Beekeeping > General Beekeeping
Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon? Use of Sulfur to Destroy Aggressive Hive
Nugget Shooter:
--- Quote from: Wandering Man on June 04, 2017, 04:22:21 pm ---Yes, they are quite over the top. But I enjoyed watching the storm of bees they unleashed in that first hive removal.
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It is very similar to what we went through, they are absolutely vicious when protecting the hive.
Nugget Shooter:
Just for the record here, if we had our yard in the boondocks away from the grade school and neighbors I likely would not have destroyed the hive. But being close to other people and animals I took what I thought was the best direction.
tedh:
I believe you made the right and prudent call. Ted
Wandering Man:
--- Quote from: Nugget Shooter on June 05, 2017, 10:15:21 am ---Just for the record here, if we had our yard in the boondocks away from the grade school and neighbors I likely would not have destroyed the hive. But being close to other people and animals I took what I thought was the best direction.
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I'm not sure what other choice you would have had, Nugget. From what I hear, requeening is very difficult. I guess you could have tried to split the hive and then you might have got away with new queens. I wonder if you would have had to make two hives or three to bring them back down to calm?
troutdog:
--- Quote from: Chip Euliss on April 14, 2017, 09:40:43 pm ---Late to the party as always but it sounds like you found an effective solution. There is an alternate way, if you're interested, in case it happens again. I've had AHB hives returned to me from down south and they are basically impossible to re-queen with gentle stock in my view. After beating my head against the wall, I came up with a system that worked well for me. Suit up and tear the "bad" break the hive down into 2 boxes if you can't or don't want to take the time and lumps to find the queen. Leave 1 box where it was and move the "split" box a short distance away, maybe 40 yards or so. The old grumpy bees will go back to the original location after a day or so. Check the box you moved to see if there are eggs after 4 days. If you find eggs in the box you moved, put it back at the original location and move the original bottom box where you moved the "split". What you want is to have the queen and the old grumpy bees in one box at the original location and only nurse bees and brood in the other. To do that, the queen has to be in the original location. Re-queen the box that has AHB nurse bees and brood with a good gentle queen--nurse bees are more accepting of a new queen. Once the new queen is laying well, reverse the boxes again. That will result in the AHB workers from the original location going into the hive you re-queened--wait a day or so for them to relocate. The original box (now at the location of your "split" box) will now contain the old queen, nurse bees, and some AHB workers that hatched since you started the operation. It will be easier to find the queen and kill her than with the larger population of angry bees you had at their original location. You can either re-queen the hive that contained the old queen (may not work because that hive will now have adult AHB bees) or you could join them to your newly re-queened hive over a piece of newspaper; you'd loose some AHB workers (that would be my preference) but not a great loss. In your situation, I would use a bred queen versus a cell because there are likely many AHB drones there to breed another problem for you. The hives will still be grumpy as long as there are AHB genetics but the behavior of the hive(s) will improve as European bees start to dominate the population within the hive(s). They are a pain and I only had a couple of years that I had to deal with them and I'm pleased it hasn't repeated itself. From my experience, trying to re-queen a AHB hive is a waste of money. I kept bred queens caged for many days before release and they still killed everyone I tried to add. Nurse bees, even of AHB stock are much easier to deal with.
I hear your pain on aggressive bees. I dealt with mine when I had all my bees in one huge yard (400+ colonies) that I use to manipulate them after they return from out west and just before they go to outyards here. The pheromones from AHB quickly spreads to other hives and the whole holding yard is suddenly a very unhappy place. I just finished putting in MAQS in about 500 hives, wearing only a light bee jacket and crocs--my everyday beekeeping outfit. I was stung maybe 5-6 times but from bees that got inside my crocs. When we had the AHB problem, it was a full suit and boots--not fun! My wife had to wear a bee suit when she was outside in the garden, over 100 yards away.
Good luck and be safe :)
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KILL ALL DRONE COMB AND AS MANY AS YOU FIND
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