Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: rober on April 29, 2018, 07:28:06 am
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remember that queen that got a joyride the other day? well she's either holding a grudge or just got into another drone's sperm because that hive got mean. I also discovered that the elastic at the bottom of my bee jacket has gotten loose!! I had bees in my armpits, in my ear, in butt my crack, IN MY BUTT CRACK!!!..................I drove away in my bee jacket with the windows down & after a mile got out & knocked off bees, did that 3 times & still had bees in the truck when I got home. so after saving her i'm going back today to kill that ungrateful vamp. luckily I have a queen in hand, this time i'll have a long sleeve shirt with a long tail on, a belt at the waist over my suit, & Velcro straps on my pants cuffs.
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ouch!
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rober, I copied and pasted your original posting about that "ungrateful vamp". :laugh:
"I checked the hives at an outyard today. I gave them some syrup last week but left the remaining candy & the 2" spacers. 3 of the hives had 5 & 6 frames of brood & quite a few drones. 1 hive built a lot of comb in the 2" space between the frames & inner covers. I shook the bees off the comb & put the remaining candy & comb in a 1 gallon bucket. because there was brood in the comb I looked it over in case the queen was on it. thru everything the back of the truck & headed home. 1 1/2 hours later I started a pot of syrup on the hot plate & started putting the candy in the pot. then came the OH SHOOT moment!!! crawling up the side of the bucket & wet with syrup I spot the queen!!!! I do not know how she survived without being crushed or blown out the back or chilled to death. I grabbed her with a queen clip. put her in a battery box & raced back to the yard. I put the spacer back on the hive & put her clip & all on top of the frames. my thinking is that the workers can tend to her in the clip & if she croaks i'll know where she is. i'll check her Friday morning as i'm tied up tomorrow. this just goes to show how easy it is to overlook a queen. I looked that comb over after shaking off the bees & missed her. I hope she survives. this hive had 5 frames of brood."
Those that would like to read the entire thread can do so here. https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/index.php?topic=7791.0
Maybe the title of this thread should read Some things aren't meant to bee.
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I might be inclined to hold off on blaming the queen for the nastiness. If there was no hostile behaviour before the joyride I am doubtful that alone was responsible for the turn of behaviour. She may have been "offed" and the hive is now queenless which could explain the nastiness, or maybe something as simple as a skunk was bothering that hive overnight and got their backs up prior to your visit.
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they were a little cranky the last 2 visits. yesterday though was really bad. if they're calmer this morning she'll get a reprieve. if not, off with her head.
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Hi Rober, I read and reread your drama with this queen. Maybe I missed something. The part in the story I'm missing is... When you put the queen back in the hive 'still in the queen clip' how much time went by before you released her back into the hive?
Thinking like Perry in that if she was content before her ride home with you, then I'm thinking it's the bees that became cranky.
Truly, sorry about your stings Rober! Not a good ending to your day... Dang!
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jen- she was released from the clip when I checked on her the following friday.
I had bees on me today as soon as I got out of the truck 50' from the hives & when I lifted the outer cover it was game on. I got lucky & found the queen on the 2nd frame that I checked. same as yesterday got in the truck with the suit on & windows open. 1 mile later I got out brushed off more bees & started down the road again. this time I met a sheriff's deputy who gave me a long hard look, made a U-turn & pulled me over, as I got out of the truck he was approaching & asked what the h.......... was as far as he got & the girls were on him. he fled to his car & I raised my arms gesturing what now he waved me on. 2 more pit stops & I came out of the suit. that queen is now pickled. I have queens arriving on Tuesday so i'll have to check this hive 1 more time to make sure they've not made any queen cells.
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Rober, were the bees still aggressive after driving down the road?
My recent (and first) experience with bees following me into my truck was that the bees still in the truck had all calmed down after going about a mile. Most were willingly blown out the windows.
I was hoping this was normal behavior, not unusual.
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this time I met a sheriff's deputy who gave me a long hard look, made a U-turn & pulled me over, as I got out of the truck he was approaching & asked what the h.......... was as far as he got & the girls were on him. he fled to his car & I raised my arms gesturing what now he waved me on.
Rober, while I feel for both you and the Sherriff's deputy, I have to admit to a good belly laugh over this. :laugh:
It reminds me of many years ago when I was trucking and I had a container of deer and cow hides headed for Hamburg Germany. They were salted and half soaked in a brine that stunk to high heaven. Before I locked the doors on the container I would do my best to run a sheet of plastic up the rear doors to hold a lot of it in. Anyways, I crossed the scales and weighed in fine, but as I was crossing the bridge to get over to the container terminal I got flagged down by the bridge police and got waved over onto some portable scales they had set out. Once my trailer got up on the portable scales I saw the bridge cop step back and then come running up to the cab of the tractor asking what the heck I had in the container as it was dribbling all over his scales and stunk like cr@p! :o
Before I could answer he told me to take off and as I pulled away I could see him fetching some rags from his trunk to use to pick up his scales. ;D
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wanderer-yes they were still cranky.
perry-back in the early 70's i was passing thru a small town & was pulled over cuz' my hair was long. so of course the cop searched my truck & in the glove box he found an a labeled plastic bottle of fox lure. the previous owner of the truck was a trapper. the cop opened it & as he raised it to his nose i shouted don't. he paused & got this 'gotcha' look on his face & took a big whiff & immediately started throwing up.
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perry-back in the early 70's i was passing thru a small town & was pulled over cuz' my hair was long. so of course the cop searched my truck & in the glove box he found an a labeled plastic bottle of fox lure. the previous owner of the truck was a trapper. the cop opened it & as he raised it to his nose i shouted don't. he paused & got this 'gotcha' look on his face & took a big whiff & immediately started throwing up.
;D :D ;D
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perry-back in the early 70's i was passing thru a small town & was pulled over cuz' my hair was long. so of course the cop searched my truck & in the glove box he found an a labeled plastic bottle of fox lure. the previous owner of the truck was a trapper. the cop opened it & as he raised it to his nose i shouted don't. he paused & got this 'gotcha' look on his face & took a big whiff & immediately started throwing up.
Now that's funny! I don't care who you are! :laugh: :laugh:
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i did warn him-sorta'. trapping lures can be foul. I've never used steel traps only ho-made box traps & wire live traps. when i catch skunks & drown them i extract their stink & bottle it & sell it to trappers. if you carefully make an incision on either side of the anus you'll find the stink glands. i extract their 'essence' with a syringe. i get $15.00 per oz.
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Rober!! Stop! You're Killin Me Here! ... "i did warn him-sorta"
(https://thumb.ibb.co/grN6Wx/th_GYGD57_OH.jpg) (https://ibb.co/grN6Wx)
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i did warn him-sorta'. trapping lures can be foul. I've never used steel traps only ho-made box traps & wire live traps. when i catch skunks & drown them i extract their stink & bottle it & sell it to trappers. if you carefully make an incision on either side of the anus you'll find the stink glands. i extract their 'essence' with a syringe. i get $15.00 per oz.
I always wondered who did that. Now I know, it's rober! Now wait! You wonder why you have cranky bees? Your other pursuits could be the reason for cranky bees! :laugh: :eusa_think:
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I have friends who are involved in those mountain man rendezvous reenactments. they buy the skins for hats, powder & shot bags, etc. trappers buy the stink. serves those skunks right for eating my girls. it's kinda' like what they say about pigs. there's a use for everything but the squeal. meps fishing lures buys squirrel tales. I have live traps & a high powered air rifle. between me, the traps, & my redbone hound squirrels enter my turf at their peril. we hateses the little wire chewing, tomato biting, flower bulb digging, bird feeder raiding vermin. we hateses em Gollum Gollum we hateses em. because mepps buys the tails I have a good way of keeping count. when I stilled lived in st louis city I was averaging 400 squirrels a year. where I am now i'm averaging 40.
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I have friends who are involved in those mountain man rendezvous reenactments. they buy the skins for hats, powder & shot bags, etc. trappers buy the stink. serves those skunks right for eating my girls. it's kinda' like what they say about pigs. there's a use for everything but the squeal. meps fishing lures buys squirrel tales. I have live traps & a high powered air rifle. between me, the traps, & my redbone hound squirrels enter my turf at their peril. we hateses the little wire chewing, tomato biting, flower bulb digging, bird feeder raiding vermin. we hateses em Gollum Gollum we hateses em. because mepps buys the tails I have a good way of keeping count. when I stilled lived in st louis city I was averaging 400 squirrels a year. where I am now i'm averaging 40.
Really? You are bragging about this? Unbelievable.
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Bad booty story here Rober! Fun to read ;) 8) I also know that you were one of the coolest on the road hippies, that saw more live concert hippy music than most of us. I'll look forward to your memoirs ~
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moe- let's not get all judgmental here. I am not bragging. this a classic example of how man upsets the natural balance. without predators squirrels are running amok in the cities. in the 12 years that I owned that house they chewed their way into my attic doing several K in damage including some electrical damage. they got into my garage/workshop & chewed the knob & tube wiring which started a fire. had I not been it when that fire started it would have burned to the ground taking my house with it & damaged the neighbor's properties as well & could have possibly killed or seriously myself, a neighbor, or a fireman. & this does not include the general nuisance damage they did. my neighbors ALL thanked me as their damage was down as well. does not that body count at least suggest that something is seriously out of balance??? the squirrels here are up to the same. the difference here is that they end up being fried or stewed. the same is going on with deer. after being driven to extinction deer were reintroduced here in Missouri. the urban population is so out of control that more & more townships now allow bow hunting.
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I have friends who are involved in those mountain man rendezvous reenactments. they buy the skins for hats, powder & shot bags, etc. trappers buy the stink. serves those skunks right for eating my girls. it's kinda' like what they say about pigs. there's a use for everything but the squeal. meps fishing lures buys squirrel tales. I have live traps & a high powered air rifle. between me, the traps, & my redbone hound squirrels enter my turf at their peril. we hateses the little wire chewing, tomato biting, flower bulb digging, bird feeder raiding vermin. we hateses em Gollum Gollum we hateses em. because mepps buys the tails I have a good way of keeping count. when I stilled lived in st louis city I was averaging 400 squirrels a year. where I am now i'm averaging 40.
Gollum impression cracking me up! :laugh:
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Me too Neil! And ya know what? Just ask Riverbee about bats... :laugh:
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what can I say. I just ain't been right in the head since they let me out of that nervous hospital mmm-mm.
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rober, if you have knob and tube wiring, at some point a fire will start with or without the help of a squirrel or other critter.
i speak as an experienced retired fire investigator.
about bats jen, sometimes flying critters (and others) take advantage of our neglect and what we fail to do in our older homes/farmhouses to keep them out, and we pay the price.
we are off topic, lets get back to being on topic. ;D
the subject is about rober's aggressive bees and queen, and not about other extraneous indiscriminate killing of animals for whatever benefit or the benefit of others or for whatever reason or 'sport' a member may enjoy.
here we try not to engage in these conversations because it invokes too much controversy.
what brings us here to this forum is bees. we all come from many different backgrounds and all have many interests, and we share them and many other stories of our experiences.
let's move on and get back to the original topic.
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5 queens arrived on Thursday morning I put 4 in splits right away but the weather turned so the last queen had to wait. Friday morning I arrived at the mean hive's yard & suited up .a long sleeve shirt under my jacket, rubber at the top of my gloves, Velcro straps on my pants legs, & 2 bungy cords around the bottom of my jacket. twas a good thing too. the hive was beyond cranky. started going thru frame by frame looking for queen cells. 2 frames in the top box had queen cells. there were also 2 frames with what looked like swarm cells in the bottom box. because there were so many queen cells with a chance of them making more I decided not to risk the new queen & left them a frame with 2 sealed queen cells to make their own queen. I shook a lot of bees into a cardboard nuc box & went to a another yard & made up 2 nucs with the swarm cell frames, & 1 nuc with the new queen. a few things i'm wondering about. 1st-since the cells were from that queen there's a chance the cells will produce cranky hives. hopefully the drones genetics have a good influence. I had a cell from gentle queen produce the meanest hive I ever encountered when cells from the same queen produced gentle hives so the drones had to be the determining factor. 2nd-i've never seen a queenless hive produce swarm cells. 3rd-the bees that I shook out to make the split were still cranky but were a bit calmer at the new location. it's a shame that queen was so mean as she was an egg laying machine. this the 2nd time that I've had extremely productive queens that were produced mean hives. once I was properly dressed working the hive was stressful but doable. both times it was at this same yard which is on a farm. i'm thinking that if it should happen again I might just leave them bee. there's no one around for them to bother & that 1st mean hive made a lot of honey. I don't think the crankiness was temporary. I think that queen got into a layer of sperm from another drone that produced mean bees. I had a minimum of 1000 stingers in my clothes by the time i'd finished.
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I've heard a local keep say that mean bees make more honey. Last summer the bees here at my house were REALLY aggressive, not defensive AGGRESSIVE! They'd hunt me down 100 yds away, while working on my shack, and sting without trying to bump or drive me off first. They were like heat seeking missiles! Those hives, 4 of them, produced the bulk of our honey. Good luck Rober, mean bees are unfun to work with or work around. Ted
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a few things i'm wondering about. 1st-since the cells were from that queen there's a chance the cells will produce cranky hives. hopefully the drones genetics have a good influence. I had a cell from gentle queen produce the meanest hive I ever encountered when cells from the same queen produced gentle hives so the drones had to be the determining factor. 2nd-i've never seen a queenless hive produce swarm cells. 3rd-the bees that I shook out to make the split were still cranky but were a bit calmer at the new location. it's a shame that queen was so mean as she was an egg laying machine. i'm thinking that if it should happen again I might just leave them bee. there's no one around for them to bother & that 1st mean hive made a lot of honey. I don't think the crankiness was temporary. I think that queen got into a layer of sperm from another drone that produced mean bee.
1. That was my first thought. Mean mamas can make mean daughters.
2. A queenless hive might have produced a cell from an older egg that has not been treated "royally". The queen cell may contain and inferior queen. The original queen might have died or she swarmed with a small group of workers.
3. The divide and conquer method does help tone down the hostility.
4. "I'm thinking that if it should happen again I might just leave them bee." That is another option since they are isolated. If they swarm the mean genes will swarm with them. Just putting honey supers on them is an option. Dressing very well when it comes time to pull the supers is another story. I had a colony like that last year. It had been a swarm the previous year that I caught in a swarm box. That was my plan until the neighbor got chased out of his own back yard. They found a home in the country where another beekeeper did the divide and conquer method.
It seems cranky heavy populated colonies are the honey producers. I also found that the honey producers like that are the ones that will crash from mites at some point in the fall.
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if these queen cells make mean bees as an experiment i'll move them back to that farm, dress appropiately when working them & resign myself to driving off in my beesuit.
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Sorry, but this thread is just too too, funny. I'm rolling reading this one. :laugh: Rober, you and I have a lot in common, rendezvous, hunting, trapping, skinning and of course the bees. glad you came out of it ok.