated with Oxalic Acid in early January and opened them up for the first time this year today. Lovely and sunny temp. about 16-18oC. I looked at two other hives first 5-6 frames of brood 3-4 of food. Eggs seen and bees queuing politely waiting for me to finish and get out of their way.

Then the hive we were given, I got my first sting on my glove as I took the cover off the feed hole in the crown board. By the time the crown board was off the smoker was getting stung as well as me. The first two frames in the top box (double brood, National) were full of stores, the third frame was full of sealed brood, by now I could hardly see my hands for the bees stinging the gloves (not getting through thankfully).

As I was in a jacket an veil (not an all in one) I put the 3 frames back in, put the crown board back on, replaced the roof and spent the 20 minuets or so smoking my self on the other side of the field to get rid of the followers.

I know the answer is to re queen if we are brave enough and kill off with petrol fumes if we are not. But……….

These bees were totally ignored for the whole of last year and still produced 2 supers of heather honey and over wintered in a very vigorous manor with little feed, The double brood is jammed with bees top to bottom, and as there is brood on the 3rd frame in I would guess at least 7 frames of brood in total.

Apart from the bad temper is this not the sort of genetics we want?????
I think I I was wearing an all in one I could still look through them, (I did not actually get stung but got all chicken [as my wife says] with so many trying)

The Question again
Does the vigorousness make up for the bad temperedness?

Please start your replies with ‘Re queen’ or ‘Save’

Thank you in anticipation

 

[Heather]

Requeen!!

Do you have access to another beekeeper that will be able to produce an extra queen??
I never tolerate bad temper- just wait a couple of weeks till plenty of drones so getting new queen this year and get that new queen from elsewhere. Allowing them to develop a queen within your hive will prolong the nasty genes.

When you know a new queen is available- grab that grotty queen of yours and dump her - wait 24 hrs then introduce the new queen in a cage.

 

[Stiffy]

Re-queen

Simples, a vigorous colony does not need to be nasty as well and is not worth the hassle. You will also be spreading the natisness through the drones to other colonies
Plenty of good quality queen replacements out there just be a little careful where you get one from
S

 

[exmoorbee]

Thankyou for the quick replies, yes we do have access to various experienced beekeepers, and good queens (two other very pleasant hives of our own plus a queen breeder just down the road). It looks like the end of this line of bees.

Thankyou for your advice.

 

[Winker]

i have a hive just like yours. I should have re queened last year but didnt. After the OSR is done im splitting mine into 2-3 nucs and requeening each nuc

 

[winmag270]

re-queen!!

as stated above, not only are the bees in this hive "nasty" but the drones it / she produces can carry that trait over to others, during mating.

best bet for when the deed is to be done, is to move nasty hive a few feet away from it's original location (placing an empty hive or even roofed super on a floor in it's place) and leave it be for an hour or so.... the flying bees will exit the hive and return to the original location, reducing the number of stingy things in the box(es) you need to get into to find the queen.

wear a full suit, latex or vinyl gloves under and over your gauntlets and make sure the cuffs / legs / zips are bee proof (granny sucking eggs i know, but the added confidence it gives, knowing you are "safer".....)

 

[drex]

Save!!

Last year I removed a hive from friend's garden as he was too frightened of them to inspect. When I opened them up in his garden, they were immediately at me, and since neighbours were close, I immediately closed them up, and moved them to my site on allotment a few days later.

For the next few months they truly were " Lionel's beasts" as I called them, but gradually improved, but still remained feisty. Their crop was average, but they do make a lot of propolis.

Opened them up today for the first time this year. Easily my strongest colony, and very well behaved. The queen is still the original. I hope it lasts. I was intending on requeening this year, but will now wait and see.

 

[MuswellMetro]

REQUEEN Get yourself a nice local Queen

not wishing to put up a commercial for your local supplier of good buckfast queens as i am sure he would not want to breach this forums non commercial nature

but google EXMOOR, BUCKFAST QUEENS, i am sure you will find a local supplier, i would think a F1 Buckfast queen at about £30 ish would do you

 

[Rosti]

Requeen ...... unless you can tolerate them and have a remote apiary that could do with some protection from local ruffians and naredowells

 

[exmoorbee]

REQUEEN Get yourself a nice local Queen

not wishing to put up a commercial for your local supplier of good buckfast queens as i am sure he would not want to breach this forums non commercial nature

but google EXMOOR, BUCKFAST QUEENS, i am sure you will find a local supplier, i would think a F1 Buckfast queen at about £30 ish would do you

yep we know, had a queen from him last year, that hive is varroa free..ish and looking good.

Our current plan is along the lines of Winmag's suggestion in moving the hive to the side to lose the fliers into a spare brood box. when we can see a bit more we'll then kill off the queen and replace. Temptinng to split the hive into two and requeen both depending on the amount of brood there.

but also to split the double brood into two hives, and requeen them both. We'll wait untill a bit later in the season before we start.

 

[darren64]

This is probably a stupid question,but why not kill the queen then reunite with another colony?then wait for queen cells and do an AS?

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Requeen, simple. Especially as you have a good local supplier

 

[winmag270]

This is probably a stupid question,but why not kill the queen then reunite with another colony?then wait for queen cells and do an AS?

from the OP, they are on double brood national already.....

 

[Chris58]

We had a feisty mob given summer last year. Was told leave until spring and then maybe re-queen. Opened up this year and seem to be a lot nicer and already eggs etc. Our mentor often says feisty bees are busy bees - lots of stores already.

 

[Teemore]

Definitely requeen if they are on the nasty side.

Since the colony is on double brood it would give you the potential to split it in two, requeening onto each half of the original colony. Something to consider.

 

[nikca]

Wait and see?

I am a second year noob... so really not one to comment.

A line of thought that possibly some of the very experienced on here could answer might me: since they had almost no inspections last year, are they being feisty because they are unused to being inspected and handled? Would a few weeks of inspections not be an idea to see if this colony with some otherwise positive traits be an idea? Just in case this ever happens to me - I wuld be in a better position to know the possible outcomes...

Of course, you are soon going to be spreading drones and looking at swarming time if they are going that well...

N

 

[John_W]

Hold your horses.. !!

Wait a minute..

Before you jump to re-queening.. explore the situation first fully.. Just a few things to consider..


1). Are the bees being disturbed by something, that is make them defencive.. ie kids throwing stones, birds perching on the roof, live stock, wildlife nearby.

2). Is it atmospherics/environment? Are cars/trucks/people walking by it, and the vibrations upsetting them? Is there smoke from nearby bon fires, or fumes from refuse/compost heaps etc blowing at them.. strong odours.. blowing directly at the bees. They are sensitive to far more than we are.

3). Have you tried turning the hive? Move it slowly over a period of days till the hive is turned 90 degrees or more one way, then the other if that does not help them settle.

Just because bees become bad tempered does not mean it is their normal state. It may be because things are affecting them.

I had a colony, that was fine, they grew stronger and got grump. I was was considering a re-queening and then moved the hive to take them away from another hive, to ensure they were not winding up the other hive whilst I inspected that.. the grumpy five then settled down and is now one of my most sedate. My theory is the prevailing wind was blowing into the hive entrance. I cannot prove it, but the rotating the entrance to a new direct worked. They were also moved a few feet as well over a bout a week.

Also.. did you use enough smoke or too much? Different strains of bee need differing levels of smoke. Easy to over dose or under dose. Sadly trial and error is often only way. And some smoker fuels, will wind up bees I have found. I tried some hessian sacking and it was not good the bees didn't like it.

Were your gloves and suit clean and fresh, and not covered in pheramones from the other hives or from last years inspections/moving of hive etc..

I know keepers who will tolerate bad bees, on the theory they generate more honey. I personally won't. But I won't re-queen without a good, fully explored and justified reason. Firstly is a gamble and secondly it could be unecessery.

Only you can say for you, if they are worth keeping.

Also btw.. inspecting this early in the year is a bit too early imho.. what did it achieve? Watching the entrance for pollen loads and bee behaviour will tell you if you have a laying queen. Gently hefting the hive will tell you if they are low on stores or have plenty to get them through. None of these require openning up the hive and won't disturb the collony. If you are still not sure, lifting the crown board and just looking at the upper parts of the frames will tell you if they have stored left. So you shouldn't need to yet remove frames.

If you have found they were queenless,, what could you do about it? Not a lot this time of year, other than risk a very early combine with another stock. And if you suspect the aggresive nature is genetic, is it worth keeping that grumpyness around in the combined stock till those bees all die off, or just letting it dwindle out quicker on its own.

I don't mean to preach, but I think you need to step back and investigate. You may well have a indeed a genetically grumpy/aggressive stock. But till you rule out the other factors can you be sure? It is easy to jump to re-queening, especially in the summer when queens are for sales and available. But why risk a rejection and loosing the entire stock, before you have explore all the factors.

Just my tupence on it.

 

[casualman]

feisty bees

As drones provide half the genetics and a queeen will mate with several drones it may be that the sperm of a particular drone is responsible for aggressive beens and not the queen per se. That's why some aggressive colonies settle down after a while after that drone's contribution towards the queens sperm bank has ended. If you have an out apriary move the hive there where it is out of the way of any member of the public to see if they settle down before reaching for the petrol can.

 

[Travelator]

wait and see

Two rules that I try to abide by:

1. Never judge a colony's on the basis of one inspection. As others have said, weather, honey flows, etc can make a good colony temporarily grumpy.

2. If you have a colony for which you can't reliably do an inspection, you *must* do something about it. Otherwise, you are the owner of a bad-tempered-swarm factory. Re-queening or uniting are good options, but handing over to someone else (already happened once in this case!) or destruction are also possible in extremis.

 

[susbees]

As drones provide half the genetics and a queeen will mate with several drones it may be that the sperm of a particular drone is responsible for aggressive beens and not the queen per se. That's why some aggressive colonies settle down after a while after that drone's contribution towards the queens sperm bank has ended.

Simply not true: all sperm "packets" mixed together.