Beekeeping > General Beekeeping

Killing Queen That's Making Agressive Bees

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Jen:
Over my years of beekeeping I've had to destroy two entire hives due to very aggresive bees.

What is your opinion on what makes bees very aggresive over a two season period?

iddee:
"What is your opinion on what makes bees very aggressive over a two season period?""

My opinion is a new queen mated with a number of aggressive drones.

Aggressiveness travels down the male lineage.

Jen:
Hi Mr. Wizard :) I do know this, but it is a rather unknown part of bee science, so I thought I would present this in learning mode.

I did come across this bit of info some years ago. When the virgin queen goes up into the drone pool and mates, Hopefully she mates with around 15 drones at the least, and hopefully she doesn't mate with her sons, and actually tries to avoid her sons. If she does get nabbed by a son or more she will produce mean bees.

The first drone contribution is the first layer, the second drone contribution is the second layer, the third drone contribution is the third layer ... and so forth. If the queen is mated mostly with other drones from around town, but gets a son or two in there by accident. That isn't too much of a big deal, and we can wait until those particular set of bees have died off in 6 weeks or so. However, if she has mated with mostly her sons then that is going to be a mean set of bees.

Am I correct so far?

iddee:
Seeing as how a queen only mates once in her lifetime, she has no sons to mate with. If she mates with her brothers, the workers remove the larva, as their DNA is recognized and forbidden to emerge.

Gypsi:
If your hive temperament changed that is a new daughter queen, and she mated with drones at a DCA that had some hot visitors. I would order a mated queen, kill the old one, smear her on the front of the new queen cage, put it in for a day before pulling the plug, maybe 2 days, give a couple of drops of water a day then remove plug and you should be good. I've done this.

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