I am concerned about these little white/clear globs in the bottom tray. The bees are busy filling and capping our flow frames. I harvested 8 regular frames on Wednesday, but noticed exactly the same type of thing before I removed the frames from the hive for extracting. Wondering if I need to be concerned?
In addition, my hive has also become quite aggressive. I went for a look today to just peek in the side window and the guard bees came to get me in full gusto. I used to be able to sit next to the hive without them being remotely concerned about me being there… but now 
After I harvested the frames on Wednesday, I returned a 4 stickies and four new waxed frames and checkerboarded them in the two brood boxes. 20191208_124227|236x500
I see adult small hive beetles (about 5 of them), wax scales and some wet stuff. If the wet stuff is SHB slime, that could be a problem. If it is honey, I would wash it off. If it is oil for trapping SHB, then it is of no concern. Only you know what it could be.
How does the brood box look on inspection of the frames? 
Sorry, should have mentioned I have oil in the bottom to guard against SHB.
This is a pic of how the bottom tray looked before I took out the frames for harvesting.
When I inspected the bottom frames at harvest, I could see that the queen didn’t have much space left for laying, thus adding back the stickies and new waxed frames.
Between the two pics and the number of SHB I have to ask how long it has been since you cleaned out the tray? I’m tending to think the clear white liquid could be slime from the SHB rather than wax, it looks to much a liquid. I doubt it is oil from the trap.
I would be very concerned about the hive having changed from calm to aggressive, I would take that as a message that there is an issue and look for what might have changes in the hive. It could be something as simple as being over crowded or being heat stressed. Your profile doesn’t say where in Australia you are.
Anything that you see in the hive that isn’t normally seen is a concern, Usually a surprise is a problem.
Cheers
It had been about three weeks since I cleaned the tray from the second pic. The first one I posted was cleaned out on Wednesday when I took the frames.
The brood box in the bottom was and the queen had little space left to lay, that was why I moved the queen excluder up a level and moved some brood frames from the bottom box to the level above and checkerboarded some stickies in with 4 new waxed foundations.
They were not annoyed at all until I took the frames.
I am located in the northern suburbs of Sydney.
Ok Christina, I’m stumped about the white/clear jelly looking stuff with anything more than a guess. I know Sydney’s northern suburbs is a big area and getting about is a pain, but maybe you are not too far from @Rodderick and he might have to time to have a look, or one of the others living in your area.
Moving frames about in the brood can definitely make the colony annoyed. I have a double 10 frame brood hive that I use as a donor hive that is so calm I can do an inspection in just shorts, T shirt and a veil but if I take frames of brood that is often enough to get them going soon after I put empty frames back. Suddenly I am the enemy.
Cheers
I have sent the pics to my mentor, so I know he will come out if he thinks it’s bad. I’ve just never seen them this angry. I used to be able to sit on the rock beside the hive to just watch them, but now they come for me when I am 5-10 metres away.
They had alot of Honey, which I guess they consider me to have stolen, but as they are already capping off the flow frames and the regular frames were all fully capped, I didn’t think they would mind so much. Talk about a learning curve 
If there is a lot of honey stores in the hive normally bees are not defensive when you take the frames for extracting and even less interest if the honey is taken from Flow Frames. But a colony will be a lot more defensive if they don’t have much honey.
From what you are telling me the genetic nature of the hive has turned and gone aggressive so that to me is saying that the hive is hungry and in a honey dearth, which is not likely from what I’m hearing from others in your general area where there is a pretty good nectar flow happening now, or that something has changed in the hive that is causing them stress. A bad mode can be caused if the colony is too strong for the hive size and that could be your issue at this time of the season.
If the queens genetics is good you can still get short term angry hives that can be caused by maybe a local thunderstorm or having the hive open and disturbed for too long during an inspection, but they should ‘slide back’ to a calm mode within a day.
Having an aggressive hive is no fun so I would be looking for the reason behind it. A hive should be calm enough that you can work in it without you fearing an attack but accepting you could get the odd sting. Up here I usually suit up at my apiary but as I usually find things are calm and the days are so warm I soon strip down to a T shirt, shorts and a veil, I never have to wear gloves.
Love to hear more about the hive as it progresses and to hear the issue has been found and fixed.
Cheers
Hi Christina, the white clumps look to be wax cappings to me… so quite normal. As for the aggressiveness, this can happen for a number of reasons. Can you tell us how long have you had these bees and in particular the queen? And where did they come from i.e. a swarm, Nuc, Hive, Package? Have you replaced the queen from a breeder at any stage?
1 Like
Hi Christina, wow another Tremain whom has bees:flushed:
I am a very newbee I was suppose to pick up a nuc today (oops now yesterday), but the beekeeper whom I’m getting the nuc from had to quickly travel up to the central coast, and won’t be back until Tuesday. My wife and I live 33kms south of Wagga Wagga NSW, but I was raise in central western NSW 50kms south west of Orange heading towards Forbes, but my older brother and sister were both born at Wellington, which is between Orange and Dubbo, where my father’s family were farmers out from Wellington towards Parkes. I was the first to be born at Canowindra, near where my 2 younger brothers now own the family farm that we grew up on.
