What Should I Do With Extremely Hot Hive?

There is a good chance the hive will quiet down in 2-3 weeks. Hives swarming or undergoing supersedure are notoriously defensive. Since guard bees are recruited on an ad hoc basis, avoid disturbing the hive for a while. Over-inspection drives much bad behavior.

The drought year we are having is affecting bee behavior -- the population peaks naturally at the solstice, but if the bees are in dearth now, they are sensing things are very wrong.

I find nothing compelling about the argument that the Sacramento foothills cannot have AHB. Hundreds of wild-caught AHB swarms are moved to Ca from Arizona for pollination. The studies in south Texas documenting the AHB takeover showed the virtually complete replacement of the genetics in 3 years. When a critical mass of AHB establishes in a region the takeover is rapid and irreversible. AHB usurp weakened hives, and in the current Ca drought, a AHB explosion may have begun last fall. My county had roving swarms of AHB usurping and emptying established hives last fall. They would empty a hive of all food, and fly on. How and where the swarms would settle for breeding needs to be studied.

You may break down an aggressive hive. You will need 3 or 4 mated queens of known disposition. Move the hive about 30 feet away from its present location. Unstack it completely spreading the boxes widely. Take a break and let the bees settle over the boxes. Then, Proceed to go through the boxes, building up new brood boxes with frames shook free of bees (and the queen). Move two of these boxes back to the old location and place them side by side. The queen location in the old hive may be obvious from behavior at this point. You may use an empty box with a queen excluder screwed to the bottom to seive the bees into boxes while trapping the queen. Use lots of smoke to drive them down. If you don't find the queen, don't panic. The break down will dispirit the aggression, and you will have another chance with less chaos to look for her.

Wait a day or two and introduce queen cages to the various breakdown hives you created. If you see them balling the cage, you have located the queenright box. The AHB hives I have dealt with take domestic queens easily, much better than the fickle "Russian" bees.

Uncap all the drone cells you see. You don't want those genetics breeding.


I have anesthetized and killed AHB hives by placing dry ice on top and bagging the hive in a large garbage bag pulled over the top. The dry ice doesn't damage the honey. Enough dry ice kills the bees, a bit less just knocks them out, and you can proceed with a split with immobile bees. I not sure you can meter the CO2 precisely enough to use this as split technique, but the possibility is intriguing. CO2 is heavier than Atmosphere, so sinks down from the top.

Burning sulfur is the classic bee killer. Detergent and water mix knocks them down rapidly. I would say both are contaminants that waste the honey, though not the comb.

"What should I do with it? If I requeen I still have drones from this queen in the hive ... ."
Just speaking to the drone issue, if I were concerned, I would eliminate the drone cells, put queen excluder over the entrance, and return after dusk and remove the drones at the entrance trying to get in.
"Any/all ideas are greatly appreciated."
As best as I can tell from your post, the time between your having seen the old queen and the aggressive incident seems a little short for a virgin queen to have hatched, mated, laid eggs, and enough bees from those eggs to have completed the nurse to forager cycle to have so affected the overall disposition of the hive. I would make sure the entrance to this hive (and other nearby hives) is high enough that the bees are not being molested by an animal at night. Given the severity of the attack, I would still, at a minimum, remove the new queen, remove all emergency queen cells from that queen as they appear, and requeen immediately. If other circumstances indicated that the hive should be moved or eliminated for safety reasons, then I would do so. If there is a better location available for this hive I would move it now. I am not an expert, that's just what I would do. I hope it goes well for you.