Will the next generation of a "hot" queen be less aggressive?

1325 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Michael Bush, Jun 16, 2014

Hokie Bee Daddy

Discussion Starter · Jun 14, 2014

I had my first experience with a really aggressive hive yesterday while I was robbing it. While I was in there I was lucky enough to see the queen and I promptly squished her. This is a hive I re-queened in mid-April with a queen who was bred in Louisiana. My question is what are the chances the next generation queen will be less aggressive? Or would it be better to give this hive a week, cut out all of the queen cells and then re-queen?

BTW - This queen walked across a medium and a shallow full of honey to lay worker brood in the top box above those. I found her in the intermediate full of honey which I thought was strange.

Thanks for the insights.

Jay

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Cris

· #2 · Jun 14, 2014

only way to know would be to know the temperment of the drones she mated with; if she was open mated then you can only hope that the drones came from peaceble hives - if they didn't you'll be right back in the same boat you are now

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Vance G

· #3 · Jun 14, 2014

It is a crap shoot but a 50% chance the evil came from her and may or may not present in her daughter. Good luck.

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TWall

· #4 · Jun 14, 2014

My experience is no. I have not found any appreciable improvement with temperment when allowing/causing a defensive colony to requeen itself. The true test is when the colony is large and there is a dearth.

Tom

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Lburou

· #5 · Jun 14, 2014

Your mileage may vary, but in my locale, my BeeWeaver hives settle down after a daughter has an open mating (that is a blessing). The daughters and granddaughters of the BeeWeaver queens are my favorites! Their hives produce and are only moderately defensive, which is okay with me.

There are times when daughters of hybrid queens are more aggressive after an open mating with local mutts. You can always kill the emergency cells in that hive and give them a frame of eggs and brood from another hive. I'd expect a more desirable outcome that way as far as aggressiveness is concerned...but like vance said, maybe not. HTH

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Hokie Bee Daddy

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jun 16, 2014

Thanks for the comments. I'm going to give the daughter a chance. This hive produced really well last month so its worth a shot. I installed a queen excluder just above the bottom deep so after she starts laying she will only have one deep box to for brood. This will keep the hive small and manageable until I decide if I want to keep her.

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Michael Bush

· #7 · Jun 16, 2014

>It is a crap shoot

Yes, but one you sometimes win...

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