You can always re-queen, and I would with bees like yours. Within a month or two, you will have much nicer bees. As you are in Missouri, I would wait until the Spring nectar flow starts. It is easier to get them to accept a new queen during a flow. These guys ship queens most of the year, and as they are in Hawaii, you can be sure that there is no africanization:
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Hi Nick. The way you describe your bees, if there is any Russian, it could be Africanized Russian. Not sure if those Africanized genes are found where you are. Dawn would know.
I’m in Australia and have Italians and Carnies, and now a Cordovan. They are all pretty chilled as nucs, but once they grow big and I go in at the wrong time, they get stroppy too.
You learn to read your bees, listen to their sounds and watch their behavior. You retreat when they sound stressed.
When I got my first nuc, I didn’t have a suit and smoker yet and I did my first 3 inspections in just normal summer wear. Wouldn’t do that now.
Perhaps your nuc supplier can help you to requeen? He obviously sold you a nuc unsuitable for beginners.
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Hi Busso, Northern suburbs just off Reid Highway. A few years back, whilst on a holiday trip thru the S.W. after setting up camp, relaxed on my favorite chair with a cold Pepsi, took a deep swig, and BANG, something was in my mouth.
Yep, you guessed it, a bee had been attracted to the sweetness and had gone into the can. WOW ! my tongue swelled up to about three times it’s size, the wife and friends thought it was quiet hillarious, as it stuck out of my mouth, slowly overnight the swelling went down and next day things were good again.
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I also live in WA.
BACK IN THE 80’s I ran round 100 hives in the Stanthorpe region in Queensland.
These days I live in the Perth Hills
Recently I purchased a Flow hive after having been away from bees for heaps of years because I like bees and wanted to see how well the Flow hive works.
I have always worked my bees in shorts, t-short and thongs. Of course I get the occasional nip. Occasionally suiting up is required.
I find that working my bees (just two hives these days) now and in the past has always been a much smoother and relaxed operation without suiting up.
I find I can handle the hive much more gently without gloves.
I also think that if you love your bees, do not fear, and handle gently then the experience for the bees and the keeper is really nice.
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G’day Mark, I have one hive that I loved, didn’t fear, I handled it gently, but they were still out to get me. They found a hole in my veil, which I quickly got repaired before going in again.
No shorts, t-shirt or thongs for this old beekeeper. I tell a lie, I mostly wear thongs while attending my nuc hives at my house. I still wear my suit & gloves.
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Lol
Time to requeen. Get rid of that old tart.
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I split it the other day. I was going to squash her but had second thoughts. I brought her with the split home & worked on it that same afternoon without much trouble. Maybe they were having a bad couple of days. She’s a good performer. I’ll let her go a bit longer.
I realized after working on the brood that I’ve seen much crankier hives. My bee suit is wearing a bit thin, I only wear underpants under it this time of year. No bees got me through the suit, that was what changed my mind about squashing her. I’ll let the colony make a new queen from her eggs.
I feel the pain.
Sorry stike out the rofl
We couldn’t get onto it, but it doesn’t. cheers
Look for Beehive Fence Construction Manual by Dr. Lucy E. King. www.elephantsandbees.com and you don’t have to destroy hives in order to keep the elephants away.
Dont forget Toodyay 
Hi There
If it continues over a few weeks, you may find that the bees lost their queen and are replacing her. In these cases, even calm Italian bees will get defensive.
That can happen if they swarm multiple times from the same hive and loose track of how many queens were born and swarmed away, or if the queen dies.
best wishes
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This is how we’ve been enjoying watching our bees. A stable plastic bottle or two with a hole pretty low creates a refilling supply of water which they’ll get to discover and in the hot weather there are lots of them. Not much chance of being stung even when you sit closely by!
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I have been stung approx 35 times in the last 18 months. Yep, my fault. I have found that the stings actually hurt less and less every time I am stung ( ostensibly I am a bit lazy and want to just take a quick “ peek” and am too dumb to suit up)
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Back in the day an orchardist in the Stanthorpe area asked for a dozen hives for pollination. I went round with them early one morning and he offered to give me a hand placing them. I noticed that he dropped one about two inches from the ground but really didn’t register.
I walked around opening their little front doors to let ‘em do their thing. When I opened the one he dropped they came at me in droves. Man did I cop a beating in my shorts and t-shirt!
I walked back to the ute, suited up and then commenced squashing the little blighters. They say pain purifies . . . I needed plenty of it that day.
One night I went to pick up a yard of bees. Didn’t take the truck just the little flat tray ute again. There were only twenty in the yard. It was up a first road about 50km from home. Most had just one super, but three had two. Anyway strapped ‘em up and started lifting. If I knew they were so full I would’ve gone in the old truck with the hoist. By the time they were on I was pretty knocked up!
I thought I skimp roping them cause I just wanted to get home with them.
Tootling Laing the first road I heard a bit of a bump and stopped and shone the torch back behind me. Well there it was - one of the two super hives had dropped off the back and busted open!
I happened right outside a farmhouse and the occupants were sitting on the veranda. They got their evening’s entertainment.
I discovered that night - didn’t have a suit ‘cause I was just shutting them in and bringing them home - that bees tend to crawl at night. And crawl they did. All over me while I put things back together.
Again I copped a heap. When I got home my lovely wife picked a pile off my face that I’d missed. I’m very fortunate I have very little reaction.
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I think I’ve made just about every mistake there is to make doing bee stuff. Lol
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I think bee keepers are an inventive lot, so there will be more mistakes to come
Cheers
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G’day everyone,
Just an update on my cranky bees, we did a full brood box inspection today and all frames had bees on them, still room for a lot more brood, so the flow super won’t be going on yet, they are bringing in lots of pollen and most of the gums are flowering around my yard.
The good news is no signs of aggression, even when my mentors smoker went out…but we didn’t hang around !
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