[cfalls]

On survival: What was your varroa treatment regimen? Or did they starve? Honestly I doubt the polar vortex had much to do with it. People overwinter in plain wooden boxes in Alaska.

On gentleness: Skunks or bad weather can make a genetically docile hive seem mean, but if you still don't like their demeanor this spring, I say off with her head. Your new queen may have mated with drones with aggressive genetics. Requeen, wait a month or two, and see what you've got. A queen from a quality commercial breeder will raise a gentle hive ~90% of the time. Smelling alarm pheromone when you didn't even open the hive sounds pretty bad.

On queen checks: Just look for eggs. If there are eggs, there must have been a queen in the last 3 days. Easy peasy.

 

[SeaCucumber]

If I was requeening it, I would do a split (for better acceptance). I would add the new queen to the nurse bee half with a push in cage. I would do a newspaper combine once the new queen laid.

 

[iesusko]

On survival: What was your varroa treatment regimen? Or did they starve? Honestly I doubt the polar vortex had much to do with it. People overwinter in plain wooden boxes in Alaska.

On gentleness: Skunks or bad weather can make a genetically docile hive seem mean, but if you still don't like their demeanor this spring, I say off with her head. Your new queen may have mated with drones with aggressive genetics. Requeen, wait a month or two, and see what you've got. A queen from a quality commercial breeder will raise a gentle hive ~90% of the time. Smelling alarm pheromone when you didn't even open the hive sounds pretty bad.

On queen checks: Just look for eggs. If there are eggs, there must have been a queen in the last 3 days. Easy peasy.

I used apigaurd in the fall, I missed one of the hives cause it had extra honey and by the time I got it off it was too cold to treat. That one probably died from deformed wing. Many of those bees looked small/malnurished. All had a ton of surplus food, beebread and honey. Just before the chill in feb. I put on mountan camp feeders and vented the top in a Vivaldi board style. I think the venting was a mistake because I did not insulate the hives at all. I thought winter was winding down and then we had a chill. Both the hives that died were brooding up before the chill. I think that spread out the cluster, thus me saying the chill killed em. They were all alive when I put the sugar on. Having temps in the negatives when its supposed to be in the high 30's to 40's definately isn't good when they have brood from a warm winter. I'm sure I'm partially to blame here. 100% on the one I didn't treat.

They were mean when the others were not so I'm thinking it's a genetics thing but I don't know how bad it is yet. I split em off the main in early summer. They got mean in the fall. I'll do a short inspection in a week or so. I am willing to put money on it that they already have capped brood and eggs. They have all the surplus of the other two. I will do a full suit up and hope for the best. Maybe I'll get a better gauge on behavior.

 

[cfalls]

Good luck!

And yeah, cold could've been part of it, I don't know.

Fwiw, I've had good luck requeening mean hives. (By "mean", I don't mean crazy Africanized chase-you-20-yards mean, just normal you-have-to-suit-up mean. I'm kind of picky.)

 

[DENIwood]

It's a pity that everything happened like this. I read about it here