Wonder where I’ve been?

[Les]

This summer’s project if we can ever get it completed.  The bees have become absolutely miserable!!  We are not anywhere near them and they come after us with a vengeance.  We spend more time running for the house.  My nephew was sitting on the deck minding his own business and they came and stung him on the head.  I took a wicked face plant and thankfully nothing broke this time LOL!  We think it is one particular hive and we are in the process of having them  raise a queen with eggs from another hive.This has been a rough year for queens.....I have had to buy four replacements, so I don’t want to spend any more money.  If they don’t make a queen can someone suggest what to do with them?  Perhaps a blowtorch?

[Bakersdozen]

That looks back breaking Les!  But it also looks like it is going to be wonderful when you are done.
That's very defensive behavior for a honey bee.  Queen issues can be the cause.  Perhaps others have more insight than me.
Thanks for the pictures.

[Wandering Man]

One of my hives became overly aggressive a couple of months ago, and I had to get them out of my yard in a hurry to protect the neighbors.  Their problem was Chronic Bee Virus. Symptoms of the bees with the virus was no hair (sometimes called "greasy bees", and wings stuck out at right angles to the body.  I had noticed earlier that there were strange looking, undersized bees in the hive.  I realized later that they just look smaller without hair.

I moved all of my hives and requeened them with a hygenic queen (BeeWeaver).  It took a good month for the bees to calm down.  Every time we opened the box we got swarmed, and looking down into the box you could see the war between the bees going on.  Healthy bees were trying to push out the sick bees, who didn't want to leave.  Every time we went to our new apiary, we saw hundreds of dead bees on the ground.  But the new queen did her job, and now the bees are calm and healthy looking.

I was reminded that there is no quick solution to aggressive bees, and that there is usually some kind of stressor in the hive that triggers the aggression (unless you have Africanized bees, which is not likely to be a problem for you).

Good luck figuring it out, and keep us posted.

[Les]

WM since my eyes are failing (cataract surgery scheduled), I had a friend of mine who is a beek take a look at the hive.  While he was pulling the frames and checking for eggs and larva, I was standing over the hive watching the bees for anything unusual.  I did not notice any greasy bees or wing distortion.  I am aware of the syndrome as we discussed it in our bee group.  I am hopeful that it is a queen issue and if they make one, things will quiet down.  I loved wandering over to my hives and watching them come and go without fear of being attacked. Now I am so wary that the enjoyment is not there.  Fingers crossed!

[NorCal]

Les, I'm not sure what there is to try, besides requeeening.  I'm pretty new at this bee thing, but I'll share my experience with mean bees.  I had a very strong hive that turned mean, I mean seriously mean.  When I opened the lid I would get perhaps a hundred or so bees on my veil, all trying to get me. The bees would bump and sting family members and pets that were 50 yds away from the apiary on days when I didn't even disturb them.   I split that strong hive into 3 separate hives.  I installed two purchased queens ( to avoid any mean genetics in any queen that the hive might make) into the splits and the bees finally calmed down after 10 weeks and they are easy to handle now.  The third hive (the split with the original queen from the strong hive) also calmed downed significantly after the split.  I was making preparations to eradicate those mean hives 8 weeks after installing the new queens, but I gave them a few more weeks and they are great now and I y beekeeping again.  Like I said I'm still new at this, but I think you could calm them down with some new queens and some patience   

[Les]

Thanks Norcal, I truly appreciate your input.  Tomorrow will be ten days since we added a frame of brood with notched cells.  I will do a hive check tomorrow.
Fingers crossed they raise a new queen.  They are not as bad since we moved the hive to a quiter area but every now and then one still comes at us for no reason. They seem to like my nephew’s head LOL.