requeening an agressive hive.....

[taff..]

Hi, my colonies are in an orchard, not just a field with a couple of apple trees, but a propper huge agricultural orchard, and there are no neighbours within about half a mile of the colonies.


four weeks ago, I invited a mate around to handle bees for the first time, he's done the courses and bought the kit over the last 3 years and is now wanting his own bees. as it turned out, this colony decided that this was the week that they'd show their agression, great for hammering home the point that bees can be 'orrible to the noob

strike one!!


a week later and the agression is the same, that's strike two and I made a call to source a new (local) queen, 'I should have one ready in a fortnight' was the answer so fast forward to today....

this afternoon my plan was to move the brood box 20 yards away from the hive, split it into 3 boxes, find the queen and leave her in one of the nucs with a couple of frames 'just in case', and that went very well, I found the queen on my first pass but there were many casulties leaving their stings all over my beesuit

tomorrow I'll collect the new queen, I'll introduce her in a cage that she cannot be released from, then after a few days I'll adjust the cage so that she can be released provided that the bees are not still being agressive towards her.

the slight problem is....I found 5 charged queen cups, I didn't have the kit to do an AS (I had nuc boxes but no frames), so knocked the cells down. on reflection I'm thinking what was the point of doing that? they are now Q- so will be building more anyway, but there again I dont want another Q from this breed line!! hey ho, it may have been a mistake but I'll learn from it if it is.

now I'm trying to figure out in my own head what are the bees likely to do next? they have started down the route of swarming, I've removed their queen and will give them a new one tomorrow. will they still want to swarm? are they likely to take my new queen, thank me very much and bugger off over the horizon with her? or have I just confused things so much that they'll accept the new queen and live happily ever after


Ohh, confused

 

[Black Comb]

Well Taff I suppose it depends why they are wanting to swarm.

Also, where do you buy those cages that she cannot be released from?

Clive de Bruyn page 272.
"It is difficult to introduce a mated queen at any time when the colony has queen cells, even if they are removed. If Q Cells are removed they will accept a virgin and if a virgin is removed they will accept a mated queen.. If a mated queen is removed they will accept queen cells. What they do not like is to be given a mated queen after cells are removed."

 

[taff..]

the introduction cages are available from any bee suppliers, or alternatively any sort of buttler cage/hair roller cage can be used with a small piece of tin foil covering over the fondant plug/newspaper for the first few days.

 

[oliver90owner]

What is surprising me is the counting. You have two queens and have split the colony three ways?

Anyway, I would have split off a nuc, replacing the frames with foundation - that may well have been enough to subdue any swarm plans for a couple of weeks.

The nuc would have produced emergency cells which would all be knocked down after six days, or so, to make the nuc hopelessly Q-. Then I would have introduced the new queen.

The 'big half' would have continued to expand. If more queen cells were the result, an A/S would be in order. If not, I would wait until I had a frame of eggs/young larvae from the new queen and transfer this in at the time of removing the grumpy queen (on one frame), allowing only a queen cell from this frame to be nurtured. result is then two colonies with the new genes and you do what you want with the old queen. Uniting with one of the new colonies would be the usual route, unless you had other plans, when the newly reared queen was proven.

Their aggression may be due to a shortage of forage. You have your queen now, so don't really want to hang around too long.

It is just that emergency cells from a nuc are likely never quite as good as from a strong colony, IMO.

in other words you are starting a bit late. Liaison with your queen supplier may have been good, say - a week in advance of avalability.

Regards, RAB

 

[taff..]

sorry RAB, I wasn't too clear...

I was splitting down the brood box just to make the task of finding the queen a bit easier and a bit quieter, split them up, let the flyers go back to the original hive location and then find the queen....divide and overcome


once the queen was found, she went into a nuc with another frame and more bees shaken in, the rest went back into the original brood box, back into the original hive

 

[busybee53]

Thinking of your new queen going off with half your bees. Can you make sure she is clipped before putting her in. They won't get too far then if they still decide to go.

 

[oliver90owner]

Right. Sorts that out! I would still be introducing into a nuc-sized colony rather than a full box of bees. Apparently so much easier.

I usually raise my queens in nuc sized boxes and then unite the lot later, so not a lot of experience with introducing single queens to colonies.

Regards, RAB