suggestions before petrol!

[Heather]

I have 2 national colonies each with 3 supers, bees working hard.. but they are bees from hell. Far too rude to be acceptable. Can have hundreds on my veil..
Queens not marked sadly, could never find them in the large colony and always too aggressive to look for long. BUT I need to requeen....as not on my land and they do 'follow!'
suggestions please..

 

[Finman]

I have 2 national colonies each with 3 supers, bees working hard.. but they are bees from hell. Far too rude to be acceptable. Can have hundreds on my veil..
Queens not marked sadly, could never find them in the large colony and always too aggressive to look for long. BUT I need to requeen....as not on my land and they do 'follow!'
suggestions please..

Requeen with foreign queens. Only way to handle the problem right now. Or sell hives forward.

Later you can change the queens to better.

 

[roche]

End of the rape season? That aside, I find sometimes shifting them to a different apiary can change their attitude...

 

[Wilco]

I have 2 national colonies each with 3 supers, bees working hard.. but they are bees from hell. Far too rude to be acceptable. Can have hundreds on my veil..
Queens not marked sadly, could never find them in the large colony and always too aggressive to look for long. BUT I need to requeen....as not on my land and they do 'follow!'
suggestions please..

A few options. This one if you have spare kit and they're angry anyway:

• Get a new deep with frames.
• Put it on the stand where the old deep was
• Go through old deep one frame at a time and shake all the bees off and into the new deep.
• Check each frame to make sure the queen isn't on it before putting back in the original box.
• Put queen excluder on top of new box containing hopefully all the bees (excluding those mobbing you).
• Put on super(s)
• Put old deep with all the brood on top, then roof as usual.
• A day later take away new deep, which should contain queen and a reduced number of workers. You can either find her more easily and squish her or kill the contents of that box, hopefully preserving most of the colony.
• Then put the hive the right way around and requeen it.

Or unite the colonies, let the queens fight it out then only have to do the above once, then split to requeen.

 

[Heather]

End of the rape season? That aside, I find sometimes shifting them to a different apiary can change their attitude...
No rape near me, and I really don't think I can transport. When opening I have 1000's on out side of hive. so don't fancy being in car with them.. Think going down Wilco route.. but need to feel brave before I start as they are PIGS!

 

[Wilco]

End of the rape season? That aside, I find sometimes shifting them to a different apiary can change their attitude...
No rape near me, and I really don't think I can transport. When opening I have 1000's on out side of hive. so don't fancy being in car with them.. Think going down Wilco route.. but need to feel brave before I start as they are PIGS!

That's where you're going wrong, you need a sty not a hive.

Good luck with it.

 

[deemann1]

Move the hive away from stand and let all the flying bees go to old stand .
Smoke the hell out of hive in new position. Will make finding the Queen alot easier with mostly young bees left in hive .. kill queen
You could make nucs out of hive

 

[pargyle]

I have 2 national colonies each with 3 supers, bees working hard.. but they are bees from hell. Far too rude to be acceptable. Can have hundreds on my veil..
Queens not marked sadly, could never find them in the large colony and always too aggressive to look for long. BUT I need to requeen....as not on my land and they do 'follow!'
suggestions please..

Put the supers on a new floor in the same place as the existing hive. Move the brood box onto a new floor as far away as you can get it in the apiary. Leave them for a few hours or overnight (best done when they are foraging well) ...the fliers and many of the house bees will return to the original site and you will have less bees to deal with in the brood box and you should be able to spot the queen. If not ... seive them through a queen excluder but before you do that try a few of the queen finding tricks like putting the frames in pairs after removing and shaking off the bees from some of the frames. The queen will be in between one of the pairs. Once you have the queen you can decide where to go next ... i would only do one of the colonies at a time though.

 

[pargyle]

Move the hive away from stand and let all the flying bees go to old stand .
Smoke the hell out of hive in new position. Will make finding the Queen alot easier with mostly young bees left in hive .. kill queen
You could make nucs out of hive

Heavily smoking aggressive bees often makes matters much worse and you end up covered in the little beggars ! Right about bleeding the fliers off though...

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’ve been there. Whatever you do if you are impregnably kitted out it’s easier to just plug on. Tracksuit under Beesuit. Legs and arms taped. Leather gauntlets. I have a pair of leather gloves I got with my first suit. They were free. They have on that occasion been useful.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Only thing I can add is . . .. .
You don't mention a queen excluder on top of brood box. If you are going to have to search multiple boxes then beg/steal/borrow QEs to go between each box, 3 days before the big day. Then you only have one box, the one with eggs, to search for the queen.

 

[plain_hunt]

I’ve had to deal with bees like these. The above advice, and get someone to help you move the boxes around and look for the queen. You could always try sieving for her after moving the brood box away if necessary. I am much braver when I have a friend helping me!

 

[Heather]

Going to go for it. Removed a full super to lose some weight from the hive before I split..Remaining supers on original site, and brood box nearby, facing opposite way. To find that 'b' queen! There is a QE on top of BB so she can only be in one area. Shame as brood pattern good, but behaviour BAD for a few weeks. She has to go. Will have large vodka and orange waiting for me back home..

 

[Erichalfbee]

Going to go for it. Removed a full super to lose some weight from the hive before I split..Remaining supers on original site, and brood box nearby, facing opposite way. To find that 'b' queen! There is a QE on top of BB so she can only be in one area. Shame as brood pattern good, but behaviour BAD for a few weeks. She has to go. Will have large vodka and orange waiting for me back home..

Good luck Heather. Look forward to a progress report.

 

[Heather]

Have ordered 2 Carnolians- not bought a queen for years... but needs must. They arrive Tuesday so going to split the supers from the BB Sunday afternoon- let flyers go from BB to supers. Look for Q on Monday and requeen and rebuild Tuesday.... Theoretically!
Hives not too close to each other, but it's chaos anyway when I go near.. may as well be total.

 

[jeff33]

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

 

[deemann1]

Goid luck hooe all goes well
Dont be afraid to use some duck tape to seal up

 

[Anduril]

I've added a strong smelling tobacco to the smoker on these occasions, it masks the alarm pheromone.

 

[Swarm]

The Condor moment?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Never mind a propolis dyed suit we need one impregnated with Beequick. @pargyle ?