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Author Topic: feral hive requeening  (Read 5236 times)

Offline stu

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feral hive requeening
« on: April 29, 2015, 07:26:29 pm »
So I relocated a feral hive, saved almost all of it. I'm not sure if the queen made it or not, regardless I'm hoping they will replace her. My concern is that they are either a) still ticked from being moved (it's been a week) or b) just aggresive and need to be requeened. I sort of took the neighbors words with a grain of salt as I was preparing to do the cut out, he told me "These guys are A**holes, I can't mow without them getting angry when I get near the bird bath. I understand this was thier source of water and that perhaps they felt the need to defend it but as you all know the general public hates bees so I took his comments with a grain of salt. Today while cheking my colonies my recently installed package bees are doing fantastic!!! Brood is filling up the first 2 frames and I couldn't be happier with them--docile, tolerant of my handling and generally not worried about me being there. I open the feral colony and they are instantly angry, not happy I'm there and very vocal about it--bombing me relentlessly. That's before ever even getting to handle the frames at all. Would you guys go ahead with a requeen or give them more time to relax and see if they calm down? I am afraid to let them go too long being aggresive and for those that will ask about AHB I live in N IL and to my knowledge they haven't been found or reported here.

Offline don2

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2015, 07:56:40 pm »
First of all where are you located? I would go ahead and re queen asap. Make sure you find the old queen. You may have to wait long enough to make sure there is a queen. With not knowing how old the queen is, the bees do seem to get more aggressive as the queen ages. At least that has been my experience.  If you are in the deep south it is not out of the question of having some  A H B blood. From what you say I wouldn't think so, but don't rule it out all together. hope this helps. d2

Offline stu

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2015, 08:17:07 pm »
Don, thanks for the advice! I live in Mt Morris, IL..it's about a half hour south of the Wisconsin border. I will get to ordering a queen as I don't have the knowledge or equipment to do produce my own yet. As far as finding and removing the current queen..when does she need to depart? I don't want to have the colony go bananas and start making emergency queen cells if I do it wrong. My other thought is this, I haven't been able to examine closely yet to see if the queen is there. That being said if they are making emergency queen cells do I need to go through with a requeen? Or will the young queen have a different demeanor? Thanks for taking the time to help me out and answer my newb questions!!!

Offline jayj200

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2015, 08:35:30 pm »
sometimes all you need to do is show them who is boss- by pinching the queen. they'll make new.
this to gives them time to except the new queen.
with Africans this may need to be done more than once

real aggressive bees need to be caped period when in a neighborhood environment.

one way to do this is vacuum them up full strength shop vac. be sure your in a full suit.
screen the exhaust port so they don't escape. kind of shreds them. wink wink.

Offline don2

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2015, 08:44:03 pm »
Do not by any means remove her before you have a replacement. I think your location rules out the possibility of these having any A H B  genes.  If they do make emergency queen cells you may want to go ahead and keep a queen from the emergency cells   Then it will be stock bred from your area and that is good. They should calm down once all the old workers are gone, which should be about 6 weeks give or take a week after the new queens starts laying. d2

Offline stu

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2015, 08:51:44 pm »
Fantastic knowledge, I have a new suit inbound so after that shows up I will go and investigate further. I apreciate all your help!! I'll hope that they are already working on a new queen cell...time will tell.

Offline don2

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2015, 09:00:35 pm »
The first sign you should have of them being Africanised is when you work them, if more than a few follow you for a long distance, up to 1/4 to 1/2 mile, then I would think twice about keeping them. If you could get about 50 to 100 in a pint jar about half full of plain rubbing alcohol and send off to have them tested. If they are jusj "generally" aggressive I wouldn't worry too much. Just let them re queen.

You could do as jayj200 said, when you find out if the queen is laying just take her out and do her in. They will make a new one. You will have to do away with her anyway if you give them a now queen. d2

Offline stu

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #7 on: April 30, 2015, 12:01:09 am »
After reading about AHB habitat I very very highly doubt they are. Today, however, I had 2 or 3 bees follow me for a very long distance, much much longer than my package bees ever have. Maybe if I can't get the colonies behavior under control I'll call the state inspector. In IL it's very encouraged to call a state inspector if there are any questions about anything and if they don't know they will collect samples and such. Thanks again for the wise words everybody!!

Offline stu

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2015, 04:22:29 pm »
I got my new suits today and ventured out to the colonies. The feral Colony has 3 emergency queen cells being worked, I'm hoping that means they are queenless!! The other thing I noticed is that they were a *little* more calm but I had 2 bees follow me for a very long time again. I think I will probably call an inspector and see if that is normal behavior for local feral bees or if I should have them looked into.

Offline don2

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2015, 03:41:52 pm »
Can we get an update on the "hot" hive? If they had brood to make queen cells from  they may be replacing the queen.
I have heard a regular colony will re queen when they are moved and/or disturbed to a great extent. They blame the problem on the queen. I have also heard the older the queen the more aggressive the bees.  d2

Offline jayj200

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2015, 10:15:24 am »
my AHB acted like that. step next to a tree this helps dis loge the onslot. Oh mine went beserk when they were given away

Offline CaseyT

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2015, 10:25:25 pm »
Of course, if they were already an aggressive stock, and then their home was destroyed and their queen was lost, no wonder they were angry!  Their temperament will also have something to do with the local weather patterns and nectar/pollen availability.  If it has been a tough spring and they have little reserves, that will just add to the furor.  Feeding can help offset that.

Given that my post probably comes way too late, I'll just mention a few items for others that perhaps have similar questions.

In these circumstances, I would recommend moderate to aggressive feeding (depending on your local weather/honey flow conditions) and otherwise leaving the hive alone for the subsequent 2-3 weeks.  This, of course, is assuming that you do not have the apiary in a neighborhood environment where pets, children, and other neighbors won't be accosted by the hive.  Once they've had a good cooling-off period, you can better asses whether the stock is bad, or you need to re-queen.

Alternatively, if you decide to just cut your losses, you can begin feeding and otherwise leaving the hive alone, as described above, while placing a replacement queen on order.  When it takes 10 days to 2 weeks to receive your new queen, the cooling-off period will be well commenced and you can destroy any emergency cells you may find.

One of the problems with this method is that I once had a really aggressive hive that I was attempting to re-queen.  And, in keeping with the above posts, she was an older queen and obviously not laying well, because every time I went to kill her, she would fly off the frame and I couldn't get at her again until I closed up and got back in later!  This happened several times in a row and I believe that I even lost the first replacement queen because of it.  It took multiple times of getting in the hive before I could finally kill her - and what a pain!  Literally, a pain, from all the stings that stupid hive gave me!

A final thought is that I almost never use smoke when working my hives.  I believe that it is important to learn how to work a hive well so that no smoke is needed.  However, in rare cases of extreme aggression, I will very carefully use cool smoke.  But be careful, because smoke can easily be overused or used inappropriately and make a bad situation worse.

Offline jayj200

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2015, 10:17:48 am »
box and all were moved.
so they killed chickens and ducks stung up the other farm animals

Offline OldMech

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2015, 11:51:52 am »
  I believe that it is important to learn how to work a hive well so that no smoke is needed.

   I dont feel sorry for anyone who gets stung if they do not use smoke. WHY would you give up such a valuable tool? THinking a light waft of smoke harms the bees is idiotic.  I do not need to use smoke on most of my hives, and in fact, having the lit smoker upwind is usually enough to take the bees thoughts away from what I am doing, I still would not give up the calming effect when it was needed.. IE with an aggressive hive...    Some folks cant even learn the hard way it seems.
   If your a new beekeeper, PLEASE dont think working your hives with no smoke is the intelligent thing to do!
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline CaseyT

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2015, 01:44:40 pm »
While I appreciate your invectives, OldMech, I don't believe and never said that smoke is harmful to bees.  What I do believe is that you can learn how to work a hive successfully without ever using smoke.  I have successfully not used smoke for many years and I am rarely, if ever, stung.  I have learned how to make my movements in and around the hive such that it does not agitate the bees and keeps them calm.

I believe that when you learn these valuable skills, then it makes working the hives much easier, whether you use smoke or not.  These skills will especially pay dividends when working an aggressive hive when you are only stung 2 or 3 times instead of a 100 times.

Granted, I would probably recommend that a brand new beekeeper learn how to properly use smoke first, but then as experience is gained, I would recommend learning how to work without smoke.  Can you tell me that you have been able to use smoke every single time you've worked your hives?  I bet there's been a few times when the smoker wasn't available for some reason or other and the work couldn't wait.  What do you do then?  Again, I believe it's a valuable skill to learn, whether you do it all the time or not.

Offline OldMech

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #15 on: May 25, 2015, 10:51:52 am »
I am rarely, if ever, stung.

   After working bees for 30+ years I really dont believe you.  You have one hive and only work it twice a year?  You might get away with it in the spring when theres a good flow, but you dont get away with it during dearth, or times they may be queenless, or skunks are bothering them, or branches are rubbing the hive, etc, etc, etc, etc..
  And, you probably dont care what I believe...  I'm good with that.

    Sooner or later anyone not using some calming method is going to get hurt. Sometimes, USING smoke the  bees are too hot when things are not going their way. If you do or do not employ some method to calm them is entirely up to you.. I only argue against anyone starting out attempting it until they are confident in their own methods and bees.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline CaseyT

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #16 on: May 25, 2015, 01:51:45 pm »
Well, since you know me, my hives, the work I perform, my experience (or lack thereof), in addition to the fact that you also seem to know all, it's obvious that you cannot learn anything new or abide by anything other than doing things "the right way" (your way).  So obviously, you have logic on your side and I bow to your vastly greater wisdom and knowledge.

Offline OldMech

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Re: feral hive requeening
« Reply #17 on: May 25, 2015, 07:33:37 pm »
Casey;
  My disagreement is you getting a new beekeeper hurt when they try to work their hive with no smoke.
   Before I typed, I considered very carefully what I was going to say, and I stand by it. if you have not been hurt, you will be.
   If you read anything I ever say about bees, there are very few absolutes. What works one place may not work elsewhere. what I do may not work for you etc..  but one of the few things that is universal, is that at one time or another YOU WILL need smoke or some other means of calming your bees.
   I work my bees with no gear all spring and summer. I cant always do so in the fall. I do cut outs with no gear. I use as little smoke as I must. If I can get away without smoke, I do. But to tell someone it is possible to ALWAYS go without using it is irresponsible to those just starting out, because ONE of them will try it, and get hurt. Maybe even dead.  I know I dont want that on my shoulders, and feel I have given warning about something I consider irresponsible and dangerous. So jump up and down all you wish.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.