Nasty Bees – what to do?

The solution of course is to ensure that your lovely queen that you have produced mates with the right drones………..but unless you have £5K to spare to purchase Bee Artificial insemination equipment……

So what can you do?
I have heard of philistines who call themselves beekeepers killing the bees with petrol….not a solution as far as I’m concerned. You’re supposed to be helping the bees not killing them!
The natural choice is to re-queen with good stock.

The problem comes finding the original queen with angry bees. You need to remove the foraging bees who are normally the ones more aggressive.

Remove the hive from the current original spot to about 10 metres away. On the original site place a new hive, full of foundation and one frame of brood with some nursing bees and return the supers above. The flyers (usually the more aggressive bees) return to the original site. If you don’t have a spare hive then a nuc box.

In the original hive box which is in the new site about 10 metres away, you’ll have the gentler nursing bees, brood, and queen. With a deplenished colony you should now be able to find the queen and destroy making the hive queenless. You can then re-queen 24 hours later or place a frame of eggs in from a nice colony and they will draw out queen cells.

When re-queening, make sure you cage and close the top of the cage. After 48 hours, remove the cap and add fondant, they will then release by eating their way through the fondant within 24 hours. This gives them time to accept her. You can then unite the hives using paper on the original site at this time. If you have judged this well, you will have some great drawn comb from the new brood box which you can use later to make up nucs etc.

It will take approximately 6-9 weeks to change over to the new queen’s offspring before you can determine if the stock is calmer.

Don’t take a frame of eggs to produce a new queen from the original queens eggs, you’ll end up with even more aggressive bees…….if you don’t have a second hive, then ask another beekeeper for a frame of eggs from a hive that you like in exchange for a frame of sealed brood….or if he/she doesn’t want your bees, then a frame of drawn comb. Remember when you add a frame of eggs to go back 3 days later and cull all but the best 2 Queen Cells or you’ll have a cast swarm!

Don’t import a queen, you don’t know what you are importing (Small Hive Beetle etc.) and diluting the European Black even more. Buy a queen from a beekeeper whose bees you have seen and like.

You have then a strong colony, producing honey, which hopefully is calmer. (Much better than destroying them and starting again with a nuc, which will cost you a lot more, and where you might have the same issue!)