The PERFECT Example of an Aggressive Colony
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2022
- In my first year beekeeping i had a colony that was extremely aggressive. I thought the problem must be my inexperience. Some mistake that i was making. Looking back now I should have requeened that hive immediately.
Aren’t bees supposed to try to sting you? No. Not if you aren’t close to their hive. I have 12 colonies now and all but one can be worked without gloves. Most don’t need smoke. The one that requires gloves is the one shown in this video.
I have had bees hassling me and my wife FAR from their hive. Luckily they haven’t stung any neighbors, but this hive has gotten too hot for my comfort level.
In this video i show how far away you could normally expect guard bees to patrol, and then how far this aggressive colony is going.
This hive was mostly fine before the solstice, but since the summer solstice they’ve been impossible to work. The flow lasted for another month past that, but the solstice is when the demeanor took a turn for the worse. The fact that they were better before tells me this is a queen issue and not africanized genetics.
If you’re a new beekeeper and trying to figure out if you should requeen a hive because of their behavior, i hope this is helpful. In my first year i could have used this video.
#beekeeping #beginnerbeekeeping #aggressivebees #honeybees
I had only 1 hot hive but she swarmed & left a lovely queen behind. Nature at it's finest :)
I was about to post the same thing. My hive was then attacked by yellow jackets and was all but dead when I discovered it. I was forced to combine with another hive
I had a colony that was getting bad last August so I waited until spring to see if they got any better? Nope. I did exactly what you did and then introduced a good laying queen. It took about 7 weeks but they are now a joy to work and they did make more honey than all the other colonies. Good video.
Thanks! Was convinced that I was the problem with my first mean hive. Let it go for way too long because i didn’t have anything to compare it to.
I had a hive like that. They are in bee heaven now. It was very unsafe. Stinging neighbors etc.
good decision. Sorry about the loss however. Some people will not euthanize them because they don't want to loose the honey.
@@jrippee05 Frequently the most aggressive hives produce the most honey.
Should things get worse, there is one last trick that can be used before you do a general euthanization: Move the requeened hive to a new location at least 10 feet away. Place an empty hive body with drawn comb at the old location. (fake hive) This will collect the workforce, which are the most aggressive of the bees. At that point, you could euthanize this box, or let them die out. The original hive will be set back somewhat as they have lost their workforce, but this is less of a problem once in dearth as there is little to be collected in the field. You will see a rapid change in the hive behavior as newly hatched bees are by nature less aggressive. As the new queen's offspring emerge, the hive should become even more docile. I had to do this once about 30 years back and the trick worked. As for the fake hive, there will be no reason to open or disturb them until they have dwindled down. At that point you can redistribute any collected resources to other hives in need.
This is a super helpful! In this case it took about a week after removing the old queen before we stopped getting hassled up by the house. Luckily our neighbors didn’t get bothered, but i can imagine needing a faster solution.
That must be especially nerve racking with the neighbors being almost within range. It’s one thing for you or anyone in your family to get stung but if the neighbors start getting hassled then that’s a whole other kind of headache, I would imagine.
I had a similar colony. Fortunately it superseded and straightened itself out with the new queen before I had to get involved.
I keep catching hot swarms at the same Swarmtrap location
Good information provided here
Love it when they take care of it themselves!
There definitely mad because u came and kidnapped the queen.😂
Sometimes the answer is the most simplest one 😂
When I was growing up my grandfather was a bee keeper. My parents allowed him to place a hive in our backyard, and it stayed there for roughly 5 years. The main reason was we lived in SoCal when SoCal used to produce allot of oranges - the honey was an orange blossom honey.
I never got stung once. However, I did respect them - I didn't mess with them. I could stand in our backyard about 15 feet away and watch them without being stung. Those were honey bees. What you have is not - those are some hot genetics that got mixed in.
My grandfather kept hives and we got stung stepping on bees running around barefoot.
I had a hot hive like this once and they had to go. I notice one day they were going after people walking by on the street and I couldn't go out and work in the yard at all without getting stung multiple times.
Its too big and overpopulated, let it swarm or split it and it will calm down...... so many queen cells, they are desperate to downsize! Im in Africa and we consider that to be a calm colony! Haha THANKS for all the vids!
I had an awesome hive that was super gentle and super productive. Over the winter something happened and by March they were incredibly aggressive. I did a mite check and dropped that queen into the alcohol with the other bees, then a few days later put in a new queen. Unfortunately, she didn't survive, then I let them make their own queen, but that didn't work out, and a couple of weeks ago the hive was getting robbed. It didn't have enough bees left to defend itself. They basically euthanized the hive on their own.
I just got out of a hive like that. During the bedlam they managed to get inside my veil - absolutely miserable feeling. I left all the boxes open on the ground & left. Hopefully, they will be gone after a good rain. 🤷♂️
I hope it works!
I went in guns of the navarone on a cold day and really messed some stuff up by doing too much too early. After that, the defenders were buzzing me all around my yard. I haven't requeened but I am thinking if it persists I will. I am getting into them again this weekend.
I had a hot hive at the farm and I just killed the queen and put in cells from another hive. The hive was hotter but not like super aggro.
Dude my brother's hive lit my ass up two days ago!! He got the box hive 2 years ago and I've been the one mowing his yard for him since he got them. Mowed all last year no problem. The area where the box is is kinda a barren spot of their yard with very little grass or weeds within 10 to 15 feet of the box. There is a section in that general area that I've always mowed, I'd get within about 15 feet with the mower and these bees never once have bothered me, I could even get fairly close with the weedtrimmer and cut down the few weeds in pretty close proxinimy to them, no problem. Mowed there like 2 or 3 other times this year no problem but this last time was not a good situation!! lol I was on the riding mower and started mowing in that one section somewhat near them, I noticed they seemed to more bees than normal swarming right around the box, anyways a few started buzzing around me and I'm like nope and I immediately exited that area and immediately drove over to my brother and asked him if there was any reason he could think of that his bees were acting aggressive. He said he didn't know and hadn't noticed. I worked up the courage to go back over in that area to mow. Made a couple more swipes with that mower and I really was not that close to these things at all(I've been twice as close no problems) and here they come. They absolutely swarmed my ass. I got stung in the forehead 4 times, they got the back of my neck half a dozen times, my left arm and back got hit a couple times each. When it started I was swatting and thought I was gonna manuever that mower to safety but it wasn't cooperating in that moment and I literally had to bail off that mover and running towards the other side of the property as fast as I could while swatting at bees. Man it sucked. After the initial attack was over and I was collecting my composure and accessing the damages I was probably damn 150 to 180(or more) feet away from them and still had an occasional bee or two finding its way to me and attacking. I had to get full dressed in their bee suit to retrieve the mower along with my hat and sunglasses that I slapped off my face when first attacked lmao. It had been like 20 minutes and they were still swarming my mower out for blood lol. They got me good. Thank god I'm not allergic. That was the 2nd worse encounter I've had with bees/wasps in my life! I've never had multiple honeybees attack me before. When I was like 9 or 10 I got stung like 35 times by yellow jackets tho.
I had this too. I called them my Africanized bees.
Racist!
I take their brood, combs, ect. Use screen boards, kill queens, queen cells, and combine with a better hive.
what type of bees do you have? Italians?
I had a hive that would seek people out at 200 feet. They would start stinging at 100 feet. They would follow for a quarter mile. They died a soapy death.
No smoke? I have 2 hives and one is aggressive, I use smoke and it calms them down a lot
40 queen cells. Lotd!
I would not tolerate that from my bees. Did you requeen or destroy the hive?
Any chance your suit has pheromones on it that agitates them? I've been told to wash gloves and suits for that. In other words, would they still attack you when you were far away by your driveway if you were outside of the suit?
If that had been the issue I would expect most of my hives to respond to it. Also, we were getting hassled all over the property when we weren't suited up. Including my wife, who has never inspected a colony. They just needed to be requeened. We're lucky they never tried to sting any of our neighbors.
Any change right after washing bee suit?
These are Africanized killer bees. Nothing changes their attitude.
New beekeeper, I had a hive very aggressive, top to 1 too 10... this hive was telling me was about to meet jesus... I put bin bag over it full tape cover.. some beekeepers use washing up liquid or gasoline.. but only once happened to me I use large bag. Taking 48 hours comeplete
Where are you located? In the US zone 5 and north, requeening is worth the effort. South of there you’re in a totally different situation. If it’s that aggressive, i’d requeen AND split if it isn’t too late in the season. Having a second apiary where you can drop a troublesome hive is helpful too.
I have some slightly snotty bees. I re-queened the hive. The surprise for me is that they seem to recognise me.
There was a study in 2005 out of Cambridge that showed bees recognize human faces. They gave a sugar water reward for bees going to photos of certain faces, and then the bees continued to go to the correct faces about 90% of the time after they took the sugar water away.
@@BeensBees often after a hive visit, I find a bee (just one) waiting to ambush me with a head butt at the front or back door. This will go on till bee bed time. It's as if the bee knows where I live and patrols around my house. My partner and neighbors are never bothered.
You have to admire the tenacity. I'm lucky it's just the one.
You said that you pulled 40 cells was that all the cell or did you just pull 40 . Ya putting a different cell in is great . Just a little things to think about it. The bigger the colony the hotter , also they are trying to protect there stores also . A storm coming can get then a little hot also animals ( raccoon, skunks, etc any animals trying to eat the bees ) at night messing with the hive can get them hot also . Just things to think about but ya I would requeen for sure . Good luck on them . Thanks
Yeah, i could have been more clear there. 40 was the total number of cells. Made sure to have a second set of eyes because i didn’t want to miss any. And Brian definitely caught two i would have missed.
The biggest issue for me was the guard bees headhunting my wife and i by our front door. She’s been super patient with this hobby, but she didn’t sign up for hot colonies. And this was the only one of the four at my house that was at all hot in early July, so i felt pretty confident it was them.
Seems that the queen you had, was probably using sperm from a different drone that was geneticly more aggressive vs the sperm from the previous drone that was calm, if you tryed waiting it out for close to 2 months, they may have calmed down when she would again rotate(to different sperm) into a completely new set of brood.
You will probably find even though you switch to a new queen, they will continue to be aggressive, until all the aggressive brood/bees that were hatched with that aggressiveness die off...2-2½ months...
Yeah, waiting it out didn't seem like an option with them hassling my (then) pregnant wife lol
I'm new to your channel. Just checking things out.
This is an interesting topic. A lot of people want to think their bees are good all the time also. So people maybe think it won't happen to them. You could end up with neighbor issues if you don't fix that. You could also divide into 2 colonies also with that size. That would increase the chances of getting at least 1 good queen also. That productivity is amazing. Too bad its not gentle.
What will you do if the daughter queens aren't gentle?
...
I'm curious also... about if there's a guide on checking really big colonies? I have a couple really big colonies and its a bit scary to check and open them up when there's so many bees. But people don't really talk about this. Checking colonies and medium or small colonies doesn't bother me. But it feels like a different animal when its a really big colony? But I don't see anyone with videos on this.
Great questions! I mention in the video that a friend and i went through and culled all of the queen cells. So removed the queen, waited 5-6 days, removed all emergency cells. They were hopelessly queen-less at this point. I have gotten good daughters from aggressive queens before, but it’s a gamble.
I did split the colony using a double-screen board. Exactly for the reason you mention, two shots at a good queen. When i did the split, both got queen cells from another hive. A productive hive with low mite counts that is much gentler. Probably not getting two good queens from this at this point in the summer, but they are no longer aggressive and i’ll be happy with one. I’ll leave a separate comment on your second question after i have a chance to think about it. It’s a great idea for a video and i know exactly what you’re talking about.
Thank you.
Okay, had a chance to think through it and i’ll put together a video when i get a chance. But there were a few things that made a big difference for me.
1. A suit/gloves/protection combo where i KNEW i could prevent 100% of stings if i wanted to. For me that was a mesh suit, boots, and rubber coated gloves. Being able to go in sure i wasn’t going to get stung really helped me get past my nerves. I don’t suit up like that too often now, but i have it in my back pocket if i need it.
2. Using more smoke. I don’t usually need to use a ton of smoke, but with a big scary hive it’s helpful.
3. Going in with a specific goal. I know what i’m going in to do, and in what order. Keeping my goals simple and straightforward. The nerves are worse if i’m just doing a general inspection. Either i’m looking for eggs, or i’m making sure there are no queen cells, or i’m counting resources.
Do all of the above, and repeat repeat repeat. And pat yourself on the back for being a good beekeeper that has hives with such massive populations.
th-cam.com/video/fnGjmR4Htio/w-d-xo.html Video on this now posted
I'm going through this now for the very first time. Just ordered a new queen though I would bet they're already queenless. Couldn't get deep enough in before having to call it quits to find any evidence of a queen. They're going to have to accept the new lady of the hive or it's Dawn dish soap for the lot of 'em. This behavior is a no-go, ESPECIALLY with neighbors (mine are about as close as yours are, and my bees are currently kamikaze-ing me from about the same distance away.
Yeah, I have a second apiary I can move problem hives to but this was late enough in the season that it would have been a beast to move. A few years ago I did a late season split on a problem hive and that worked out well. Killed the original queen, turned it into 3 nucs and then recombined once we hit August (keeping the best queen).
Do you think that they are africanized?
I would say no, we're in Iowa and I don't think it's as much of an issue for us. Also, these bees hassled me and my wife but not everything around and didn't chase us for half a mile. Just around the house. Which was annoying enough
Bee keepers, if your bees literally harrass 100% of your property, you know that is way too aggressive. You should own your bees, not the other way around. These bees think that this man's property is all theirs and this is still not the worst. I have seen bees persue people to a half mile away from their hives and I do not live on a street that long. That would be more than my property and my neighbors' property, combined.
Definitely not the worst situation. But I'm surprised at what some people will put up with.
You don't own bees. You invite them to stay in your hives
The neighbours would be happy
Neighbors are all getting honey dropped off this week
Any follow up to this?
Took two attempts to requeen! Once the new queen was laying it was a whole new hive. But they continued dive bombing us until she was laying.
They do however tend to be the most productive
A queenless hive gets agressive until the new one is mated and laying.
It swarmed
It definitely did not swarm. The old queen was in there until i took her out. No drop in population, no queen cells, no sign of swarming at all.
My friend the bees are right. In this case you are wrong. Where is your smoker? You have no idea how important it is to smoke the hive before open up the cover etc. Pump smoke on the entrance first and then the upper after removing the parts. Have a blessed day.
I did use smoke, i try to edit my videos down as much as possible to keep them watchable.
The point of the video is that they hassle us FAR from the hive. If you have bees headhunting you further than 20 ft from the hive, requeen it. These were going after my wife (and puppy) from the other side of the house, every single time we went outside.
Thanks for watching and commenting, if you’re saying it someone else is thinking it.
It's dangerous for neighbors. I had one like this. Re-queenining did the trick.
Those aren't hot just unpleasant...trust me
Yeah, i realize people deal with hotter colonies all the time. The issue for me is that the guards were headhunting us nowhere close to the hives. Not even giving warning buzzes. Just walk outside and BAM sting in the ear/cheek/side of the head. Took one dangerously close to my right eye. That isn’t like any of my other hives.
@@BeensBees yeah probably being aggravated by hornets or sometimes their going through supercedure and nervous wreck. Sometimes it's just the dearth got em all robbing and stressed out, sometimes it's worn out nervous genetics. Whatever the reason ,I agree I don't wanna get bumped or head hunted just because I'm within 100 yards,I won't put up with that but a couple days and if they get qr or whatever and stop cool,if not it's off with her head I gotta keep gentle bees
Africanization of kept bees is all of our concern.
Each year the queen mates, the posibility exists that drones from africanized hives could spread their genetics to your colonies.
And a hive of hybid bees, kept and tolerared, just adds to the problem when the drones go out, mate, and thus spreading aggresive genes.
requeening is best done sooner rather than later.
and at a certain point, euthanizing colony is the acceptable and resposible thing to do.
I live in rural Pennsylvania, so my bees are safe, right? We are too far north to be concerned, right? WRONG. Pa Dept of agriculture found in 2022 that 25% of PA honeybee colonies sampled had africanized genetics averaging 20%.
So, its up to bee keepers to prevent and combat africanizarion. Its a yearly concern.
I would not have expected that % in Pennsylvania, that's crazy!
Thanks for mentioning this. I also keep bees in PA. Any way you could point me to the Pa Ag. Study? I’d be interested in taking a look at it. Thank you!
@@user-op7lf4tx9k search López-Uribe Pennsylvania africanized honeybee Pennsylvania on your browser. this leads you to all sorts of articles on this.
@@user-op7lf4tx9k I don't know if this went through. so I'll send it again.
search López-Uribe Pennsylvania africanized honeybee in browser.
this will lead to the links to articles and the dna labs involved.
@@user-op7lf4tx9k I truly don't know if this message is getting through. I tried 2 times already. let me know.
Ok, search López-Uribe africanized honeybees Pennsylvania in your browser and a bunch of articles will come up.
LOL .. it's not aggressive that!..
Thanks for watching!
Fun fact
Queen ants lived for 30 years
While the workers lived for 30 days
I know this is a bee video but there the same😃
Winter honeybees live 6+ months while summer workers live 6 weeks
Insert obligatory yet irrelevant and weird boast about how much more aggressive some colonies can be than this, here:>
Hahaha
They sound terrifying
@@BeensBees It was annoying me, the number of people saying how these aren't all that bad. SO WHAT? Congratulations to them on being worse beekeepers I guess.
@@TheBaconWizard My first colony was aggressive, but i had nothing to compare it to. I figured i must be doing something wrong as a new beekeeper. This felt like a chance to put out the video that would have helped me in that first year.
I was never trying to say, “this is the hottest hive ever”. But maybe some people took it that way. Honestly just happy that people are watching.
@@BeensBees I think it was perfectly obvious what you were trying to do and that it's very valuable for a beginner like me to have these videos. So thank you.
Some people don't need bees.killing a queen is one of the dumbest things bee keepers can tell another one.learning to manage the bees should be the information passed on.i had two aggressive hives that would attack for no reason.i split the hives took the queens with the split hives let them requeen themselves.now i have four hives that dont pay any attention to me or anybody around their hives.bees will do what bees do.we as people think we know everything about bees when in fact we dont
I’m honestly not sure what you’re saying but thanks for watching
Your hives are too big.......if they really go off, you'll be in trouble..........Z
I split pretty aggressively ahead of the flow. Sold nucs this year too. They build fast and i’ve had a terrible success rate with late season splits.