When bees won't leave you alone...

[Worker bee]

Give them a bit of smoke in the entrance 2 min before inspection, take off the roof smoke through the crownboard hole, lift the crownboard very gently while giving a puff of smoke, part each frame carefully without causing vibration. Do everything very slowly and avoid any knocks, lift the frames out very slowly and turn them slowly. Don't rush. Even when you pick up the smoker do it slowly. Don't make any fast movements. If you can't inspect your hive you can't requeen it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I've found in many cases (here and in Africa) that gouts of smoke pumped into the hive exacerbated the problem rather than solved it.

 

[Bryang]

it was a new Buckfast queen at the start of the season, and they always say if you get a mongrel they can be nasty , and boy did I get the mongrel. I've always kept my hives in my garden, always had passive hives with British black bees, that acted like you wasn't there even when the hive was apart
Was the first and last buckfast i will ever have.
It was necessary to kill all of them as any drones that were present could have mated with a queen in the area and passed on the nastiness gene

I have the same problem with Buckfasts where I live... If I let them rear their own Q their offspring are really nasty. The Buckfasts I have had seem to be very "swarmy", and in my early days as a beek I missed the clues/preps that the bees were getting ready to swarm..

 

[Worker bee]

it was a new Buckfast queen at the start of the season, and they always say if you get a mongrel they can be nasty , and boy did I get the mongrel. I've always kept my hives in my garden, always had passive hives with British black bees, that acted like you wasn't there even when the hive was apart
Was the first and last buckfast i will ever have.
It was necessary to kill all of them as any drones that were present could have mated with a queen in the area and passed on the nastiness gene

If I brought a buckfast F1 and she produced aggressive workers id know she definitely wasn't F1. An F1 produces docile workers and are good to breed from

 

[coffindodger]

From experience F1 Buckfasts are nice, but let them breed on and you have a really aggressive handful. StevieD is spot on - you must kill off the drones or you give other keepers problems. Generally I've found a little smoke useful to push bees down when lifting frames, but often don't bother. Interestingly, the South Americans with their Africanized bees go into the apiary and lay in thick smoke then go away for a while before going back and using smoke as we do in UK. I don't think that there are any hard and fast rules, just see what your own bees respond to.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Was the first and last buckfast i will ever have.

My experience of Ged Marshall's Buckfast is the opposite - even down the line temper is stable. As Dani said, there are Buckfast and then there are Buckfast. Where did you source yours?

I have bees which are no more than Buckfastish (common in London mongrels) and even those give big colonies, calm temper and plenty of honey after four of five years of succession.

 

[Earthboy]

I've found in many cases (here and in Africa) that gouts of smoke pumped into the hive exacerbated the problem rather than solved it.

Light smoke will push them down, but heavy smoke will push them out.

 

[user 819]

Back to #1, think about re-queening with a better tempered Q.

 

[Levitt53]

Yes black does upset them. Change to yellow marigolds.

 

[user 819]

I wear Black over trousers and wellies doesn't turn my bees in to suicidal maniacs.