Looking for suggestions.
3 weeks ago, I got into a mean hive. This is from a swarm that moved into an empty box in February.
I was doing inspections, and some splits. Moving down the line of hives. This hive had grown to 6 boxes tall (8-frame mediums) in a short time. They had more honey & more bees than my other hives. Naturally I wanted splits from this productive queen. I smoked the hive well, waited 5 or 10 mins. Smoke them again, and waited another minute. Then opened the hive. By the time I had reverse stacked the boxes (I always inspect a hive from the bottom up), I was covered in angry bees. One got into my jacket and up to my face. I tore the veil trying to kill it. Ran into the garage to let things cool down.
Changed clothes & jacket. Taped everything down tight, and went back to finish the job. I placed each box with its own lid and bottom, in another location. Left 1 box at the old location. I was covered in bee stingers
Went back out that night and moved the last box to a new location, 60' away. .
I inspected the individual boxes on the 22nd of april. Found the box with the queen, and killed her. The other hives had QC's.
My thoughts were - to let them requeen, and hope things would calm down. Now I'm second guessing ... right now, if I walk within 20' of the hives, I get attacked by 1 or 2 bees. If I walk closer, I get 20 or more angry bees, almost instantly. 4 people have been stung (besides me) in the last 3 weeks, around here.
I'm not used to this from "my bees". Now I'm thinking of killing the new queen in each of the original boxes, and adding each box to a calmer hive. In 6 to 9 weeks, things should have calmed down.
Any thoughts or suggestions?