[K.A Pogge]

On May 4th I split my existing hive and gave one half a new Russian queen that I'd banked in a nuc for a week. I gave them one shallow super and decided to leave them to their own devices for a month.

This morning one of my hives swarmed. Probably #1 but since I missed the part when they boiled out of the hive, I can't be 100% sure. The swarm ended up in a tree on a branch I can't reach, so I sprayed the heck out of a nuc with lemongrass/sugar water and hung it in the tree on a pulley rope.

I took the swarming as a sign the hives needed checking. Sure enough, Hive 1 was honey bound in its single deep. (They are grudgingly working a Ross Rounds super). I moved some of the honey frames into a second deep hive body and they seemed happy with that.

Hive #2 though... Opened it up. Bees and lots of them. I was happy to see that my split was successful and thriving until they started with the irritated whine and aerial attack. I stuck a second deep hive body on under their single super and beat feet back to the house. Three bees followed me all the way upstairs to the shower and I counted nine stings.

This afternoon I went back in a full suit with the intention of doing a more thorough inspection and moving a few frames to bait them into the new hive body and relieve any incipent congestion. No soap. Those girls were having none of it. Two more stings through the wrist of my glove and the hive only halfway checked.

I know I should have finished, minus points for machismo today, but the smoker chose to go wonky and I'm having one of those Springs where everything is biting me. Last time that happened and I took a bunch of stings I had to do the ER thing to deal with hives.

So my question is this: Assuming this isn't a one off bad day for Hive 2 and they are this cranky, what is the best way to requeen with the minimum of bodily harm?

(As a footnote, the weather here has been hot and humid with the persistent threat of, though no actual, thunderstorms.)

Thanks.
kathy

 

[dcross]

I'd give'em at least another month, if you're sure they aren't queenless, since the bees aren't the offspring of the new queen yet.

 

[Michael Bush]

So how big is hive #2 (the split)? A full deep? The point has been made that these are not the offspring of that queen yet, so it may not help a lot. But one way to calm any hive is split it down to a smaller size. If you have a full deep split them into to five frame nucs and let them raise a queen. A hot five frame nuc is much easier to handle than a hot ten frame hive and they may settle down when the offspring IS from your queen. Either way, the best way to find the queen in a hot hive is to divide it up into manageable portions, like a bunch of five frame nucs.

 

[K.A Pogge]

They'd worked nine of ten frames of a single deep.

I like the idea of splitting them again. I think I'll wait a couple of days (to let all the swelling go down) and then do that.

Thanks, Michael.