Aggressive Hive

[genesbees]

>I have found this to be a pretty reliable indication as to whether or not a hive is showing Africanized characteristics.

This is also a typical characteristic of Apis Mellifera Mellifera or the German black bees or any feral bees that have not been breed to not be runny.

I am basing my statement on information I received for beekeepers in AHB territory.  Nine times out of ten, when a hive in my area exhibits this behavior, it is AHB.  This year I have done perhaps fifteen feral cutouts to date.  One out of the fifteen exhibited this trait when I cut it out.  If I got the comb away from the cavity fast enough they would even run up my arms in droves.  All the other cutouts stayed on the comb covering the brood, even when I strapped them into the frames.  Lucky for me, it was the only one out of the 15 that was Africanized.  This is also a good clue to beekeepers in AHB territory that one of your hives that previously was not "runny" has become Africanized.  Recent TAM studies (Coulson, etal 2005) based on mtDNA in my area have shown that two races of bees dominate our feral population, A. M. Scutellata (43%), A. M. Lamarckii (33%) with the Eastern European races lumped together at 15% and Western European Races (including A. M. Mellifera) at 9%.  As you can see my chances of running across a "runny" hive of A. M. Mellifera are much less than A. M. Scutellata.  While my experience with this being a good indication of AHB is pretty anecdotal, from a practical standpoint for me in my area, excessive runniness = AHB.  Seeing that papabear is also in AHB territory in FL, I felt that this same policy could probably prove reliable for him as well.

[Understudy]

When I mentioned earlier that I limit the size of my hives the reasons were two fold.
1. Experience with cut outs has taught me that the bigger the hive the greater the likelyhood that it would be aggressive. Both the original poster and I live in areas that are AHB positive.
I do cut outs and bring those hives back. I will requeen the hive if it is aggressive. But there is definitly a noticable difference in hives based on their size. This does not always means the hive is AHB. It could as others mentioned be queenless recently robbed and pone of many other reasons. With that said also an AHB swarm doesn't have to be large. And when it is small they are not nearly as aggressive. If they do not have a nest to defend you would not notice the difference. As the AHB finds a home and manges to build comb so the queen can lay is when they become more defensive. The larger the hive the more numbers they have to be defensive with.

When I say I limit the size of hive I am limiting it to a total of six mediums. Which is still a very good sized hive. But if the queen is lost and the new queen has bred with AHB drones. It is a lot easier to deal with Michaels method of dealing with a hot hive.

2. If I let a hive build up as much as it wants to. I could end up with 10 or more hive bodies in a stack. I keep my hives 16 inches off the ground. Even 10 mediums is darn tall. Also trying to do inspections on a stack that tall can be a pain.

Since Florida and other southern area states can harvest almost year round. When I remove supers I will pull the full ones off and replace with empty ones. Now if I pull four honey supers off I will replace with one empty so they can go right back to work. As they fill that one up I will add my next honey supers as needed. If may not be the best method but I am doing very well. Even with my having to travel as much as I do.

The first time you endup with a ten stack or more hive that has gotten agressive and you are trying to find the queen so you can requeen you will find yourself saying maybe I needed to handle this differently. Since I have been there done that got the t-shirt I will pass along the information.

Michael has a great saying if you aren't making mistakes your aren't learning. here is mine, learn from others mistakes your own are too expensive.

[Dr/B]

.........I apologize for being so grumpy anyways. 

Thanks Cindi...........don't apoligize.............I'm glad someone said it........you go girl! :)

Man, this board is a trip!  :mrgreen: 

I'm amazed at how this board attracts "experts".  Whatever happened to just discussing a topic, rather than trying to show each other who knows more about bees?  It's a guess, but maybe papabear just wants some practical advise on how to handle this hot hive, rather than all the textbook quotable scientific stuff. 

Here's my two-cent's worth:
Let's see,  I had a hot hive just like papabear this past spring.  These little beestards would run me down almost 100 yards and not quit trying to sting for 30-45 minutes.  Stung my kids, wife, etc....days after I went into them.  They seem to never quite down.  Anyone in the yard got stung. 

I had enough hives to do the following. 

1. I took an empty deep brood box.  Put a queen excluder over the top of it. Put another empty deep brood box on top of it, and bumped each frame........frame by frame, until I found the queen.  Then I killed the queen.  I had looked for her many many times, but she was a good hider.  When you bump each frame, most of the bees will go thru the excluder, alas except the queen...........this makes the queen easy to find.
2. I pulled enough various (good gene stock) brood from my other hives, and replaced the current (bad gene stock) in this hot hive.  I distributed the hot hive brood throughout my beeyard, making sure to add them to hives that already had a queen, so the hot brood would eventually die out, once this brood cycle was completed.
3. I then sat back and let the re-worked hive make a new queen.  (you can buy a queen and add to speed up the process)  Yes, this late in the year, you might have to feed this new re-worked hive.  The alternative.......let it over-winter and do this in the spring, 6 weeks prior to the honey flow.  I guess it would depend on where you are located, how many hives you have, and if they would leave you alone well enough to let them over-winter.

As far as the AHB issue, why worry?...........look at the facts..........the hive is hot.....it has to be requeened.......

On the other side of that coin, ok.....let's say it is AHB...........ok.........it has to be requeened...........



Not a self-proclaimed expert, just a simple little beekeeper..........(and now a fan of Cindi)

Dr/B 8-)

[Michael Bush]

>As far as the AHB issue, why worry?...........look at the facts..........the hive is hot.....it has to be requeened.......

>On the other side of that coin, ok.....let's say it is AHB...........ok.........it has to be requeened...........

Exactly.

[annette]

[quote
1. I took an empty deep brood box.  Put a queen excluder over the top of it. Put another empty deep brood box on top of it, and bumped each frame........frame by frame, until I found the queen.  Then I killed the queen.  I had looked for her many many times, but she was a good hider.  When you bump each frame, most of the bees will go thru the excluder, alas except the queen...........this makes the queen easy to find./quote]

Explain this technique once again to me please. So you place this box on the side of the hive you are trying to requeen??? You end up with a box filled with bees, and then what do you do??? Just release the bees and they return to the original hive???

Thank you
Annette

[Dr/B]

You can vary it a few ways.  I just took all the frames out of the original hive brood box, and used it for the bottom box, and this way the bees were already in the correct box. 

To simplify:

Take all the frames out of the original brood box.

Place a queen excluder on top of this box.

Put another empty "bumping" box on top of this.  Take each frame.........frame by frame and either brush the bees off the frame onto the queen excluder, or gently drop the frame in the empty box to "bump" them off the frame.  I usually just drop the frame about half an inch and this seems to get all teh bees off pretty good.  You can just brush them if you want.

Watch your excluder.  Eventually if you are pretty through, you should see your queen wiggling around on the excluder, then ..............kill the queen.


Remove the "bumping" box, and simply put the (good genetic) brood in the original box, which now contains most of the bees, and close up.  I don't worry about any loose bees, as they'll wind up back in the original hive, once they settle down.

I only do this if I cann't find the queen by direct observation of the frames (as a last resort).


Dr/B

[rdy-b]

I have actually had the queen take flight and not know it after searching and searching and putting the colony back together start to brush the bees off of my suit and there she was the air temp was colder than my body heat and she was on my shoulder the hole time go figure al bet she had a good laugh will i was searching  :lol: RDY-B

[Jerrymac]

All this bumping of frames..... My bees get mad at the slightest bumping.

[Cindi]

Dr/B.  I think that you did an excellent job of how you found that ratty old queen and fixed her wagon.  This hive was very aggressive and I am very glad that things were not alot worse than you explained about the distance that they would travel on their vendetta against human.  Good, keep us posted on how things go.  I bet your family and everyone will be very proud when you have lovely, tame little girls that are not putting up such a nasty fight all the time.  Yeah!!!  Good for you.  I don't think that anyone should put up with nasty bees, there is no need for that.  Just look at a sweet, calm hive and you will know for surely what I mean.  I had a fairly hot hive once, it was a swarm that I caught in my first year of beekeeping.  If I didn't have 4 other sweet hives to compare it to, it might have scared me off beekeeping.  Even when I came close to this colony, I could feel their defensiveness attitude, just something in the air.  Have a wonderful day, best of this beautiful life.  Cindi

[papabear]

Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if it caused a problem around here. :(

[Cindi]

Papabear.  Got got some good responses, we all love to hear peoples' stories.  How about RDY-B's and his about the queen on his shoulder the whole time (I laughed at that one, the poor guy!!!!).  YOu didn't cause any problems around here, that is what forums are all about, discussions!!!  Yeah!!!!  Have a wonderful day and a beautiful life.  Cindi

[papabear]

Cindi, you are so awsome. You are so positive all the time. God bless you.

[Michael Bush]

>Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if it caused a problem around here.

No need to be sorry.  I don't see any problems...

[Dr/B]

Strength in numbers papabear....................



keep on postin'

[Understudy]

Thanks for all the advice. Sorry if it caused a problem around here. :(

This is civilized, no problems here. Come visit the coffee house once in a while and we can bring Finsky in on how a "good" cup of coffee is made.

Keep posting. Cheers.

Sincerely,
Brendhan