Re-queening aggressive hives

[Amari]

.
Anyway did an inspection maybe a bit to late and found them brimming over very crowded so I added a super and did chequer boarding. What a change no problem at all now the girls have calmed down and are no longer stroppy.
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'Scuse my curtiosity but what's chequer boarding?

 

[Hivemaker.]

'Scuse my curtiosity but what's chequer boarding?

....http://www.beesource.com/point-of-v...tive-checkerboarding-results-and-conclusions/

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesexperiment.htm

 

[Walrus]

At a recent talk by Philip McCabe I remember him saying that swapping 2 queens often sorts out stroppy bees. Don't know if anyone has tried that on here?

Basically remove 2 queens from 2 hives, leave about an hour, then put back in hives (but swap the queens so they are in different hive to where they came from).

Don't suppose it would help with the lack of space on OSR stroppiness - in that case they need more space to store nectar

 

[Stiffy]

At a recent talk by Philip McCabe I remember him saying that swapping 2 queens often sorts out stroppy bees. Don't know if anyone has tried that on here?

Basically remove 2 queens from 2 hives, leave about an hour, then put back in hives (but swap the queens so they are in different hive to where they came from).

Don't suppose it would help with the lack of space on OSR stroppiness - in that case they need more space to store nectar

Never tried it as I dont tolerate bad tempered bees but it sounds to me that you would end up with two dead queens and two pxxxed off hives!
S


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[susbees]

The swapping hives thing is to show that the queen's temperament and pheromones controls the hive temperament. If you swap queens between a grumpy lot and a good lot the temperament moves too IF caused by genetics.

For the original post: buying in queens year after year is 1) expensive 2) destabilises the local gene pool. Breeding your own queens from your best behaved/most winter-thrifty/resonably productive colonies works and stabilising the local drone pool by co-operating with other nearby beekeepers is the answer to temperament problems (as long as your handling skills are good). If you only have a couple of hives find a nearby beekeeper or two to work with. Improve your bees!

 

[Margaret Elisabeth]

It is not the queen that is bad tempered but her workers.
Good tempered bees and bad tempered bees are bred through mating with drones of that type. Hence a queen mated in an area with a predominance of bees which are more likely to sting is more likely to produce workers with a propensity to sting.
My association bought in nuc's. from an area where the mating with less defensive bees that are easier to handle has been developed over the years.

Last year I split the colony and the queen mated with some locals who are far more robust in defence of their home. The change was obvious within a short time, particularly as the offspring were far darker than the grandmother.

Of course if you breed more queens from the same colony your troubles are more likely to multiply as the drones from that colony add to the drone pool that has more propensity to sting. The solution is to breed out that propensity to make war on the relatively harmless beekeeper. Of course if you insist on squashing bees every time you go in a hive the alarm pheremone never has a chance to disipate so you store up trouble for yourself and anyone else in the attack area.

 

[susbees]

My post should have said: the queen's genes for temperament and pheromones...

 

[Swarm]

I think it was right on the money. A serious breeding program would be the best chance of achieving desirable traits.

 

[richardbees]

"Basically remove 2 queens from 2 hives, leave about an hour, then put back in hives (but swap the queens so they are in different hive to where they came from)"

Has anyone actually done this?

Looks good in theory but I can't see it working in practice....

 

[susbees]

"Basically remove 2 queens from 2 hives, leave about an hour, then put back in hives (but swap the queens so they are in different hive to where they came from)"

Has anyone actually done this?

Looks good in theory but I can't see it working in practice....

Yes. You shouldn't write knowledge from some random person's copy-paste , but as you don't want a queen with dodgy genes it was for scientific interest only (and with a sample size of one the term scientific is a loose one). I don't keep queens whose colonies aren't reliable enough to show non-beekeepers through in reasonable weather.

 

[Walrus]

The person I heard about this weird practice from has kept bees most of his life, as did his father & grandfather, and is currently President of the European Commission of Apimondia. I suppose he could have been winding us up though...I think he said it was a tip from his Dad!

As my bees are little angels it hasn't been something I've tried as yet