If you can get her and introduce a better queen I found that the colony will calm down in short order. I would bet that the ten frame split is the hot spot now. Her pheromones set the tempo.. Good luck.
Yes sir Ray that devil female is in there some where. She is in a colony that is reduced down to a 10 frame deep box. I had to stop the search as I could no longer see out of my veil because of the cloud of bees. I did pull 10 medium frames of bees / brood and 8 deep frames of bees / brood off it. The previous beekeeper had it set up as a deep-medium-deep rig. I will try to get back in there and see if I can find her with in the next few days. The medium and top deep did have swarm cells drawn out so I tore them down and added new cells from a much better hive. Those are cordovan queens so I will know if they keep them or not.
Quote from: Ray Bayless on May 05, 2013, 06:23:24 amIf you can get her and introduce a better queen I found that the colony will calm down in short order. I would bet that the ten frame split is the hot spot now. Her pheromones set the tempo.. Good luck. Hint:Not only are the pheromones on the Queen but also on her brood and eggs. BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
Jim are you saying that once the aggressive queen has been done in the same tendencies continue until all of her lineage have perished or just until the new queens pheromones have established themselves? I have only had dealings with one aggressive colony and once I pinched the queen and introduced a new one they seemed to calm quickly.
This is up to about 5 days or so. BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)