Very bad temperament Bees!!

[stramorebees]

Hi all

I'm looking a bit of advice if possible. I have 5 hives of bees at the moment. 4 of them are very manageable, but 1 of them is possessed! They will attack me in the garden, which is 200m from the hive..
The bees were the AMM breed, but is now headed by the pure strains daughter which was mated last year with all the local drones (various beekeepers in my locality). They are on double National brood & very prolific..

I was told by the wife yesterday that they had to be sorted..
All I could do as a quick fix was open the box, find the queen & dispatch Her..
I then split 1 of the brood boxes into 2 nucs, and the other is joined via the news paper method to a nice temperament box on double brood.

There are already lots of drones about my area, so I'm wondering should I take my chances with the nucs and let them build emergency queen sells & see what happens..

My plan would be to try and rear a few queens later on from nice stock & replace whatever is produced via the nucs..

Any ideas on what I've done so far??

Many thanks
Robert

 

[enrico]

You are on the right lines. Killing the queen was what I would have done. Combining is fine, the queen cell is worth a gamble too so..... Well done. It may take a couple of weeks for tempers to calm down so be patient.
E

 

[B+.]

Any ideas on what I've done so far??

Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmmtjFgdqz8

 

[oliver90owner]

Good to get rid of the queen. But the rest is not well thought out, IMO.

Culling of any drone brood from that queen would be good.

Uniting with other colonies is good, but the rest is poor.

You will likely be lucky and get two new queens mated, but the daughters are very likely to follow the mother's temperament trait.

Further, raising emergency queens from weak nucs will likely result in less than best quality queens, doing it this early may risk getting queens properly mated or mated at all. Better to have united all and split later to recover colony numbers, IMO.

It would be better to remove any emergency queen cells, to leave these nucs hopeessly Q-, and then requeen with mated queens. Alternatively, add a frame of open brood about every week (to keep them going and to avoid laying workers) for the next few weeks until more reliable weather for mating is with us. It would be better doing this as a single colony, of course, not separate nucs.

Sorry, but all ways round, a bad, not well thought out -and much less than optimal - choice of actions. Your attempt thus far is likely to store up more troubles for you later in the year.

 

[keith pierce]

every think you did was perfect, except for making nucs from an evil hive. Join the nucs up back up with the other hives and if you want to increase then in a few weeks you will have natural good queen cells from a quite queen. I have so far killed 6 queen that I dis not like due to yellow band and jumping of the frames. you will be a lot better off in the coming weeks and for year's to come ears, to cull early in the spring. I would also kill off any drone or drone cells from the aggressive hive. Better to be at the loss of one hive that at the wrong end of an angry wife.

 

[pargyle]

I'm with RAB ... I would have killed the queen, removed any drone comb then done a newspaper unite with one of your good hives. The aggression often seems to emanate from the queen's pheremones and reduces when you put them with a gentler temperament hive .. you could then have split the combined colony in a month or so and you are back up to full strength with a queen descended from manageable stock.

At present you are possibly going to end up with another bad tempered colony and possibly two ...

Other option was to leave them queenless as per RAB and buy in one of Hivemakers mated pussycats (Ah .just noticed ....you're in Ireland - so a local breeders pussycat !). ... money well spent I would suggest.

 

[stramorebees]

Thank you all for the good advice.

I had forgot to mention that I had actually killed off any drone cells that were visible when making up the Nucs & joining brood boxes.

The Nucs were only planned a temporary measure until I had better queens to replace them with, but I will take your advice & join the nucs with another better tempered colony & split from them later.

Has anyone much experience with the AMM strain, & are the offspring generally a bit more nippy when grossed with a mixed Drone pool..?

Thanks again.
Robert

 

[Toffeesmum]

Hi Robert

So sorry you had such a grumpy colony. We were in the same situation last year. In fact they were SOOOOOOOOOOO bad that my Mentor said he would not have put up with them. They were so evil, that not only did they 'follow' me but once I was safely indoors, and unveiled, they would bounce off the French windows to attempt to get me. They were no fun to have around and, at times, I would dread stepping in the garden. They were a swarm of unknown source I'd collected from a nursing home in May.

THEN... after attending a queen rearing course, which included a 'free queen', we requeened them. Once her off-spring were raised, their temper changed dramatically. Unbelievable the transformation.

Cropped tonnes of honey from the colony and they have over-wintered great. In fact just put 2nd super on yesterday as on OSR!

They will always remain to have the nick-name #killerbees from Wellington, but glad I held on to them

 

[For want of a better word]

Has anyone much experience with the AMM strain, & are the offspring generally a bit more nippy when grossed with a mixed Drone pool..?


Seems Amm crossed with F1 pussycats can be a bad cross
Post will be deleted in time as this fact goes against some beekeepers beliefs.
Possibly the Carniolian influence in the Ligurian/Carniolian cross


Yeghes da

 

[Finman]

.
What ever the crossings are, get rid of that Black Devil. It dangerous to other people and difficult to nurse.

I have 30 years experience about AMM. They can be what ever in free mating.

 

[derekm]

eliminate environmetal factors first... e.g. the pigeon landing on the hive roof.

 

[For want of a better word]

eliminate environmetal factors first... e.g. the pigeon landing on the hive roof.

Or any other thing that thumps and bangs around the bees!

Yeghes da

 

[Toffeesmum]

Or any other thing that thumps and bangs around the bees!

Yeghes da

Like my husband!!!!!!!!

 

[Finman]

eliminate environmetal factors first..

It does not help . Bees are same everywhere.

AMM are bad ashes everywhere, up down to Tasmania.

 

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi stramorebees.
The drone pool is not something you can fix with 4 hives.
You can buy in nice temper queens and try to make sure you dont lose them with a swarm.
Also you can raise a few for yourself try early and late season mating to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Teemore]

I was introduced to beekeeping with AMM bees in 2010 and whilst early on I encountered a few defensive colonies in 2010 and 2011, all my own colonies are nice to work with. I have worked hard with other local beekeepers to select for nicely tempered and productive bees and will continue to do so. Don't tolerate bad tempered bees. Unite the split colony onto your other hives and give them a boost for the Spring nectar flow.

 

[whoosling]

Ah just the post I was looking for as I have an extremly nasty hive to deal with. I was going to kill the queen, get rid of drone brood and put a frame with brood and eggs from my quiet hive in to see if they would raise a queen. Only having 2 hives if I combine the nasty queenless with the good I'd end up with alot of bees in one hive, will this work ?

 

[B+.]

It does not help . Bees are same everywhere.

AMM are bad ashes everywhere, up down to Tasmania.

Bees are most definitely NOT the same everywhere!

I have never worked with pure AMM but I have worked with pure Carniolans. I have had to unlearn a lot of the things I learned to do previously and it was complete revelation to me that I didn't need a smoker to subdue the bees or gloves to protect myself with.

I will agree with you on many things about the messed up state of beekeeping in the UK but not this. I think that pure stocks create a breeding population which forms the basis for selection, even if they are undeveloped. Hybrids do not. They are too unstable.

 

[Finman]

.
Yes. How many has pure bees? If somebody has, he does not need to ask on forum, what to do with angry hives.

Nornal beekeepers have mongrel bees and they multiply their swarmimg hives and their emergency queens. That all is far from bee breeding and selecting.

 

[Finman]

Bees are most definitely NOT the same everywhere!

.

They surely are. They have big variation everywhere. You msy nurse them with same principles where ever you go: Australia, Argentina, Canada, Finland, Russia, Turkey.

They give stings, they swarm, they have same diseases, same honey
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