Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: The15thMember on June 09, 2023, 05:53:07 pm
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I caught a swarm sometime in April that I'm almost certain didn't come from my yard. Two weeks ago when I inspected them, they were acting very testy. I had some family in the bee yard with me, and I had to ask them to leave because the hive was getting too unruly for my comfort with inexperienced beekeepers there. I had planned to requeen them today, but when I opened them up they were like a national defense force. I couldn't even begin to inspect them, much less find a queen. I was stung 5 times and chased out of the apiary halfway through the first box. It was all I could do to replace the frames correctly and close them back up. They were very reactive to my breathing; every time I exhaled my face was assaulted by about 150-200 bees. I left all my gear up there, and I'll have to wait until it gets dark to get it because there were mean bees everywhere. This hive is 4 8-frame mediums tall, and I did have the wherewithal to put my snelgrove board between boxes 2 and 3 to sort of halve them to help me manage them next time.
I've never had a hive act like this during a flow in early summer when everyone else is happy and working contently; they were completely unmanageable. I'm not sure what I should do. I'm not sure I can work them well enough to wait the 6 weeks it'll take to rotate the worker bees out, even if I could requeen them, since our summer flow is on and they will need supers. I'm not keen on euthanizing them either, but I certainly don't want them to get worse when we hit the dearth at the end of the month. What are my options?
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Contact Lewis Cauble (828) 230-4544 Lewis.Cauble@ncagr.gov and ask him to come look at them.
https://www.ncbeekeepers.org/resources/apiary-inspection-program
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Contact Lewis Cauble (828) 230-4544 Lewis.Cauble@ncagr.gov and ask him to come look at them.
https://www.ncbeekeepers.org/resources/apiary-inspection-program
Why, exactly? What do you think may require an inspector?
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This is one hive I would requeen.
Jim Altmiller
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This is one hive I would requeen.
Jim Altmiller
That's what I was trying to do today. Any tips for how to find the queen in all this mess?
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Put a double screen in between the bottom box and the one above it. Put a screen top with an entrance on each box above. Wait four days, the one with the eggs has a queen in it. If you don?t have screen tops with entrances, use double screens and shims to make entrances. Wait four days, yo may have the queen in boxes 3 & 4.
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If she is in the top two boxes, put them in a new location.
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That's a challenging one to deal with, I'm interested in how things go moving forward
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Lewis will go into the meanest hive and check it completely. If it is skunks or other outside influences, he will recognize them. If you want to requeen it, he will do that for you. Then he will take a sample and check for Africanization. If he can't find the problem, he will get Don Hopkins to come out. Whatever it takes, he will get the problem solved.
AND IT"S FREE.
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Lewis will go into the meanest hive and check it completely. If it is skunks or other outside influences, he will recognize them. If you want to requeen it, he will do that for you. Then he will take a sample and check for Africanization. If he can't find the problem, he will get Don Hopkins to come out. Whatever it takes, he will get the problem solved.
AND IT"S FREE.
That is awesome!
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Lewis will go into the meanest hive and check it completely. If it is skunks or other outside influences, he will recognize them. If you want to requeen it, he will do that for you. Then he will take a sample and check for Africanization. If he can't find the problem, he will get Don Hopkins to come out. Whatever it takes, he will get the problem solved.
AND IT"S FREE.
I'll keep that in mind. I would like to try and deal with it myself if I can, but I'll keep that in my back pocket in case I can't.
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I don't understand. If you don't want help with your beekeeping problems, why are you on the forums? I thought it was to get assistance when you needed it. I have kept bees since 1976 and I still use our state inspectors. They are great to work with and never have I heard a bad report on any one of them. Your taxes pay for the state inspection program, so why not use it.
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I don't understand. If you don't want help with your beekeeping problems, why are you on the forums? I thought it was to get assistance when you needed it. I have kept bees since 1976 and I still use our state inspectors. They are great to work with and never have I heard a bad report on any one of them. Your taxes pay for the state inspection program, so why not use it.
Not that I'm required to, but I will attempt to explain at least some of my apparently deranged-seeming reasoning to you. I don't question Mr. Cauble's ability. I have listened to every episode of his podcast, and he seems like a consummate professional. But part of my family's goals on our homestead is to be as self-sufficient as possible, which means I would prefer to learn to deal with fairly common beekeeping problems, like a nasty hive, on my own. This is one reason why I'm not a member of a bee club, and it's why I would prefer not to put my family through the hassle of having to call the bee inspector out, which would inevitably require a huge interruption to our already very busy schedule. If I found I couldn't handle a situation, I would certainly contact the professionals who have the resources to assist me, but until I personally feel that point has come, I will proceed to the best of my ability on my own.
I find it interesting to say the least that you feel comfortable posting something so insulting over here on Beemaster, but yet don't post such things on your own forum, where I also posted this, and not a single person has helped me.
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If anyone has any more helpful advice, I'd like to hear it.
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Didn't mean to be insulting. I just don't understand why you seek advice from total strangers, but not from professionals. I apologize if you took it that way. As for my forum, I didn't see it there, or I would have posted there. I promote the N.C. inspectors as often as I can.
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The15thMember
"I don't question Mr. Cauble's ability. I have listened to every episode of his podcast, and he seems like a consummate professional. But part of my family's goals on our homestead is to be as self-sufficient as possible, which means I would prefer to learn to deal with fairly common beekeeping problems, like a nasty hive, on my own. This is one reason why I'm not a member of a bee club, and it's why I would prefer not to put my family through the hassle of having to call the bee inspector out, which would inevitably require a huge interruption to our already very busy schedule. If I found I couldn't handle a situation, I would certainly contact the professionals who have the resources to assist me, but until I personally feel that point has come, I will proceed to the best of my ability"
Put a double screen in between the bottom box and the one above it. Put a screen top with an entrance on each box above. Wait four days, the one with the eggs has a queen in it. If you don?t have screen tops with entrances, use double screens and shims to make entrances. Wait four days, yo may have the queen in boxes 3 & 4.
If she is in the top two boxes, put them in a new location.
In this case, I would go with the above suggestions of Beemaster2.. 'Then', when you find the queen in the new moved location, go ahead and mark her.
If the hive still does not calm down after moving, replace her. If marked she will be easier to locate the next time. I have found marking to be helpful when a queen is the same color as the rest of the workers, 'if the queens color is reverent in this case'..
Phillip
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Didn't mean to be insulting. I just don't understand why you seek advice from total strangers, but not from professionals. I apologize if you took it that way. As for my forum, I didn't see it there, or I would have posted there. I promote the N.C. inspectors as often as I can.
Thank you for your apology, Wally; it means a great deal to me. I suppose I don't view the beekeepers here and on your forum as total strangers. I've learned through experience that the advice that members, including yourself, have given me on Beemaster and WWB is valuable and trustworthy, and I don't need any more help than what has been provided for me online. But rest assured that if I ever do require the services of a bee inspector, I won't hesitate to call Mr. Cauble.
In this case, I would go with the above suggestions of Beemaster2.. 'Then', when you find the queen in the new moved location, go ahead and mark her.
If the hive still does not calm down after moving, replace her. If marked she will be easier to locate the next time. I have found marking to be helpful when a queen is the same color as the rest of the workers, 'if the queens color is reverent in this case'..
Phillip
All right, here's what I think I'm going to do. As I mentioned, I have my Snelgrove board splitting the hive in half already, so sometime next week I'll just take the top section and move it to another stand. I've already made up my mind about this queen, so I'm going to find her and dispatch her. Then I'll give both halves a frame of eggs from one of my nice queens. This hive wasn't any trouble when they were small, so hopefully this way they'll be manageable until the new workers cycle in.
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All right, here's what I think I'm going to do. As I mentioned, I have my Snelgrove board splitting the hive in half already, so sometime next week I'll just take the top section and move it to another stand. I've already made up my mind about this queen, so I'm going to find her and dispatch her. Then I'll give both halves a frame of eggs from one of my nice queens. This hive wasn't any trouble when they were small, so hopefully this way they'll be manageable until the new workers cycle in.
Sounds like a good plan to me. :grin:
I look forward to your updates..
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In regards to re-queening a mean hive. You need to bring in a queen with different genetics or eggs with different genetics right? Letting the hive raise a new queen from her genetics won't make a difference, or can a new queen raised from the mean queen's genetics still be nice?
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Occam, genetic meanness normally comes from the drones, so yes, a queen from the same hive can be very gentle, if she mates with drones from a gentle queen.
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In regards to re-queening a mean hive. You need to bring in a queen with different genetics or eggs with different genetics right? Letting the hive raise a new queen from her genetics won't make a difference, or can a new queen raised from the mean queen's genetics still be nice?
Occam, genetic meanness normally comes from the drones, so yes, a queen from the same hive can be very gentle, if she mates with drones from a gentle queen.
Since this queen wasn't from my yard, I was planning originally on letting them raise a new queen from their queen's eggs, on the grounds that my drones may be different. But for the same reason, the fact that I don't know where she came from, I'm now just going to requeen with my genetics, just to be safe.
So I was back in the bee yard today finishing up some things that I didn't get around to yesterday for obvious reasons. The bees from this mean hive were following me everywhere in the yard. They would not leave me alone! I had about 20-30 bees from this hive in my face the entire time I was anywhere in the apiary, even when I was all the way down at the end of my line of hives with like 15 ft. between the last hive and theirs. Even when I entered the apiary from that side, in order to not have to pass by them, they still found me. It made it quite difficult to work the hives I needed to work.
I'm not okay with not being able to enter my apiary because of this one hive. I'm still going to try splitting them up and seeing what happens, but if I want or need to euthanize them, how would I go about that? I just want to be prepared with all my options.
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Occam, genetic meanness normally comes from the drones, so yes, a queen from the same hive can be very gentle, if she mates with drones from a gentle queen.
This is my understanding as well. By re-queening with Reagans' gentle stock of bees, will also help insure the new queen will produce drones that will hopefully produce good behavior patterns for future mating in her yard if only in superseder cases, (if her virgins mate with drones from her yard). . I remember debate about this in accordance to drone congregation areas. I am thinking It was TheHoneyPump, Van From Arkansas and Yourself iddee, 'as well as others' that taught us much about this subject through debate and sharing of years of each of your knowledge.
Either way I would rather have queens potentially producing drones with gentle qualities than the opposite. My vote is 'Mr Claude' her!! :shocked: :cheesy:
Phillip
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Reagan,
When you find her, just have a small eye dropper jar filled with 90% alcohol and drop her in it. The bees will not bee defensive of her. I remember dispatching my very first queen from my first hive, she had defective wing virus. I dug a hole with my finger and put her in it and buried her. I thought the other bees would come after me. They don?t.
You can use the alcohol for putting on swarm traps. Great for attracting scout bees.
Jim Altmiller
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Reagan,
When you find her, just have a small eye dropper jar filled with 90% alcohol and drop her in it. The bees will not bee defensive of her. I remember dispatching my very first queen from my first hive, she had defective wing virus. I dug a hole with my finger and put her in it and buried her. I thought the other bees would come after me. They don?t.
You can use the alcohol for putting on swarm traps. Great for attracting scout bees.
Jim Altmiller
Thanks Jim, I've killed queens before. I usually just stick them in a jar and put them in the freezer.
So I'm kicking around an idea here. Like I mentioned, I've got my summer dearth about two weeks out, and I really need this hive to be manageable by that point, or the whole yard is going to become unmanageable from these mean ones following me everywhere. I discovered today that I'm out of bottom boards, so I can't split them in two (or more), and I'm honestly concerned about having several of them instead of just one if they don't calm down when they are smaller. What if I took the half of the hive with the queen and just euthanized it, leaving me with the queenless half, which I can give some eggs to?
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When you find her, just have a small eye dropper jar filled with 90% alcohol and drop her in it.
Isopropyl OK? Any benefit to wasting an ounce or two of Everclear?
Have read warnings not to pinch a queen and then go in another hive. This might get you membership in the exclusive 'stung by a queen' club.
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Van From Arkansas was stung by a queen. I can not remember the details of the conversation.
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Most people who have been stung be queen bees are Queen breeders. They handle one queen and the next one they handle stings them due to the Queen phenomenon. I have never been stung by a queen and I do not hesitate to pick one up when I see them.
Jim Altmiller
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I'm not okay with not being able to enter my apiary because of this one hive. I'm still going to try splitting them up and seeing what happens, but if I want or need to euthanize them, how would I go about that? I just want to be prepared with all my options.
A friend of mine that worked in a vet clinic/lab had to occasionally euthanize animals of various types for lab testing, generally to find out what was going on with a specific group of animals. The lab had a box type container they'd put the animal in then flood it with nitrogen gas or co2 gas for about 3-4 minutes. Not sure that helps you but it's a possibility. If you close the entrance at night and have a container with an air nozzle you could flood the box, wouldn't take a special set up. As long as you don't have a sbb or other high ventilation system. Of course you wouldn't be able to split the hive either...
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A friend of mine that worked in a vet clinic/lab had to occasionally euthanize animals of various types for lab testing, generally to find out what was going on with a specific group of animals. The lab had a box type container they'd put the animal in then flood it with nitrogen gas or co2 gas for about 3-4 minutes. Not sure that helps you but it's a possibility. If you close the entrance at night and have a container with an air nozzle you could flood the box, wouldn't take a special set up. As long as you don't have a sbb or other high ventilation system. Of course you wouldn't be able to split the hive either...
Thanks, Aaron. This hive does have a screened bottom board, and the insert on this particular one isn't tight at all, so it probably wouldn't work, but good idea.
I found this old thread where HP describes a method of euthanizing a hive with a garden sprayer and a tub of soapy water. Has anyone else tried this before? https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=54456.msg494916#msg494916
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I've not seen it done with bees but I've used it with great success on wasp nests. I can't imagine it wouldn't work just as well. Gonna have to be quick as you open it to get as many as possible in cluster. Sorry to hear you have to do this
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I've not seen it done with bees but I've used it with great success on wasp nests. I can't imagine it wouldn't work just as well. Gonna have to be quick as you open it to get as many as possible in cluster. Sorry to hear you have to do this
Thanks Aaron. I'm obviously not looking forward to it, but I just can't afford to wait them out. I went up into the apiary to pull a super today. It had been raining and very few bees were out, but when I walked by this hive, immediately 4 bees flew out and were buzzing right in my face until I left the apiary. I figure I'll at least give half the hive a chance to redeem themselves.
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Most people who have been stung be queen bees are Queen breeders. They handle one queen and the next one they handle stings them due to the Queen phenomenon. I have never been stung by a queen and I do not hesitate to pick one up when I see them.
Jim Altmiller
That makes sense Jim, Van was set up to do artificial insemination, a very smart man....
Phillip
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If you have an Africanized hive the bee inspector will use dish soap and a hose applicator to cover the inside of the hive with foam. We use a foam inductor and a spray nozzle when a commercial bee 18 wheeler crashes with bees, to kill all of the hives. Not pretty but very effective. If you have clean liquid fertilizer that you fill the quart container and connect it to your hose, you can fill it with soap and it will make lots of foam fast. When the bees are gone, you just rinse off the frames and boxes.
Jim Altmiller
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Once theyre soaked with soap, whether foamy or otherwise, do the cappings honey from the soap? Either for your own use or to feed back. Or is it best to spin it out and do away with it?
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Occam,
If the honey is capped it is water/air proof and usable.
Jim Altmiller
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Right on, I just wasn't sure if chemicals in the soap would leach through the cappings. Thanks!
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I have never killed a hive, but if I were to attempt it, I wouldn't want to ruin all the honey with soap. Why not just vacuum them up and leave them in the vacuum? Then the combs would at least be clean.
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I have never killed a hive, but if I were to attempt it, I wouldn't want to ruin all the honey with soap. Why not just vacuum them up and leave them in the vacuum? Then the combs would at least be clean.
I don't have a bee vac, but since I'm trying to kill them, I guess that might not matter. We do have a shop vac; could I use that (and not ruin the shop vac)?
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You definitely could, be pretty humane as well because the bees will die quickly. Depending on the size of the vac and hive you may need to empty it partway through. If it's a 5 gallon vac you should be fine. Could even put soapy water in the bottom to kill off any that may survive the tube
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It won?t hurt the shop vac. More than likely almost every bee will bee dead once it is in the bottom of the vacuum. The very low pressure breaks their outer skeletal shell. Do not leave them in there very long. The stench of dead bees can bee really bad. When done suck up a little bit of soapy water to make sure they are all dead.
Jim Altmiller
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Well then that's perfect! Thanks so much, Michael! This is way easier, faster, and safer than doing the whole thing with water (which I still might use as an accessory to keep bees from flying), and plus it preserves all the resources in the hive and the woodenware.
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Is your hive bottom entrance I'm assuming? Is it wide open or restricted?
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Is your hive bottom entrance I'm assuming? Is it wide open or restricted?
It is a bottom entrance and it is restricted, quite a lot actually. I have a home-made entrance reducer on this one and the entrance is about 2 inches wide.
My mom and I were out in the garden picking some salads for lunch just now. We were about 25 ft. away from this hive and lower in elevation than it, and we had two bees after us, and my mom (who doesn't do well with bees) was stung on the neck. I'm almost wondering if they aren't expressing an Africanized phenotype, and/or this is a feral swarm I caught, because I've never seen anything like this. I'm going to try and deal with them tomorrow, so tonight I'm going to seal up the hive so they are all home. Anything else I should do this evening to prepare?
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Just ignore me I was coming up with ways to complicate things. Was thinking about using a rag with bee quick on one side and the vacuum at the other entrance to suck up the bees as quickly as they come out to get away from the bee quick. To minimize the inevitacloud of bees. Guess you could set up the vac at the entrance, pop the top and toss in a rag then shut the top again. Just thinking of ways to minimize the number of bees to deal with while speeding up the process
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Just ignore me I was coming up with ways to complicate things. Was thinking about using a rag with bee quick on one side and the vacuum at the other entrance to suck up the bees as quickly as they come out to get away from the bee quick. To minimize the inevitacloud of bees. Guess you could set up the vac at the entrance, pop the top and toss in a rag then shut the top again. Just thinking of ways to minimize the number of bees to deal with while speeding up the process
No problem. :cheesy: Thanks for thinking for me, but I don't own any bee quick anyway.
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Well, you can say what you want about me now. If you spend several days killing off half a hive this late, when the other half won't have time to build back before winter, but refuse to call Lewis to save the whole hive and requeen it in a day, I don't think I care to try to help you in the future. I had a much better opinion of you before this thread.
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Well, you can say what you want about me now. If you spend several days killing off half a hive this late, when the other half won't have time to build back before winter, but refuse to call Lewis to save the whole hive and requeen it in a day, I don't think I care to try to help you in the future. I had a much better opinion of you before this thread.
I'm sorry to hear that, Wally. But I'm not sure that requeening this hive is enough at this point. The bees will still be mean for like 6 weeks, and I can't have my family unable to go outside for that long, so I would need Lewis to do something more drastic than just requeening too, and I'm fairly confident I can do this myself with the shop vac. If they are too small going into winter, I can always combine them with another colony.
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If you are ready to get rid of all the bees but want clean comb & stores then:
suit up GOOD
don't close the entrance yet, makes 'em madder
remove outer lid, not inner lid
slide 2 pieces of lang-sized Luan in between the top hive bodies. Quick quick quick. Lift the top hive body and drop it on a bungy cord lying on a flat surface. Tighten the bungy. Now you've locked bees inside.
Do this again with two more pcs luan for 2nd layer, if needed.
Now close the entrance by slapping on a piece of duct tape and pressing. yep there will be some taped bees. Use more duct tape to secure the boxes while carrying.
Put the boxes in the freezer for 24 hrs.
Remove, rinse out brood, give stores to other hives.
I did this, I had to wash out lots of stings from my suit and pro gloves, but I had good PPE and was more intimidated than injured. I saved all the good comb and resources.
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I have requeened many hives that were back to normal behavior in a few days. I know the theory. But that's what I've seen. I would split them into separate boxes plus some empty at the original location. This calms them quickly. Then requeen all the queenless ones or give them brood to raise a queen.
https://bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm
As Jim said, it won't hurt the vacuum, but I wouldn't leave them there long. They don't take long to start to smell.
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If you are ready to get rid of all the bees but want clean comb & stores then:
suit up GOOD
don't close the entrance yet, makes 'em madder
remove outer lid, not inner lid
slide 2 pieces of lang-sized Luan in between the top hive bodies. Quick quick quick. Lift the top hive body and drop it on a bungy cord lying on a flat surface. Tighten the bungy. Now you've locked bees inside.
Do this again with two more pcs luan for 2nd layer, if needed.
Now close the entrance by slapping on a piece of duct tape and pressing. yep there will be some taped bees. Use more duct tape to secure the boxes while carrying.
Put the boxes in the freezer for 24 hrs.
Remove, rinse out brood, give stores to other hives.
I did this, I had to wash out lots of stings from my suit and pro gloves, but I had good PPE and was more intimidated than injured. I saved all the good comb and resources.
Thanks, FG. I don't have the freezer space unfortunately, but another good idea.
I have requeened many hives that were back to normal behavior in a few days. I know the theory. But that's what I've seen. I would split them into separate boxes plus some empty at the original location. This calms them quickly. Then requeen all the queenless ones or give them brood to raise a queen.
https://bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm
As Jim said, it won't hurt the vacuum, but I wouldn't leave them there long. They don't take long to start to smell.
I don't have the equipment to split them, or I would have already done so. And as much as they are terrorizing my front yard, I need this situation resolved now. I have a mean hive that I requeened in April, who would make it impossible for everyone to be outside when I worked them, and my family was very patient about that situation, but this hive is much worse, and I can't ask them to wait and see if things will turn around if I just try removing the queen. I'm only willing to give them a chance at half their current size because earlier in the year when they were small, they weren't any trouble. Thanks for trying to think of ways to avoid killing them, but unless there is another option that would fix them instantaneously, I'm going to proceed with the vacuum. I'm actually not going to be able to do this today, my sister is going to help me and she's not available, so we are going to do it tomorrow instead.
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FG,
I know a guy that put a hive of bees in his freezer for a couple of days to kill them and then put the hive in his car and drove several hours. Before he got to his destination the bees were filling up the car.
This guy was a bee inspector. When he told me about it I was a new bee and thought ?duh? bees over winter in Alaska.
If they?re enough bees in any of the boxes, they will bee just fine in the freezer as long as they go into cluster.
Jim Altmiller
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Ha - I have Florida bees, they shiver at 40 degrees :wink:
Alternative: Get a wet-dry shop vac. Put a gallon of soapy water in the bottom. Make sure the hose is on suction not blow.
Stand ther for an hour vaccuming every bee that comes out of the entrance and when they stop coming out, crack the lid. After a hour, just nurse bees.
Again, suit up well. I did this too, and the noise of the vac drowns out the buzz of mad bees.
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Alternative: Get a wet-dry shop vac. Put a gallon of soapy water in the bottom. Make sure the hose is on suction not blow.
Stand ther for an hour vaccuming every bee that comes out of the entrance and when they stop coming out, crack the lid. After a hour, just nurse bees.
Again, suit up well. I did this too, and the noise of the vac drowns out the buzz of mad bees.
Oh, that's a good idea too. Honestly, I might go with that. Even if it takes a while, I'd have to think there will be less flying bees if I don't open the lid. This will also take all the currently mean bees entirely out of the picture, and I can use the nurse bees and unhatched brood to requeen if I want. Thanks, FG.
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"I'll keep that in mind. I would like to try and deal with it myself if I can, but I'll keep that in my back pocket in case I can't.""
I guess that was a quote on the level of a politician.
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"I'll keep that in mind. I would like to try and deal with it myself if I can, but I'll keep that in my back pocket in case I can't.""
I guess that was a quote on the level of a politician.
What I meant by that was "If I can't find a safe way to deal with them," and I think I have.
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Maybe you think murder is a safe way to do things, but I don't. I think you may be afraid of the title "inspector". They do not force you to do anything. They look and suggest what to do, then help if wanted.They are a wonderful asset, not someone to be afraid of. They don't do anything you don't want them to do. Having not been through the hive, it could be something as simple as queenless. You don't know if you haven't been through it.
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Maybe you think murder is a safe way to do things, but I don't. I think you may be afraid of the title "inspector". They do not force you to do anything. They look and suggest what to do, then help if wanted.They are a wonderful asset, not someone to be afraid of. They don't do anything you don't want them to do. Having not been through the hive, it could be something as simple as queenless. You don't know if you haven't been through it.
The hive is not queenless. Last weekend there was BIAS in the hive. I have no fear that the inspector, or anyone for that matter, will force me to do something I don't want to do. I also don't view the humane killing of an unmanageable homestead animal as "murder", especially not one that has a natural lifespan of 6 weeks. I have already explained to you my reasons for not desiring the help of the inspector. I apologize if you are not happy with the choices I am making in this situation, but I am not accountable to you, only to myself and my family.
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All right, it's done. It took long, several hours, but it went really well. Vacuuming at the entrance worked great and got the meanest bees out of the picture right away and before they even had time to alert the rest of the hive. Once bees stopped coming to the entrances to attack the vacuum, I cracked the lid and we vacuumed up everyone on the top bars. There weren't many foragers in the top, and there was also BIAS in there, so we looked for the queen, found her, and sent her on her merry way. The nurse bees up there weren't any hassle, so we set those boxes aside and then working frame by frame, we vacuumed up most of the bees in the bottom section of the hive. The bees down there were almost all foragers, and were pretty nasty, but the vacuum was quite efficient. The hive next door became a little bothered by the vacuum noise, so we did take a little break for about 15 minutes just so they could calm down, but other than that, everything was very safe and smooth and no one got stung. I left them with most of the capped brood that had been in the bottom of the hive, since there weren't any eggs or larvae of queen-rearing age down there (I removed any QCs they had made as we went). I made sure they had several frames of honey since they won't have many foragers for a while. The rest of the brood I put in the freezer. I'll uncap it and feed it to the chickens. We got 5 or 6 frames of capped honey out of the deal for ourselves, and the rest of the uncapped honey I'll spread around the yard for the other bees to cap. Thanks to everyone who helped out with this.
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Nice to hear it went well, hard work but worth it for the sanity and safety of the family life I'm sure
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All right, it's done. It took long, several hours, but it went really well. Vacuuming at the entrance worked great and got the meanest bees out of the picture right away and before they even had time to alert the rest of the hive. Once bees stopped coming to the entrances to attack the vacuum, I cracked the lid and we vacuumed up everyone on the top bars. There weren't many foragers in the top, and there was also BIAS in there, so we looked for the queen, found her, and sent her on her merry way. The nurse bees up there weren't any hassle, so we set those boxes aside and then working frame by frame, we vacuumed up most of the bees in the bottom section of the hive. The bees down there were almost all foragers, and were pretty nasty, but the vacuum was quite efficient. The hive next door became a little bothered by the vacuum noise, so we did take a little break for about 15 minutes just so they could calm down, but other than that, everything was very safe and smooth and no one got stung. I left them with most of the capped brood that had been in the bottom of the hive, since there weren't any eggs or larvae of queen-rearing age down there (I removed any QCs they had made as we went). I made sure they had several frames of honey since they won't have many foragers for a while. The rest of the brood I put in the freezer. I'll uncap it and feed it to the chickens. We got 5 or 6 frames of capped honey out of the deal for ourselves, and the rest of the uncapped honey I'll spread around the yard for the other bees to cap. Thanks to everyone who helped out with this.
Thanks for the update. Sounds like a smooth job that was well done Reagan! I am a little confused so help me please as I have some questions because I'm not totally clear most likely: The first; what does the abbreviation BIAS represent perhaps 'Bees In Adult Stage; or something else? :grin:
The second: Being you went this far to rid yourself of this type of 'mean' bee, why did you leave 'any' capped brood, or 'bees' of any type or stage in this hive? I left 'them' with most of the capped brood that had been in the bottom of the hive, since there weren't any eggs or larvae of queen-rearing age down there.
Who is them? Wasn't it your goal to completely eliminate this hive of mean bees? And since these larva will most likely 'grow up' with the same mean genes, aren't you concerned you will have a small force of 'meaniens' flying around your yard when they become of age?
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Nice to hear it went well, hard work but worth it for the sanity and safety of the family life I'm sure
Indeed.
Thanks for the update. Sounds like a smooth job that was well done Reagan! I am a little confused so help me please as I have some questions because I'm not totally clear most likely: The first; what does the abbreviation BIAS represent perhaps 'Bees In Adult Stage; or something else? :grin:
Brood In All Stages, i.e. I knew the queen was in the top half of the hive because I saw eggs and young larvae, along with capped brood.
The second: Being you went this far to rid yourself of this type of 'mean' bee, why did you leave 'any' capped brood, or 'bees' of any type or stage in this hive? I left 'them' with most of the capped brood that had been in the bottom of the hive, since there weren't any eggs or larvae of queen-rearing age down there.
Who is them? Wasn't it your goal to completely eliminate this hive of mean bees? And since these larva will most likely 'grow up' with the same mean genes, aren't you concerned you will have a small force of 'meaniens' flying around your yard when they become of age?
"Them" is the nurse bees who were in the top section of the hive with the queen, which wasn't very many. I shook them onto the frames I left in the hive. My goal was not to kill the whole hive, but to leave just enough bees to requeen, which I tried to estimate between the nurse bees I had from the top section, the couple handfuls of flying bees I didn't manage to kill, and the capped brood. This hive was perfectly fine when they were small, so I'm hopeful that with more than half their population gone, they won't be strong enough to terrorize the whole apiary, front yard, and garden. Even if they are a little bit of a nuisance in the apiary for a few weeks until they are requeened and have new blood coming in, I don't really care that much. I just need my family to be able to be outside. And since the hive will be low on foragers for a while, I'm pretty sure they won't have the "bee-power" to waste on chasing people all over creation.
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My goal was not to kill the whole hive, but to leave just enough bees to requeen
Thanks for the clarification, I totally misunderstood your goal or missed it, (hive eradication). :oops: sorry :grin:
In that case sometimes simply requeening will settle them down pretty fast.
Had I understood you goal in the beginning I would have suggested trying this first... (That is if you would have had a mated queen on hand or access to a mated queen ready to introduce.)
Either way I hope this works out for you and your family.. No fun being attacked each time you walk in the vicinity of the bee area...
Phillip
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Either way I hope this works out for you and your family.. No fun being attacked each time you walk in the vicinity of the bee area...
Even less fun when you aren't in the vicinity of the bee area at all. :wink: So far yesterday afternoon and this morning, we've had no mean bees in the garden or the front yard, so far so good. I may go up this afternoon and get the honey off the hive that I put above a triangle escape board, so that will be telling.
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Sounds good! When does you sourwood flow start?
Phillip
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Sounds good! When does you sourwood flow start?
Phillip
The trees are just starting to bud. :happy: Usually it's the end of June/beginning of July.
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Member, I apologize been awful busy as of late. I would have moved said hive put a catchbox in its place when all the field bees were in the catchbox took it and dumped it up the road somewhere.