Stings and mean bee's

[jas41]

I got my first nuc 2 months ago, the first time I went to inspect them I was nervous and I dropped a frame the last few cms when putting back into the hive. They got upset and bumped into me so I put the roof back on and walked away. Every subsequent visit I have been more careful, calm and methodical and the bees don't seem that interested in me. I take a smoker but haven't felt the need to use it. No stings from my bees so far. So yes the calm non-stinging bees do exist as long as you are calm around them.

 

[Teemore]

So yes the calm non-stinging bees do exist as long as you are calm around them.

This is something that many "beekeepers" miss completely. The difference in the way a stock of bees react to someone who is calm and someone who is, shall we say "excited", can be very dramatic and leads to the "excitement" growing .....

 

[drex]

This is always my experience when I take a new beekeeper under my wing. Does not seem to matter how much you stress, gentle and slow, both verbally and by demonstration, they continue to bang about. I think a lot of it is down to confidence, and learning " bee speak" and " bee think" . I am sure I was the same in my early days. Today, if I am rushed for time, I am too busy to open a hive.

 

[madasafish]

This is always my experience when I take a new beekeeper under my wing. Does not seem to matter how much you stress, gentle and slow, both verbally and by demonstration, they continue to bang about. I think a lot of it is down to confidence, and learning " bee speak" and " bee think" . I am sure I was the same in my early days. Today, if I am rushed for time, I am too busy to open a hive.

The advantage of keeping bare handed. Clumsiness is quickly and painfully punished..

 

[Tomo]

Some of the best advice I received from this forum was: use the smoker to control the bees. Two or three good puffs at the entrance or underneath the mesh floor then........wait at least three to four minutes, they need to get feeding on honey. Then slowly lift the crown board and a couple of gentle puffs, wait a minute or two. Then once you have started inspecting and the bees are coming up to say hi a gentle run of smoke to get the guard bees down before removing the next frame. This works for me, not saying it's right, I had angry bees and the positive use of smoke has worked well and with experience they have become easier to handle. I hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[Millet]

Some of the best advice I received from this forum was: use the smoker to control the bees. Two or three good puffs at the entrance or underneath the mesh floor then........wait at least three to four minutes, they need to get feeding on honey. Then slowly lift the crown board and a couple of gentle puffs, wait a minute or two. Then once you have started inspecting and the bees are coming up to say hi a gentle run of smoke to get the guard bees down before removing the next frame. This works for me, not saying it's right, I had angry bees and the positive use of smoke has worked well and with experience they have become easier to handle. I hope this helps. Good luck.

Try that smoker on my last Angry colony and you will look like a pin cushion with all the pain involved, try opening that angry colony up with no smoke and they are different bees with only half of them trying to kill me, this smoking the entrance lark makes me laugh (it is not necessary) and a total waste of time, i never do it.
Just open up gently and crack on with whatever you are doing, smoke is only useful when putting things back together to stop splatting bees ontop of the frames and boxes.

 

[psafloyd]

If you have been attacked consistently, have you washed your jacket/suit in the meantime? It's quite possible you have some sting pheromone in the fabric and it is triggering this response each time you open up.

Also, there's been quite a lot of thundery weather around and that makes them cranky as hell, when any other day they may be perfectly nice.

Try washing your suit if you haven't –-just soda will do at 40º –-and give it another go on a calm day.

And if you are using hide gloves, ditch them. They can't be washed easily and may also be holding pheromone.

Stings and mean bee's

This is starting to be not very much fun.

Wondering how many times you get stung when doing inspections and if it's just me or if I simply have mean bee's.

Only had them about 5 Weeks and have done 4 hive inspections.

1st time, not stung
2nd time, stung three times
3rd time, stung twice - Jacket and smoker
today stung 4 times - Jacket and smoker and I only managed to get 3 frames out.

When I open the crown board there is a healthy buzz, I was wondering if they are maybe Q-? I see loads of capped brood but didn't get to see any lava or egss as I couldn't get past the third frame without bee's bouncing off me and offing themselves.

 

[psafloyd]

Never been stung when inspecting my hives (probably done 15 inspections), with a suit, thin gloves & smoker in use.

You will be. Probably due to your own stupid fault by not seeing a bee –-despite having checked – and crushing her as she comes around the lug. I do it regularly.

 

[psafloyd]

I know one other person close to me and hes also a new beek. Seems like it might be a good time to meet up.

I'm currrently using painters/builders glove like these:
http://tinyurl.com/ycj27nbl

I'm getting stung through them mainly. The positive side is that I can pull them up and the sting drops out.

It is almost certainly your gloves, then. Surely you were told when doing your training that you shouldn't wear clothes that bees can trap their legs in, such as wool or denim? I imagine that is what is happening to your bees. Get some latex/nitriles or even Marigolds and use them instead.

 

[psafloyd]

As someone who has also come on this forum this year complaining of grumpy bees let me give you some advice; just wait. As you do more inspections you will get more confident in your handling of the bees and somehow things change and what you originally thought were mean and nasty bees start to become of less concern to you. As you start to bother less, so the bees appear to also bother less.

Having said that, I do now use a pair of black Marigolds with thin nitrile gloves over the top as my grumpy hive is still, er, grumpy, but they don't bother me any more.

As you are less tense, you make fewer mistakes and don't bang the frames around so much, which they HATE.

 

[psafloyd]

The advantage of keeping bare handed. Clumsiness is quickly and painfully punished..

I agree, it's very good, BUT on those hives that LOVE their propolis, it's a pain in the arse.

 

[Jambo]

this smoking the entrance lark makes me laugh (it is not necessary) and a total waste of time, i never do it.

Just open up gently and crack on with whatever you are doing, smoke is only useful when putting things back together to stop splatting bees ontop of the frames and boxes.

Millet, happy to accept that's the case for your bees but surely you can't be saying that this is universally true? It seems to be pretty well accepted in everything I've read and observed that doing so sends the bees off to stuff their faces which, if nothing else, occupies them.

 

[Beagle23]

Stings and mean bee's

This is starting to be not very much fun.

Wondering how many times you get stung when doing inspections and if it's just me or if I simply have mean bee's.

Only had them about 5 Weeks and have done 4 hive inspections.

1st time, not stung
2nd time, stung three times
3rd time, stung twice - Jacket and smoker
today stung 4 times - Jacket and smoker and I only managed to get 3 frames out.

When I open the crown board there is a healthy buzz, I was wondering if they are maybe Q-? I see loads of capped brood but didn't get to see any lava or egss as I couldn't get past the third frame without bee's bouncing off me and offing themselves.

I'm only a 2nd year beekeeper so have limited experience to offer. I was being stung regularly last year but then this spring the old queen left with a swarm. Once she'd gone there was a very noticeable change in the aggression level of the bees and I haven't been stung since.

 

[Eyeman]

Try that smoker on my last Angry colony and you will look like a pin cushion with all the pain involved, try opening that angry colony up with no smoke and they are different bees with only half of them trying to kill me, this smoking the entrance lark makes me laugh (it is not necessary) and a total waste of time, i never do it.
Just open up gently and crack on with whatever you are doing, smoke is only useful when putting things back together to stop splatting bees ontop of the frames and boxes.

It should be rare for preemptive smoking to aggravate rather than calm your bees. I can only think of 2 colonies over the past few years that showed that trait- both were requeened.
Weather conditions, type of manipulation and the hives previous behaviour are thing to consider when deciding on preemptive smoking.

 

[Softley]

Millet, happy to accept that's the case for your bees but surely you can't be saying that this is universally true? It seems to be pretty well accepted in everything I've read and observed that doing so sends the bees off to stuff their faces which, if nothing else, occupies them.

Nothing is universally true in beekeeping. [emoji6]

Try not smoking the entrance and see how your inspections go. You may be surprised. Most of the time I don't use my smoker. The bees don't like the smoke and move away from it as you or I would if we suddenly encountered a billowing cloud of it. If anyone has any scientific evidence to show that smoked bees go off and gorge on honey I'd be interested in reading it. On the times I've smoked the entrance I haven't then taken the roof off to see all the bees with their heads in cells feeding.

I generally only use smoke if it's in the bees interest, i.e. to move them out the way so they're not squashed when things go back together. I occasionally smoke them down or off the lugs, but only really if with novices or so as not to squash them. I prefer to gently coherse them to move with my fingers before I look at a frame. I try not to inspect in poor weather - this has a huge effect on their temperament. I find that smoke can very easily be overused.

 

[Anduril]

Try that smoker on my last Angry colony and you will look like a pin cushion with all the pain involved, try opening that angry colony up with no smoke and they are different bees with only half of them trying to kill me, this smoking the entrance lark makes me laugh (it is not necessary) and a total waste of time, i never do it.
Just open up gently and crack on with whatever you are doing, smoke is only useful when putting things back together to stop splatting bees ontop of the frames and boxes.

Try adding strong smelling pipe tobacco to your smoker, the bees don't know what to do.

 

[Jambo]

On the times I've smoked the entrance I haven't then taken the roof off to see all the bees with their heads in cells feeding.

Mine are obviously very well trained then

I generally only use smoke if it's in the bees interest, i.e. to move them out the way so they're not squashed when things go back together. I occasionally smoke them down or off the lugs, but only really if with novices or so as not to squash them.

I have started experimenting with a water spray for that - it's not quite as effective but pretty good and I would think a lot more pleasant. Smoke is awful in our faces and our apparatus is a lot less sensitive than bees', is my logic.

 

[SWEET]

Try that smoker on my last Angry colony and you will look like a pin cushion with all the pain involved, try opening that angry colony up with no smoke and they are different bees with only half of them trying to kill me, this smoking the entrance lark makes me laugh (it is not necessary) and a total waste of time, i never do it.
Just open up gently and crack on with whatever you are doing, smoke is only useful when putting things back together to stop splatting bees ontop of the frames and boxes.

Interesting as smoke reduces the electroantennograph response of the antennae the same as floral odours thus blocking isopentyl acetate and 2-heptanone , maybe too much smoke caused the bees to act like that or it was something else? . People seem to have been using smoke in this way for 1000's years so there must be some merit in it's usage and it's certainly worked for me so far but after reading the below may try inspections without -


The effect of smoke on the volatile characteristics of honey

Chrisoula Tananaki1, Sofia Gounari2 and AndreasThrasyvoulou1*
1Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
2 Veterinarian Institute of Research, Athens, Greece.
Received 5 February 2008, accepted subject to revision 5 January 2009, accepted
for publication 13 March 2009.
*Corresponding author: Email: thrasia@…

Journal of Apicultural Research and Bee World 48(2): 142-144 (2009) © IBRA 2009
DOI 10.3896/IBRA.1.48.2.10

It is well known that honey can easily absorb odours from the air, but
so far little work has been published on off-flavours in honey
(Τananaki et al., 2005). One source of honey contamination with offflavours is the smoke that beekeepers use to manipulate the bees and to remove the honey combs. In this study we examine the effect of
five different smoker fuels on the aroma profile of honey under
laboratory conditions.

Pine needles (Pinus spp.), cypress leaves (Cypressus
spp.), fungus (Fomes formentarius), a commercial product sold under
the trade name calumet and sawdust as being the commonest smoker
fuels used by beekeepers in Greece. For all experiments, honeydew
honey from pine trees was used. This honey was collected from
freshly built combs that had never been smoked before their
extraction. Four pieces of comb of 50 g each, two with sealed honey
and two with unsealed honey, were put in a transparent plastic cage
of 40 x 24 x 42 cm. In the same plastic cage were placed two
ceramic dishes of 8 cm diameter filled with pine honey from the same
source. A new smoker was used for each fuel, and smoke was blown
into the cage for two minutes. After 10 minutes the cage was opened
and the honey was extracted from the combs by pressure and then
filtered and stored in a freezer until analysed. The experiment was
repeated five times, each one with different smoking fuels. Honey
from unsmoked combs was used as a control.

A Purge and Trap system was used for the extraction of the
volatile compounds from honey. The extraction of the analytes and
adsorption on Tenax resin was carried out by He purging at 20 ml
min-1. During purging, the temperature of the trap was adjusted to
40 oC, and was then raised to 180oC (7 min) and the isolated
compounds transferred to the GC-column (SGE BPX5). Separation was
performed under the following oven temperature program: 40ºC
(5min), at 1ºC/min to 55ºC, at 3ºC/min to 120ºC, at 10ºC/min to
230ºC, at 20ºC/min to 280ºC (5 min). Helium was used as carrier gas
at a flow of 1ml/min and injector temperature was 220ºC. The
identification of isolated volatile compounds was achieved by
comparing mass spectra of unknown peaks with those stored in the
NIST and Wiley libraries.

The chromatographs of smoke showed many peaks. To find
whether compounds from smoke are transferred into honey, we
compared for all tested fuels the results from the smoke, the smoked
honey and the initial honey (control). Table 1 indicates compounds
that were not present in the control honey, but which appeared in it
after smoking with the five fuels.

Twenty one new compounds were detected in honey after
fumigation with pine needles, eleven with sawdust, nine with cypress
leaves and calumet and seven with F. formentarius smoke. Smoke
seems to have a minor impact on sealed honey since fewer new
compounds were detected after smoking (12 from the smoke of pine
needles, nine from the smoke of sawdust, eight from the smoke of
calumet, seven from the smoke of cypress leaves and five from the
smoke of F. formentarius). In most of the cases the effect of the
smoke in open and unsealed honey was stronger than in sealed honey
(Table 1). The best example of this is from the pine needle smoke
that caused the appearance of twelve, fifteen and eighteen
compounds in sealed, unsealed and extracted honey respectively.

More volatile compounds, were found in the sealed honey than in the
open honey, perhaps due to the high absorptive power of wax.

The compounds with the great concentrations were: 3-furanylaldehyde;
1-(2-furanyl)-ethanone; 5-methyl-2-furanylcarboxaldehyde;
and 2-methoxy-phenol. It is characteristic that the
concentration of 1-(2-furanyl)-ethanone, was five times greater in the
open honey than in the sealed honey. The compound 1-methyl-indene
was detected only in unsealed and open honey fumigated with pine
needles, cypress leaves, calumet and sawdust, but not in sealed
honey. The compounds 1,1-dimethyl-indene, 2-methy-naphthalene,
caryophyllene, germacrene, β-candine, α-bisabolene, 3CH2-
naphthalene were found only in the open honey fumigated with pine
needles.

Most of the detected volatile compounds in honey were also
present in the smoke from the different fuels. For example, fifteen of
the twenty one substances which were found in smoked honey were
also detected in the pine needle smoke. Some other compounds
detected in honey are combustion by-products. In addition, the
compounds with a furan ring are believed to be by-products of the
reaction of sugars at high temperatures with the warm smoke. One
such compound was the 5-hydroxy-methyl-2-furan-carboxaldehyde,
which was found in smoked honey with pine needles and fungus.

In conclusion, smoke affects the volatile profile of honey both
quantitatively and qualitatively by increasing the concentration of a
number of pre-existing compounds or by the formation of new ones.
The effect of smoking on the honey depends on the fuel used in the
smoker and most affects unsealed honey, contaminating it with
foreign volatile compounds, thus degrading the flavour profile of the
honey.

We consider honey to be a “high quality natural product” that is
produced by bees without any human intervention. The results of the
present work illustrate that smoke affects the quality of the stored
honey by incorporating volatile compounds.

References
TANANAKI, C H; THRASYVOULOU, A; MENEXES, G (2005) Absorption
of volatile compounds in honey from stored spices. Journal of
Apicultural Research. 44(2): 71-77.

 

[Millet]

Interesting as smoke reduces the electroantennograph response of the antennae the same as floral odours thus blocking isopentyl acetate and 2-heptanone , maybe too much smoke caused the bees to act like that or it was something else? . People seem to have been using smoke in this way for 1000's years so there must be some merit in it's usage and it's certainly worked for me so far but after reading the below may try inspections without - .

All i know from my own personal experience is that bees do not like smoke and all it did to my old colony was aggravate them, instead of going down into the hive a good number would instantly take flight and attack, i have even seen them attack the hole in the smoker and in doing so burn themselves to death, don't get me wrong i always light the smoker for just incase moments but i very rarely use it which results in wasting smoker fuel on every inspection good job it is cheap or free, my other new calm colonies do not need smoke at all either for the simple fact they do not attack me, like i mentioned earlier the only reason i use it now is when putting everything back together to save splatting bees on the top bars and box tops, you do whatever you feel comfortable with and i will do what i feel comfortable with.

 

[Beefriendly]

It seems to be pretty well accepted in everything I've read and observed that doing so sends the bees off to stuff their faces which, if nothing else, occupies them.

When you open up a hive with no smoke at all you will still observe bees stuffing stores into them. So it's not an effect of the smoke, despite what the old books and beekeepers tell you about forest fires and preparing to escape with their stores if their home is on fire.

I think it's more likley to be a universal action upon their home (hive) being disturbed and the smoke from the smoker being a smokescreen for what is really happening