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Aggressive bees

2K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  AHudd 
#1 ·
I’m a newbie beekeeper. I’m having a serious problem with aggressive bees. I have onetop bar hive that I started in April of this year. The first few weeks were fine and the bees were very relaxed. Two weeks ago, I went out to feed them as usual and check to see if there was any new wax on some bars. I was dressed as usual with my veil, long gloves, jeans and denim shirt and my jeans were tucked into my socks. When I removed a bar to check, I was immediately swarmed and they they stung me multiple times through my socks (below my jeans line and above my shoes.....a lot of swelling, haha) as well as my sleeves. They swarmed me and followed me back to the house. 5 days later it appeared they had settled down and I went back to feed them...this time with boots and a thick jacket. The swarmed me again, this time finding their way under my veil where I received over a dozen stings to my face and head. I waited a few more days and went back to feed them, this time with my veil duct taped down so no stings, but they literally covered my arms and legs as I changed out their food and I had to spray myself with a water hose to get them off.

The weather is humid here in north-central Alabama and it has rained off and on the past three weeks. I honestly cannot think of any change I have made that would make them suddenly so hostil. Im open to any ideas/suggestion. Thanks in advance.
 
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#3 ·
I would feed those suckers out of a five gallon bucket with grass stuffed in it so they dont drown. But all of our colonies get a little mean this time of year. The flow is over or almost over and they are a little testy. Not quite like you are describing but just more defensive no matter how gentle you are being. We are not that gentle and we are moving pretty fast so we just put up with it and go on. They almost act like they are queenless but they are fine. Always hate this time of year. They usually settle back down. We start pulling honey around the 4th of July and they are not as bad as they are right now. It happens every year.
 
#4 ·
Welcome to Bee Source.

Like mentioned above, use your smoker to cover their alarm pheromones. That should help some on reducing the aggression. What time of the day are you opening the hive? When I inspect my hives from about 9 AM till around 4 PM, most of the foragers are out of the hives so there's less bees to deal with and they are usually calm. If it's cloudy or rainy, real early or late (foragers are in the hive), I sometimes get angry bees. Sometimes they'll still be angry a couple of days later too.

They may be queen less. That will cause them to be more aggressive, at least that's one reason I've seen them be more aggressive.
 
#8 ·
I am usually smoke free but yesterday I broke out the smoker for the first time this year. Bees getting pissy about now is an annual thing. Get a proper bee suit with a veil that zippers on, you'll be fine and so will the bees.
 
#11 ·
Try lightly smoking the bees, step back and heavily smoke your clothing. If you get a stinger in you or your clothing smoke that area to over the smell.

In your area it is not too far out of the realm of possibility that your Queen could have cross bred with a mean Drone. If you started with a package they may have superceded the Queen making this scenario possible. If you caught a swarm, anything is possible.

Like Hillbillybees says, feed heavily and see if they calm down. If they don't it may be time to re-queen.

Good luck,
Alex
 
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