Hey folks,
A few days ago I posted about this issue that I'm having with one of my hives. I requeened it, but did not check well enough for queen cells and they replaced my new queen. I requeened because they had a bad disposition. I discovered that they had replaced her on Saturday...and I saw a virgin queen running around in there. There were more queen cells, but I did not remove them.
At the same time, I noticed their stores were getting way low, so I did some feeding. One quart on top of the hive and a gallon communal feeder in the beeyard for two hives to work on. This was a mistake because they have filled the brood nest up with it nicely...I've removed all feed now.
Today I opened this hive to remove the other queen cells. I was afraid they would swarm, and they still might, I don't know. My first idea was to leave them alone and let them do what they want to do, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see if they had emptied those other queen cells, but they hadn't. There were about 5 of them intact. I removed them.
Anyway, they were so aggressive I couldn't even believe it. When I removed a frame, they came off meaning business. They were bouncing against my suit and extremely loud. I did not use smoke. Was the worst they had ever been. I know that a queenless hive can be angry, but as of Saturday they had a queen (albeit a virgin). I'll do another inspection in a few days. If they are indeed still queenless, I'll probably move a frame of eggs from a calmer hive and let them make their own queen. Any other ideas?
A few days ago I posted about this issue that I'm having with one of my hives. I requeened it, but did not check well enough for queen cells and they replaced my new queen. I requeened because they had a bad disposition. I discovered that they had replaced her on Saturday...and I saw a virgin queen running around in there. There were more queen cells, but I did not remove them.
At the same time, I noticed their stores were getting way low, so I did some feeding. One quart on top of the hive and a gallon communal feeder in the beeyard for two hives to work on. This was a mistake because they have filled the brood nest up with it nicely...I've removed all feed now.
Today I opened this hive to remove the other queen cells. I was afraid they would swarm, and they still might, I don't know. My first idea was to leave them alone and let them do what they want to do, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see if they had emptied those other queen cells, but they hadn't. There were about 5 of them intact. I removed them.
Anyway, they were so aggressive I couldn't even believe it. When I removed a frame, they came off meaning business. They were bouncing against my suit and extremely loud. I did not use smoke. Was the worst they had ever been. I know that a queenless hive can be angry, but as of Saturday they had a queen (albeit a virgin). I'll do another inspection in a few days. If they are indeed still queenless, I'll probably move a frame of eggs from a calmer hive and let them make their own queen. Any other ideas?