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What to Do About Very Aggressive Bees!
by Kimberly Lewis
(Cedar Grove, IN)
I am a new beekeeper and recently purchased four hives of very healthy bees along with some of the beekeeper's equipment.
I have done my homework and have learned quite a bit although I still have so much more to learn. I have tried to find a mentor in my area but have been unsuccessful.
Your site it great, I am learning a lot from it. Three of the hives are very friendly the previous owner says it is from getting into the hive often (at least once a month). Have you found this to make a difference?
I have these at my house in my backyard. The 4th hive is what he called a "hot" hive, these bees are crazy. When you get into the hive (and it is the largest hive of all of them)or within 50 feet, they will attack you.
I suited up in 90 degree weather in a pair of winter coveralls over the top of my clothing I was so scared. They were all over me and my husband was at least 100 feet away and they went for him stinging him several times.
I was reading your site and thought maybe they are aggressive due to their queen. Should I replace her and if so how do I do that? Do I have to kill her before putting the new queen in (in her candy package of course) I have looked through all of my hives and have yet to see the queen. I suppose I just don't have an eye for her. Or is there something else I should do to tame these very mean bees?
I look forward to hearing back from you very soon. I am at my wits end with them. I now have them on piece of land I own very far away from any houses.
Hi Kimberley
It sounds to me as though you have a hive of Africanized bees. Bees which are this aggressive are no fun, they're potentially dangerous, possibly illegal, but they often produce large amounts of honey!
I suggest you try re-queening them with a queen from a very calm colony. It will mean you have to find the queen. You might want to practice on your other hives first.
Novices, including myself, start one side of the box and work their way across when looking for the queen. What happens is that the queen realizes something is going on and hides. You chase her across the hive and often never see her.
The trick is to give them a very few light puffs of smoke and to look where the queen is likely to be, in the centre of the brood nest.
Start by removing a frame or two from the outside of the brood box to give some room, inspect it and put it to one side. Next gently lever the frames apart so you can remove the center frame, make as much room as you can. Inspect it carefully, then if you don't find her, put the frame back in the middle, away from the other frames. Move to the next frame, inspect it then put it next to the first frame. Do the same on the other side of that middle frame. Work your way through every frame until you find her.
If you don't find her the first time, repeat the whole process. If you still haven't found her close up the box and come back later or even the next day.
Once you've found her a few times you'll find it much easier. You might consider marking her with a dab of paint or white-out on her back. It makes her much easier to find in future.
Don't inspect the frames too closely, hold them away from you and take in the whole frame. Look for the behaviour of the workers rather that the queen itself. The queen will often have a ring of workers around her, facing her. Take your time, look at one side, then the other before moving on to the next frame.
Since your hive is so big and aggressive I wonder whether you could move some of those bees to another hive. That would make it easier to handle when you're looking for the queen.
If that's what you decide to do, assuming you have a queen excluder on the hive, smoke them well and move several supers on to another floor beside the hive, put a roof on them and close up the entrance. Replace the roof on the 'hot' hive giving them another super or two if necessary.
Take the stack of supers back home to the docile hives and put them on top of one, with a sheet of newspaper between the supers and the hive. If you've removed more than one super you could put them on different hives. This will make the 'hot' hive easier to manage when you're finding the queen.
Within a few days of re-queening, provided they accept the new queen, you'll see a huge difference in their demeanour.
I hope that helps, good luck, let us know what happens.
The Bee Guy
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