I have a hive that is WAY beyond hot. The girls come roaring out when I open the hive and my neighbors are beginning to make noises about my bees. I have been struggling with the hive all spring and yesterday made the decision to requeen.
So I purchased a new queen and last night opened the hive to see if I could find the wicked queen and pinch and smear her nasty body over a frame. Well, today I have about 20 stings on my face, neck and upper body. I discovered too late that I had a tiny hole in my veil..... and below is a photo of my gloves. And of course it was totally impossible to find the queen with thousands of bees dinging you. My husband was inside the house and said the bees hitting the windows sounded like it was hailing outside. The hive is on our back deck....
What I did for a temporary fix:
1. I took a small medium 5 frame nuc and pulled a frame of honey and two frames of brood and some worker bees and dumped them there. I put on the lid and blocked the entrance so the bees couldn't escape.
2. My plan is to put the new and hopefully calmer queen in this nuc later in the afternoon. The nuc is still plugged shut because I want to keep the bees in the nuc so they won't return to the main hive. It is cool today and I think they should be fine locked inside.
3. The queen is in a cage and I am thinking that I should just keep her locked in it for a day or so inside the nuc---I am afraid the bees will kill her if they can open up the candy entrance and get to her.
4. Once she is established and producing eggs, I will either try to move her to the nasty hive...or just pull bees from it to re-establish a new hive. This step depends upon whether I can find and kill the old queen.
Does this sound like a good plan? I am open to almost any suggestions --except for going inside the hive again! My body needs to heal! PS I ordered an new bee suit today!!!