One of my hives is without a queen and I have a new one coming in 2 days from now. My problem is that they are very unpleasant and have gone after my dogs a couple of times already.
I will be at work and can not monitor the situation in the next 2 days so I was thinking that I can lock in the bees until the queen can be installed.
Is this possible or would that be harmful to the bees?
I wouldn’t lock them in. Maybe lock up the dogs?
I agree with Ed (@Anon). I wouldn’t lock in the bees unless it is unavoidable for transport etc. When you shut them into the hive, they can’t ventilate properly, all bees are trapped in the heat of the midday sun, and none of them can get out to poop. They won’t do that in the hive, unless desperate, and it is never good for any organism to get all “bunged up”.
When you requeen, that may not solve the temperament right away either. I think it would be better to shut the dogs in for as long as it takes, or move the hives to a site where the bees can to their bee-thing until they get happy again.
@Sabine you could also consider erecting a barrier in front of the entrance to force the bees to fly up. This might force them high enough to go over the top of your dogs/yard and help minimise issues. Everything I’ve read says barriers 2m in height have an excellent outcome but any barrier directly in the flight path in relatlively close proximity to the entrance (i.e. 30cm to 1m) should hopefully help with your situation.
Sometimes requeening alters the colony’s temperament almost immediately but more often than not you have to wait till all the old bees have been replaced