So I attempted a hive inspection today and it did not go well. As soon as I cracked the hive the bees swarmed. I could barely even see. And it took 10 minutes a hundred meters from the hive to even get them down to a manageable level to unsuit. These are the pictures of my gloves and they actually stung through the gloves several times.
is this normal or is the queen just have aggressive genetics? I’m pretty much settled on requeening in the spring at the latest
Hi Phillip, that sounds normal for a super aggressive hive. People have previously talked about the 3 strikes rule, which is worth considering.
I personally tolerated 4 aggressive hives until I bit the bullet & took steps to remedy the situation. I removed those hives while splitting them 3 ways and replacing them with different hives with young queens and hopefully quieter genetics.
I good trick in finding the old queen is to take the brood box well away (about 6 plus meters), leaving the honey super at the original location. Then slowly commence lifting frames out to search for the queen. Don’t put any frames back in if you don’t find the queen, stand them up somewhere.
The aggressive bees will return to the original site, leaving just the passive nurse bees, making it much easier to find the queen.
My reasons for leaving the frames out is in case the queen is on the wall of the hive, plus it upsets less bees. Then if the queen is not inside the empty hive, simply look over each frame again until you find her.
Thank you that is great advice. First year. They have their three strikes.
any recommendations on when to requeen? Should I just wait Until the spring? I don’t really want to crack the hive again until the population subsides.
too bad, they are productive.
You’re welcome, yes wait until the spring. It’s verging on spring where I am, which is why I’m requeening the 4 hives plus 3 other aggressive hives.
Just to add to @JeffH 's comments… 
You are at the end of summer, with fall approaching. Many areas of the US have a severe nectar dearth at this time of year. That promotes robbing, and highly defensive behavior by established colonies to prevent robbing from their accumulating winter stores. 
As Jeff said, I would wait until the spring before requeening. They may be in a much better mood when there is plenty of nectar around.
Don’t forget to plan for varroa treatment. Fall treatments are essential to overwinter healthy hives 
Genetics can be the issue and resolved as Jeff described.
If the hive has previously been calm, genetics may still be at play. While a colony with nasty genes is small and still growing, they won’t necessarily show their true colours. Expanding a colony takes a lot of work and most of the workforce is dedicated to building comb, feeding young, foraging for resources and all the other chores such as cleaning and temperature regulation.
When the numbers have grown, there are more resources to protect and many more guards on duty. Now the true nature shows itself. They’ll either continue to be calm and a delight to work, or behave like yours, or something in between.
Your calm bees may have swarmed or replaced a failing queen and the new queen mated with nasty drone stock, eventually replacing your lovely bees with mean girls.
But there are other reasons for a normally calm hive to suddenly become overly protective. The nectar from some floral sources can trigger them such as citrus and canola. If there’s a prolonged dearth, the girls will be particularly protective of their precious resources. They need to defend against robbers and if you open a hive during such a dearth, robbers from all around will suddenly take advantage.
You need to assess your situation. Is there a dearth? What’s in flower? Wait a few weeks and see if they’ve improved. If they stay nasty over a few inspections it’s time to change the queen.
Another method of queen replace you might consider is to move the hive as Jeff described. Then instead of searching for the queen which can be challenging for beginners, setup a new box on a base. Place a plank from the ground to over the top of the box. Cover the plank and part of the ground with a sheet. Shake the bees off each frame onto the sheet at the base of the ramp and place the bee free frame in the new box. They’ll march up the ramp. Watch carefully and you’ll spot the queen on the plank making it easy to pick her off. The bees will form a ball under the top edge of the plank over the box of frames. Once most of them are there, lift the top of the plank a little (50mm) and slap it back on the box, dropping the ball onto the frames. You can now move the plank to the entrance for the stragglers and assemble the hive. You now have a hive full of young bees, brood and food. The nasty foragers flew back to the original hive site. Dispatch the queen and introduce a mated new one. If you let them produce their own, you may land up in the same place your are now.
Mike
I did a mite count about a month ago and had none. My hive is in the burbs so I haven’t notices a dearth since people like flowers all summer and no robbing since it is the only hive for at least a mile.
every inspection I’ve done this year has been the same but the first few after getting the nuc. Once they hit their full population (I’d guess 60k) they got mean
I’d love to take care of them but I just can’t. We can’t even go outside for the rest of the day once I open the hive as they chase even in the front yard. This may sound callus but if the hive collapses over winter I’m fine with that and it is a problem that can be fixed.
Thank you for the advice.
Thank you. They’ve been aggressive since I put the second brood box on in late May and once July hit their full population two inspections I did were horrible. They got my dog 2 hours after closing the hive 50 yards from the hive and they chase for the rest of the day anything in the yard.
As soon as I crack the hive it is like a volcano of bees went off and they just flood out.
I’ve only actually seen my queen once and that was months ago because I can’t get through the frames.
They sound way too mean to keep, especially with the risk to neighbours and pets. I have no tolerance for that level nastiness.
It would be much better in my opinion, to euthanise them and start again in spring with a nuc from a reputable supplier.
They are calm when left alone so I think I owe them the chance to get through winter and try requeening. It is also a learning experience for me to see how they act through the winter and the requeening process and success. I’ve done starting from nothing, so killing the hive and going to square one doesn’t really move me on the journey.
Don’t get me wrong I really appreciate the advice and guidance and if they were aggressive always I would have done that already. So let mother nature run her course and learn.
Hi Phil. After reading this post, it appears that you don’t intend on treating for mites. If that’s the case I would change my suggestion to requeen now rather than in the spring, especially if new queens are available.
The strategy I described for requeening a cranky hive works really well as long as you take your time, use plenty of smoke & choose good weather to do it in. When placing the brood box down before searching for the queen, put it at a good height so that you are not bending over. The queen is easy to find when there is only nurse bees to look through.
I would suggest reverting to a single brood box going forward. It makes life a lot easier in a case like this.
Why requeen now if not treating for mites? I’d love to learn the logic. And if requeening now, what variety would you recommend, say between a Carniolan or Buckfast?
Also, I’m not treating for mites because from every inspection or viewing through the super windows, I’ve never seen evidence of mites and I inspect the bottom board daily and I watch my bees often several times a day. A keeper about a mile from me has also said he’s never really seen mites.
I’ve done a few sugar shakes and they come up with zero mites. The decision to not treat is based on a there not being a need to treat. Granted from my very limited experience.
Requeening this late in the season is never a preferred option for several reasons that I can think of, and a lot more that others will find!
Late season queens often mate with fewer drones, because there are fewer around. This means that they have a more limited supply in their spermathecae for the rest of their lives, and may well shorten their laying lifespan. They will also have a more limited supply of male genetic material = potentially less healthy for the colony
Queens are more likely to be accepted in Spring, when the hive rapidly “notices” the death/removal of an old queen and they are desperate to get a new queen up and running during the height of the season
A queen introduced into the hive in spring is “allowed” (yes, the house bees control her) to lay at maximum output right away. This means that she gets fed and her ovaioles develop to their maximum potential right away. That is a very important for the development of a queen who will be productive throughout her life. If she gets restricted as soon as she enters the hive, as she would be in late summer/fall, there is a risk that she may never be a good layer.
Both are good. I prefer Italians, but they are voracious eaters over winter, and usually need feeding. Carniolans need less feeding, but come spring, they are known as Swarmiolans for their tendency to swarm early and swarm often, if not actively managed for swarm control. Buckfast bees are sweet if purebred. However, once the queen is superseded, the hive can become super aggressive. I would suggest Italians or Carnies for newish beekeepers.
Hi Phil, my logic was purely because you said you were going to let nature run it’s course, plus you were fine with the colony collapsing over winter. I figured that was on account of the aggressiveness of the colony.
I was thinking that if your colony had a new queen, with hopefully calmer genetics, you would be much keener to bring them through winter without collapsing.
We’re halfway through August, that means you wont get a new queen, or nuc for 7.5 months. If new queens are available now, especially with quiet genetics, it will only take 6-7 weeks for the cranky bees to die off, which means easier, less stressful inspections after that.
I appreciate the explanation. I’m in Virginia and although we will get a later flow, I’ll leave that to them and let them pack away. I harvested today and got 28 lbs so not bad and I removed the flow super so, now they have their hive to themselves.
Given what Dawn said and the lateness of the year for getting a fully vs partially mated queen, I can just let them ride it out. And ~$100 for a mated queen isn’t going to break the bank, with everything getting so expensive it isn’t worth the risk this late in the year and the earliest I could get a queen isn’t until first weekend in September. The math ain’t mathin’ for me. It is a learning process. 5-6 weeks puts us into almost October and I’d hate to have a queen that wasn’t accepted or one that fails and then the entire colony fails and I lose the learning opportunity. I could probably get a queen from a southern state where they are very must still in summer swing but still a bit risky.
I truly appreciate the advice and conversation. It has been helpful in developing that base of knowledge. Not a terribly active keeper community in the Northern Virginia area so this has been very helpful.
Good morning–I’m brand new to the forum. I kept HBs (capped-out at 5 hives) in New Jersey for 8-10 years going back 10 years but had to stop after moving to a location that didn’t allow for it. After another move this past April, I’m back in business, although this time my bee yard is the roof (flat, of course) of our house in Chicago. I’ve two hives of Italians, originating from packages installed in early May, one of which built up stronger than the other. At the last inspection, the stronger hive exploded once I got through the super (which had no drawn wax after 3-4 weeks) and the top deep box. I had to close it up. I was surrounded by a cloud of angry HBs that did not dissipate after 40 minutes or so and after removing myself as far from the hive as possible–about 50 ft. From the roof I can’t get farther away without going through the house. Fewer of them chased me when I went down a fire escape to a balcony on the next floor down, but after waiting 20 minutes and moving back to the door off the roof, they redoubled their attack. I was on the roof for about 90 minutes total after the explosion before I had a window and could slip inside, with only one following me in. After letting the hive calm down overnight, I am able to be on the roof, where I have a small vegetable and pollinator garden, without being bothered/chased/stung.
In more than 8 yrs of bk’ing and about 20-25 “colony-seasons,” I’ve never had that happen to me. The only thing close was when I moved 4 hives to a different part of the state and one of the four hives got dropped enough to open a crack and emit a few thousand (guess) bees before closing it up again. That, I understood.
So, this string is very helpful. It may be lazy, but I think that, given where we are in the season (summer’s end), I’m inclined to wait for spring to requeen. I can better learn about the viability of rooftop colonies in an environment that can be very windy and cold. Once the cold weather sets in, I can move the hives so that they are in a quasi-protected spot. I think I’ll take the (unused) super off and put on a deep, which will allow me to drop in an in-hive frame feeder, in case a dearth is adding to their aggressive behavior and also help them build stores. I’m not planning on harvesting honey during this first year.
Has there been any change over the years in Varroa treatment? I used to use vaporized oxalic acid and/or the sheets you lay onto the frame tops (can’t recall the name). Thanks, all! Nice to be back in business, even with the current unpleasantry.
And I did decide to treat for mites, if only to give the remaining girls and queen a fighting chance through the winter.
Well done Phillip, it’s pleasing to read that. cheers
