I have one that has as always had an attitude but workable. I was going to requeen it this year. Well where I have it at a cow got out and knocked it over about 2 weeks ago. I went out to fix it in 40deg weather thinking they would be cold and I could fix it. As soon as I got close they were all over me. Tried smoking, nothing. They are not happy at all. So I said screw it and covered them with a heavy black tarp and figured I would kill them off and save the equipment. Well I went to gather the equipment today and they chewed some holes thru the tarp and were bringing in pollen. They weren't near as busy as before or as they should be, but they aren't near dead. Any ideas on the best way to kill them off without spraying? Lots of good drawn out frames worth saving.
If they were mine I would put on enough clothes to weather the storm and put them back together. They sound like my most productive colony. Mine require smoke and a full set of clothes. Good Luck and keep us informed! I know you can handle them!
I'm doing it! Just told the wife she will need to make sure I am duct taped up real good then she can go. Great hive. Good producers. Just has a temper. All natural not treatments and they have been rocking the last couple years. I'll take some pics. Best I can anyway.
Ether will kill bees quickly and dissipates in a few days in warm weather may take longer in cold temps. Equipment is usable as soon as it dries up.
Major
Shake them out when it gets a bit warmer. Remove the boxes. Give them a bit for the flyers to fly and then go through what is left and find the queen and do away with her. End of hive
It is not the worker bee's fault. It is the mean old queen. Get rid of her off the big hive. Put in a nice young gentle queen. And everything will be calm and gentle again.
I got a really mean hive with lots of bees before. After I put in a new queen then everything is back to normal. I don't have to wear my veil now on a hive check. I don't use a smoker either. I have both and a full body bee suit as well.
The worker bees are innocent here. So don't kill them off also. They done nothing wrong only to listen to the mean old queen, that's all. Her hormones had gone wild.
You can do it a night time if you want to when they are much calmer than the day time. Since the hives are only tipped off just split them up into new hives. Then put in new queens for as many hives as you can manage. Later on you will have nice gentle hive to give you lots of honey too. Don't have to kill all of them off.
A smaller hive will not show aggressiveness that they barely have enough guard bees to keep themselves warm at night time. Now that I know how to manage aggressive hives the splitting idea is good to use.
Re-queening a wild hive is never much fun but I would not kill the bees. With spring approaching it is quite possible the bees will superseed the queen.
These days with full suits it should be possible to have a go.
Do you have a similarly productive hive to make a queen from? Sure, requeening should make them more docile, but if you give them a queen from somewhere else, you also lose all the resiliency and ability to survive and productivity that you might like in that hive. Let them requeen themselves, if you can and if you want to try to preserve the line.
I had a hive like this last year. I really hated to kill them off, but I have young boys and we couldn't get within 25 feet of them, didn't have another safe place to move them, and had some scheduled activities with a lot of people so I couldn't wait for the new queen. Tried dry ice twice. Finally just went in with my bee vac. Dropped the hole mean mess in the freezer, then split the brood and stores into other hives. That makes the other ones maybe a little more aggressive but it was mixed in and not a problem. One option, not the best though.
Divide and conquer. I would not work bees at night. Especially hot bees... they crawl, and cling, and sting... although its true they don't fly much...
ANY hive that got knocked over will be pissy. I have had great hives vandilzed several times in the last years, every one was pissy for WEEKS afterwards..... bees are like us... we let friends come and go and were cool... first time the TV is broken and the house torn up nobody is allowed in the house!
I have been slammed busy and not had a chance to do anything about this since I posted. I was able to go out Friday afternoon and they were still alive and well. So this morning I double suited up and duct taped my pant legs shut. I made up some home made HBH and put it in a pump up sprayer.
It was cloudy, pretty breezy and about 65deg this morning, so I prepared for the worse.
I went in with heavy smoke, then pulled the tarp back and sprayed them down pretty good as they were starting to get rilled up. After the spray they seemed to really calm down. They had built some bur comb that I had to clean but I got them back on their stand without any issue. I probably could have just worn my jacket and jeans like normal and probably never gotten stung.
Went and checked them at 3pm so about 7 hours later. They were working as normal and had already drank half of each quart of 1:1 I put on as a top feeder.
As to working at night, I don't understand the problem, I mostly work my hives at night, its much easier, the bees don't fly, I'm not even sure they can see at all they just seem to crawl around confused and don't know what to make of me.
See, I knew you can do it! Just have to wait until they calm down again.
Glad you did not make the decision to kill them all. Now you can buy a gentle
queen bee for this hive too. Next time you can just scoop them up with your hands
when they fall down.
Maybe to put them outside the cow fence so they not knock the hive down again. Humm,
you think the 5 gallon water bucket will work on top? Perhaps not. This is not a hurricane there.
Good job!
Mix emotions on it. This is from a little swam I caught years ago and the queen is the best laying queen I’ve had and they are good producers. I am going to give them a couple weeks and do an inspection and see what their attitude is. I have queens ordered so if they not to my liking I will requeen.
I think as long as he can tolerate them he will not requeen. Requeen only when he cannot take them anymore. Or put others in danger when close to the bee hive. In Florida, the advice is to requeen once captured a swarm. Because they
have the African bees there. It is not an easy decision knowing how productive they are. And not always there to open the hive at all the time. But if his goal is to raise the gentle hive then he will. Finding the gentle queen is not easy that there is no guarantee unless you know where they come from. And how gentle and productive they are.
I think as long as he can tolerate them he will not requeen. Requeen only when he cannot take them anymore. Or put others in danger when close to the bee hive.
Exactly. I’ve had hotter than these that I have caught from swarms in the past. But I have never had a hive that was mean from just standing around watching them. I’ve never been stung or chased just observing. The meanest one I ever had I could sit next to their hive all day with no issue at all. But once you opened them up, watch out!
HBH is, "Honey Bee Healthy" . It's a formula of honey and/or invert sugar syrup and essential oils such as lemon grass, spearmint tea tree etc.
I, and many others, concoct my own ,"mix"
As far as the mean bees are concerned I can't imagine killing a hive due to temperament but I am not in an area where AHB are currently a problem. I had a hive last year that was impossible to work without coming away with a suit full of several hundres stingers. In my case it was a ,"batch" of bad brood from a drone because after a brood cycle or two it was back to normal. If it happens again I'll do one of the following:
Add a teaspoon of nitrogen fertilizer to the smoker and get the bees stoned before working them. This uses Nitrix I believe it is called but it is fertilizer with only nitrogen so it is 34-0-0 and looks like little pearls. It takes just a little to get this converted to "laughing gas" and makes the bees easy to work. Don't give me grief pleasefor this suggestion. It is better than killing a queen or killing who knows how many stinging workers.
Let them make their own queen to see if she produces any gentle offspring. I would kill the queen, set up a frame so they make good queen cells, make a few mini mating nucs and see if any cells produce gentle Queens.
When working the hive try taking another deep with you and quickly put frames from the mean hive in it and take it 100' or more away to work this frames. That worked for me but these were not AHB.
I certainly would absolutely not even consider killing the hive period. One bee shouldn't take out a whole hive. Sorry but the idea of doing so is completely illogical. Maybe I am missing something & if so please correct me.
It's been a great producer so it is worth several hundred dollars at minimum.
I suppose as a last resort put them on a farm somewhere with a bunch of supers and an excluderand let nature take its course then you go back and take the honey.
Nevermind-I would still just gas them before opening the hive. Stand up wind
HHoward
Hampstead, NC
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