Author Topic: Hot Hive! (Read 26622 times)

Jen · « **Reply #60 on:** March 20, 2015, 06:36:37 pm »

Hi Riv, I'm so frustrated! It's the hive on the far left. I can't even get out my &)%$ door!

I don't know why it's hot... I've never had a hot hive before. But Iddee suggested that the queen may have run out of pheromones. She is the result of one of the swarms last year, not one of my purchased queens from last year. Maybe she didn't get mated properly... I dunno

I'm all ready to get my frames of brood, eggs, pollen, nectar, and honey, and I have my queen clip ready to snag her when I find her.

kebee · « **Reply #61 on:** March 20, 2015, 07:03:31 pm »

I tell you what I would do and that is if they are as hot as you say I would spray them with some hornet spray and get rid of them period. I will not put up with a hot hive, they may have gotten a ahb queen, as hot and dry as it has been there they may have moved in.

Ken

iddee · « **Reply #62 on:** March 20, 2015, 07:53:37 pm »

If you want to kill them, light your smoker as normal and add a tablespoon of powdered sulfur to it. Smoke them well. It will kill every bee in the hive, but you can put new bees in it the next day. Hornet spray or other insect spray and you destroy the hive.

Jen · « **Reply #63 on:** March 21, 2015, 01:42:06 am »

Iddee and Kebee ~ It has been a very long day. My last post I was frustrated because I haven't dealt with a hot hive before, had to walk away from the hive three times. My last walk away I went out to the front yard and the bees never left my veil. My question was, is there a time of day when it's easier to deal with splitting a hot hive. I got an answer from another site that I visit from time to time. He said mid day to mid afternoon is the best because most of the foragers are out, but frankly a hot hive is always hot but settles down just a bit at dusk.

So, what the hades, I pulled up my boot straps, went out there with determination to get the job done. Had to inspect five boxes down. Three hours later I finally find the dad gummed queen, she was thinned down. What else did I find? several loaded queen cells and 3 swarm cells on the bottom of the frames.

So I got busy and put a split together, found three good capped brood frames, which also had uncapped larvae of all stages in them. Had a hard time finding any eggs, finally found two frames that had a pretty good patch of eggs, left some eggs in the original hive and left some in the split. Also put a full frame of honey and a full frame of pollen, and one empty frame. Inserted new frames/foundation where needed.

What did I learn from this hot hive experience? It sure makes it difficult trying to find eggs and queens when your veil is covered in pissy bees

Now, what I've read here on the forum, is that the split alone 'should' calm the bees. Or, do I have to wait until the existing brood is hatched out and the new queen's genetics hatch out.

Then, I made sure that the slimmed down queen went into the split. What will happen to her now that she's in the split? will the bees fatten her back up again? she has been prepped for swarming... is that inevitable?

kebee · « **Reply #64 on:** March 21, 2015, 06:11:30 am »

Forgot about the sulfur in the smoker, thanks iddee.

Ken

riverbee · « **Reply #65 on:** March 21, 2015, 11:54:49 pm »

"Three hours later I finally find the dad gummed queen, she was thinned down. What else did I find? several loaded queen cells and 3 swarm cells on the bottom of the frames.
So I got busy and put a split together, found three good capped brood frames, which also had uncapped larvae of all stages in them. Had a hard time finding any eggs, finally found two frames that had a pretty good patch of eggs, left some eggs in the original hive and left some in the split. Also put a full frame of honey and a full frame of pollen, and one empty frame. Inserted new frames/foundation where needed.
Now, what I've read here on the forum, is that the split alone 'should' calm the bees. Or, do I have to wait until the existing brood is hatched out and the new queen's genetics hatch out.
Then, I made sure that the slimmed down queen went into the split. What will happen to her now that she's in the split? will the bees fatten her back up again? she has been prepped for swarming... is that inevitable?"

jen,
your queen is the problem. she is the one with the genetics that's creating pissy, hot bees. by transferring her to the split, you are going to wind up with the same genetics in your split, hot and pissy bee's. it's not the bees, it's your queen.

what i would have done when i found her would have been to send her off to the 'promised land' (sorry ef

) someone else said here on another thread, something about 'subject to a hive tool examination' (meaning gone, get rid of the queen).

i would have removed the frames with the swarm cells you found and put them in the nuc, and left brood frames with young eggs in the original hive you did the split from for the bees to make a queen.

just my HO.

EDIT AND ADD:
jen, your pix show queen cups, did you have queen cells ?

Jen · « **Reply #66 on:** March 22, 2015, 12:36:09 am »

In the pics the queen cups have larvae in them and are filling up with royal jelly. That is what that is.. isn't it ?

Then the fourth pic is what I thought was a swarm cell?

It would be nice to clarify that then I can continue

iddee · « **Reply #67 on:** March 22, 2015, 07:16:51 am »

I have to disagree with RB just slightly here. Meanness in bee genetics is most often carried by the drones. This hive may have mean bees from their fathers. Her daughter may or may not come from one of the mean drones. The new queen may have a different father than the mean bees. Very often a mean hive will get very gentle after requeening from the same hive

AND SOMETIMES RB IS CORRECT.

Jen, it is a queen cup when it is empty. It becomes a queen cell the minute it has an egg in it.

rwlaw · « **Reply #68 on:** March 22, 2015, 10:16:04 am »

" Very often a mean hive will get very gentle after requeening from the same hive "
I don't hold my breath iddee

, with me, very often the bad traits gets passed on, but maybe it's my Karma

!!!
My mentor has a phrase, "you can't tell what kind of queen the hive has till you've given her a chance"

Jen · « **Reply #69 on:** March 22, 2015, 12:50:52 pm »

Iddee- "Jen, it is a queen cup when it is empty. It becomes a queen cell THE MINUTE AN EGG IS IN IT.

That is a good bit of info, Thanks. So I do have a hive that is ramping up for a swarm. Now, because I removed the queen, who was slimmed down. I have lessened the chance of a swarm, even tho they are in swarm mode.

Now, getting back to the queen, I know now that the reason I it took so long to find her is because she slimmed down for flight. Now that I have her moved over to the split... what happens to her? will the bees fatten her up again? or is a swarm inevitable?

pistolpete · « **Reply #70 on:** March 22, 2015, 12:57:12 pm »

Jen, your disastrous queen hunt happened for a couple of reasons: even very gentle bees will get riled up if you're in the hive for more than 20 to 30 minutes. Also once your suit gets stung a couple of times, the attack pheromones will draw more and more bees to your suit and the situation snowballs out of control. A couple of suggestions for similar future event: put a queen excluder 1/2 way down the hive and leave them for 4 days. The 1/2 with the eggs will have the queen in it and you have a lot less looking to do. Also the minute your suit gets stung, remove the stinger and heavily smoke that spot to mask the pheromones.

I think the suggestion to kill the hive is ridiculous. Just re-queen and in a few weeks you have a completely different set of bees. I would treat this much the same way as you did with eliminating your swarmy genetics last year. Destroy all queen cells and introduce a purchased queen, or wait 3 days so there are no more eggs destroy all queen cells and introduce a frame with eggs from a calm hive.

pistolpete · « **Reply #71 on:** March 22, 2015, 01:03:38 pm »

As for your queen question: you could clip one of her wings, so she can't fly off. I think you should just let her go to bee heaven and let the nuc raise a new queen, or combine the nuc with one of your weaker hives. To reduce the likelyhood of after swarms in your big hive, you should eliminate all but two of the nicest queen cells (if you decide to let them have these cells at all).

riverbee · « **Reply #72 on:** March 22, 2015, 02:45:26 pm »

i have another thought, just throw this out. when hives are aggressive, i typically tend to think first, that the hive is queenless.
jen you said you found a slimmed down queen, which we are all thinking maybe is a result of the bees readying for a swarm. this may not be the case. when you found her and split the hive and put her in the nuc, were the bees ignoring her? was she runny on the frames? describe what you saw as far as her behavior and the bees behavior.

tbonekel · « **Reply #73 on:** March 22, 2015, 05:34:23 pm »

Quote from: iddee on March 22, 2015, 07:16:51 am

I have to disagree with RB just slightly here. Meanness in bee genetics is most often carried by the drones. This hive may have mean bees from their fathers. Her daughter may or may not come from one of the mean drones. The new queen may have a different father than the mean bees. Very often a mean hive will get very gentle after requeening from the same hive

Question iddee. I can see it your way, but maybe Riv makes more sense to me. The queen doesn't just mate with one drone but many. Wouldn't this make it difficult for the temperament of the hive to come from the drone? The queens genetics are the only consistent thing here.

riverbee · « **Reply #74 on:** March 22, 2015, 06:12:29 pm »

actually tbone, iddee is correct on the aggression....

"Meanness in bee genetics is most often carried by the drones. This hive may have mean bees from their fathers. Her daughter may or may not come from one of the mean drones. The new queen may have a different father than the mean bees."

i was thinking from the standpoint, that if jen's laying queen is shooting out aggressive bees, i don't want that queen in my hive. the sperm she carries may be from the mean drones she mated with. however, if she is a daughter queen, as iddee said, she may have a different father.

hope this makes sense?

Jen · « **Reply #75 on:** March 22, 2015, 06:31:59 pm »

Riv- 'i was thinking from the standpoint, that if jen's laying queen is shooting out aggressive bees, i don't want that queen in my hive. the sperm she carries may be from the mean drones she mated with. however, if she is a daughter queen, as iddee said, she may have a different father.

If this is the queen I had last summer in this hive, she had a very peaceful hive.... why would she be putting out mean bees this summer?

Riv- I'm going to answer your question on how this presumably slimmed down queen was acting yesterday:

Riv- "i have another thought, just throw this out. when hives are aggressive, i typically tend to think first, that the hive is queenless.
jen you said you found a slimmed down queen, which we are all thinking maybe is a result of the bees readying for a swarm. this may not be the case. when you found her and split the hive and put her in the nuc, were the bees ignoring her? was she runny on the frames? describe what you saw as far as her behavior and the bees behavior.

I think I know where this question is heading because I have been pondering it as well... in that maybe she's not the original queen from last summer, maybe the original queen was superceded? But I didn't find any cracked open queen cells where she could have hatched from. It may be that she's not mated yet and that's why she's slim.

Okay, I disassembled the hive went thru every frame, then back tracked while re-assembling the hive. I found her in the new top medium, the first one I took off and the last one to be put back on top. She was standing alone, not many bees on this frame because it was mostly pulled wax and nectar. I was surprised but relieved to find her there. She was not running around but was not being tended to by any bees.

It would make sense that she was not being tended to if she wasn't mated yet, having no pheromones yet.

I was going out to get her and take a pic, but it started to rain and is too cool.

iddee · « **Reply #76 on:** March 22, 2015, 06:53:59 pm »

Tbone, every bee in the hive didn't come out to get her. Probably less than 1% attacked. If the queen mated with 20 drones, 4% of the bees come from that one drone. Add to that, even gentle bees become mean when the guard pheremones let loose, so if a dozen mean bees sting, there's enough guard pheremone in the air to upset the whole hive and put them into attack mode. Now, under that scenario, if she mated with even 2 mean drones, there's a 92% chance the daughter will come from a gentle drone.

Jen, if she is a virgin queen, the old queen may be still in there. Check it again between 4 and 10 days after the split, and if you have eggs, you didn't get her.

barry42001 · « **Reply #77 on:** March 22, 2015, 07:14:06 pm »

Also depends on time of day and the weather clear sunny day at 1 in the afternoon, big piece of the workforce will still be out in the field and it is the work force that are the mean ones, you have guard bees, and they certainly will sting if they think the colony is threatened but the field is that have been out and exposed to predators diving in and out of bushes and plants they're the ones that actually do the singing. And they do so with a fervor once they start getting a sting or two and the alarm pheromone is released the recruiting process starts and you probably don't need to be there when the process starts to get into full swing that would be an unpleasant place to be, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. overcast days tend to keep the workforce home, once again these are the meanies, and when not foraging they readily assume other details, like say guard duty, over the horizon colony defense.

Jen · « **Reply #78 on:** March 22, 2015, 11:10:53 pm »

Iddee- "Jen, if she is a virgin queen, the old queen may be still in there. Check it again between 4 and 10 days after the split, and if you have eggs, you didn't get her.

Okay. Then, what should I do with the slim queen in the nuc? Wednesday is going to be nice enough to get into the nuc, I can take some pics, cause frankly, I don't know if I would know the difference between an unmated queen or a slimmed down queen... would that help?

And by the way I left eggs in both the hive and nuc.

iddee · « **Reply #79 on:** March 23, 2015, 07:10:08 am »

No one else can tell the difference either, and eggs hatch into larva in 3 days, so the mother hive will not have eggs 4 days after you made the split if you got the old queen out.