Needing to move and split a problematic colony

[DRam]

We have 7 colonies split across 2 apiaries, 6 of them are very pleasant to handle but one is awful. None of the other colonies are bouncing off your veil and following you away from the hive, but this one is and it has been happening for some weeks. It has now got to the point that hoping it was a temporary blip is a forlorn hope, and we need to get force it to re-queen.

The issue is that it is a big colony and the queen is unmarked, we did attempt to find her on Saturday, but did not complete the task as we sustained stings even through the suit and gloves, and were driven off.

I want to reduce the size of the colony to make it easier to inspect and then remove the queen, then let them draw queen cells and remove these queen cells and then add a frame of eggs from a far calmer colony.

To reduce the size of the colony, could I take this hive and move it to the far end of the apiary, as I could do that without too much agro, my plan was to bring a nice but small colony from the other apiary and put it where the nasty one is as I move the nasty one. My thinking is the flying bees would go into the new calm colony, build it up and hopefully be nice to handle, and the nasty colony would be much smaller, making it easier to find the queen - hopefully a lot of the colony would be house bees and not yet too aggressive.

Is this likely to work? Will the flying bees enter the new hive (on their old hive stand) and not attack the new colony and queen?

Has anybody done this before?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

 

[Andy]

We have 7 colonies split across 2 apiaries, 6 of them are very pleasant to handle but one is awful. None of the other colonies are bouncing off your veil and following you away from the hive, but this one is and it has been happening for some weeks. It has now got to the point that hoping it was a temporary blip is a forlorn hope, and we need to get force it to re-queen.

The issue is that it is a big colony and the queen is unmarked, we did attempt to find her on Saturday, but did not complete the task as we sustained stings even through the suit and gloves, and were driven off.

I want to reduce the size of the colony to make it easier to inspect and then remove the queen, then let them draw queen cells and remove these queen cells and then add a frame of eggs from a far calmer colony.

To reduce the size of the colony, could I take this hive and move it to the far end of the apiary, as I could do that without too much agro, my plan was to bring a nice but small colony from the other apiary and put it where the nasty one is as I move the nasty one. My thinking is the flying bees would go into the new calm colony, build it up and hopefully be nice to handle, and the nasty colony would be much smaller, making it easier to find the queen - hopefully a lot of the colony would be house bees and not yet too aggressive.

Is this likely to work? Will the flying bees enter the new hive (on their old hive stand) and not attack the new colony and queen?

Has anybody done this before?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

That’s almost what I did today for the same reason. However I had an empty hive for the flyers to return to and then added a queen cell when they’d settled in. I had it ready grafted a few days prior.

I’m only starting out so I may be wrong. Would the bees flying back to a different colony cause issues with lots of foreign bees arriving en-mass?ie battles?

However the hive containing the nurse bees is lovely to handle for now. I think you would have no problem finding the queen in the old colony with only nurse bees. You could dunt the queen and add a frame of eggs to both hives or unite your other nice colony to the overly defensive flying bees ?

 

[Antipodes]

We have 7 colonies split across 2 apiaries, 6 of them are very pleasant to handle but one is awful. None of the other colonies are bouncing off your veil and following you away from the hive, but this one is and it has been happening for some weeks. It has now got to the point that hoping it was a temporary blip is a forlorn hope, and we need to get force it to re-queen.

The issue is that it is a big colony and the queen is unmarked, we did attempt to find her on Saturday, but did not complete the task as we sustained stings even through the suit and gloves, and were driven off.

I want to reduce the size of the colony to make it easier to inspect and then remove the queen, then let them draw queen cells and remove these queen cells and then add a frame of eggs from a far calmer colony.

To reduce the size of the colony, could I take this hive and move it to the far end of the apiary, as I could do that without too much agro, my plan was to bring a nice but small colony from the other apiary and put it where the nasty one is as I move the nasty one. My thinking is the flying bees would go into the new calm colony, build it up and hopefully be nice to handle, and the nasty colony would be much smaller, making it easier to find the queen - hopefully a lot of the colony would be house bees and not yet too aggressive.

Is this likely to work? Will the flying bees enter the new hive (on their old hive stand) and not attack the new colony and queen?

Has anybody done this before?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Is there a good nectar flow there at the moment?

 

[ericbeaumont]

thinking is the flying bees would go into the new calm colony

Is there a good nectar flow there at the moment?

If not, carnage.

 

[BugsInABox]

I think you want to put in a frame with early larvae is much as eggs? Eggs get eaten.

 

[DRam]

Is there a good nectar flow there at the moment?

There has bene a bit of a flow but the weather is so awful, there is rarely two good foraging days in a row.

 

[DRam]

If not, carnage.

Thank you that was the answer I was looking for, I won't do that then.

I will probably move the hive, maybe 30m, leave a box for the fliers to go back to, when the original hive looks depleted of fliers, go and find the queen and dispatch her and then recombine the colony - is that a better plan?

If so, how long is reasonable between moving the hive and expecting the hive to be flier free, and is there a length of time for which we shouldn't leave the fliers on their own.

Thank you - if we can get this colony to be as pleasant as the others it will be such a relief.

 

[ericbeaumont]

weather is so awful, there is rarely two good foraging days in a row.

Surrey is about to have at least a week or two of good weather, so a flow may resume.

If they're as bad as you say, I'd move the whole lot away, put a new BB of comb/foundation on the old site and put a frame of good BIAS in the middle of it.

Flyers will leave the old colony 24-48 hrs after the move, given the good weather on the way.

 

[ericbeaumont]

move the hive, maybe 30m

No need for unnecessary labour: 2 or 3 will be enough.

 

[DRam]

Surrey is about to have at least a week or two of good weather, so a flow may resume.

If they're as bad as you say, I'd move the whole lot away, put a new BB of comb/foundation on the old site and put a frame of good BIAS in the middle of it.

Flyers will leave the old colony 24-48 hrs after the move, given the good weather on the way.

I will do this as I have the equipment and it won't put our smaller colony at risk, as my first idea would have.

If frame of BIAS is for them to raise a new queen, is that possible as the comb/foundation will not necessarily have pollen and stores.

I can get some frames of pollen and stores from other colonies to get this one started, and of course a frame with BIAS, is that what needs to be done.

Thanks.

 

[ericbeaumont]

get some frames of pollen and stores from other colonies

Good idea, though I must admit, when I've used this method I've not worried about stores: after all, the colony will have a strong foraging force.

 

[Chris Hancock]

When moving a box to requeen grumpy bees, I did find it helpful to have a couple of boards to pop on top of them as you do the moving, as it minimizes those who want to come up... yes, you can put a frame of BIAS from a nice-tempered colony in a box with drawn comb and maybe a frame of stores including pollen, for the fliers to return to, if you want them to raise a new queen. As for the ones with the brood, when the queen has been taken out, you will need to remove queen cells a week later, then put the desired colonies' BIAS frame in to raise a new queen. That gives you a couple of chances for a new queen, or you can remove the queen cells from it then unite with another colony, if desired. Moving it is easier with a helper!

 

[DRam]

When moving a box to requeen grumpy bees, I did find it helpful to have a couple of boards to pop on top of them as you do the moving, as it minimizes those who want to come up... yes, you can put a frame of BIAS from a nice-tempered colony in a box with drawn comb and maybe a frame of stores including pollen, for the fliers to return to, if you want them to raise a new queen. As for the ones with the brood, when the queen has been taken out, you will need to remove queen cells a week later, then put the desired colonies' BIAS frame in to raise a new queen. That gives you a couple of chances for a new queen, or you can remove the queen cells from it then unite with another colony, if desired. Moving it is easier with a helper!

Thanks Chris, that was pretty much the plan, but it is good to know this is what others would do in the same situation.

 

[DRam]

Just an update for everyone who has been kind enough to provide advice.

On Saturday we moved the problem hive's brood box and a super to a new location and provided a new broodbox on the original site with a frame of stores and a frame with BIAS.

This left us with the nurse bees and queen in a new location and a hive for the flying bees on the original site.

This evening we went to check and the flying bees are still as defensive/obnoxious as they were, but they have started drawing emergency queen cells from the frame with BIAS. This was from a lovely hive, so fingers crossed for a nice queen eventually.

We went into the new hive with nurse bees and the old queen. The hive was much calmer but try as we might, we could not find the queen, we even tried to sieve them through a queen excluder which I'd heard done, but that didn't help us. We have now split the brood frames between the brood box and a NUC, in the hope that tomorrow we can see which box the queen is in.

We have purchased a queen and had hoped to introduce her tomorrow, but unless we can find the original queen we will end up having to put her in a NUC, and put that off for a week or so.

If somebody could invent a queen detector they'd make a fortune.

 

[Sutty]

If somebody could invent a queen detector they'd make a fortune.

I have one!
Sadly it's not that reliable...
MK1 eyeball!
I'm hoping that RFID tags will get small enough to stick on a queen!!
Maybe an AI connection from a mobile phone will do it!? - "there she was!"

 

[Penninetrader]

We have 7 colonies split across 2 apiaries, 6 of them are very pleasant to handle but one is awful. None of the other colonies are bouncing off your veil and following you away from the hive, but this one is and it has been happening for some weeks. It has now got to the point that hoping it was a temporary blip is a forlorn hope, and we need to get force it to re-queen.

The issue is that it is a big colony and the queen is unmarked, we did attempt to find her on Saturday, but did not complete the task as we sustained stings even through the suit and gloves, and were driven off.

I want to reduce the size of the colony to make it easier to inspect and then remove the queen, then let them draw queen cells and remove these queen cells and then add a frame of eggs from a far calmer colony.

To reduce the size of the colony, could I take this hive and move it to the far end of the apiary, as I could do that without too much agro, my plan was to bring a nice but small colony from the other apiary and put it where the nasty one is as I move the nasty one. My thinking is the flying bees would go into the new calm colony, build it up and hopefully be nice to handle, and the nasty colony would be much smaller, making it easier to find the queen - hopefully a lot of the colony would be house bees and not yet too aggressive.

Is this likely to work? Will the flying bees enter the new hive (on their old hive stand) and not attack the new colony and queen?

Has anybody done this before?

Thanks for any advice you can give.

When you say stung through suit and gloves what type of gloves and suit ? I ask because last evening one of my usually calm colonies went on attack mode possibly because it was later in the day, around 7pm they also for the first time this year seem to be bringing in plenty of nectar and I have not given them additional space. Bees can be quite unpredictable but as for your nasties, if I was facing this situation I would be quite ruthless in splitting this hive in both brood and resources into 2 separate colonies and not care too much where the queen is and place side by side then reverse positions after a few days. Within a week or so you would know which box the queen is in and be able to remove her. I would not use any cells of hers for re queening. Best of luck and please keep us informed