Mean bees, fixing a mean hive Part 1

Last week we came across a mean hive at my Good Shepherd Food Bank yard. I do not like mean bees and it is our duty as beekeepers to cull the reproductive potential of mean hives....it is in all of our interests. Today we are demonstrating part of determining cause, and proceeding to eliminate the queen of a mean hive.

[maineiacacres]

WOW! I'm so grateful you sold me a nuc full of very laid back girls. I think I could work them without any PPE at all in fact, I've refilled their feeder a couple times w/o suiting up and they're just a joy to be around.

[lilymcalister]

Lol, that could be a bee keepers song..."bee's in my boots" sounds catchy!!😉🐝🐝

[crazierthings]

I plan on starting an Apiary next spring. I am doing my research way ahead of time. I would love to thank you for the detailed explanation on what can cause them to become aggressive. I am subscribing to your channel.

[intheshellify]

Been through some stuff in my 50 years. Not picked the nicest of crowds to run in. Mean bees are different. It feels so personal.

[gaurd]

"life is too short for mean bees"

[notit]

Also when you go back in to find the queen in a couple days kill off any queen cells the agressive hive has started to make.

[humanperson]

I was at the range where i shoot my bow Sunday and all of a sudden, got swarmed by bees. That's when i noticed the guy next door in a bee suit doing something with the hive. The bees were into the horses in the paddock, i was 50 yards from the hive but got hit several times none the less. I got out of there but it wasn't until i was about 80 yards away they stopped attacking me. I take it that's an aggressive hive hahaha.

[PonderosaRancher]

Naughty, Naughty AGGRESSIVE Hive. Dispatch Queen.

[kswoodsman]

Should a beekeeper have any concerns about the "hot" genetics in the current brood ?
At the same time as introducing a new queen,
would deleting her drone brood and adding brood frames from a more friendly hive
shorten the amount of time required for this hive to change their disposition ?
And help keep from passing on her "hot" genetics, through the drone brood in the wild ?

[MinnesotaBeekeeper]

Moving a hot hive to reduce the nasty foragers? Thank you! Never thought of that. Keeping in mind the hive the stingy girls will temporarily turn their adopted hive hot for a bit?

[tonyvanoostrom]

Hi there Peter. Great video on an important topic. We all have to deal with a mean hive now and then. I just finished requeening a similar or worse temperament hive that was a risk to safety as the hive was located on a farm with workers in a field. I didn’t apply the trick of moving the brood chamber so it was challenging to find the queen and dispatch her. Great idea. Question…if the majority of the mean bees move to the hive next door, is there not a chance they kill the queen in that nearby hive as they are aggressive and enter en masse? Thanks again for some great videos.

[dennistaylor]

What about the agressive bees going to the new queen? Is there a fighting issue? Will they try to kill the queen since they're not of that hive?

[mehmetburakaykenar]

arent you get stung? i always get stung when working with mean colony, is it my bee suit does not provide enough protection?

[tasmedic]

Interesting bee behaviour. They are flying around a lot and making a lot of noise but not landing on anyone in significant numbers. It seems more intimidatory than anything else. It's when they land all over your suit and start closely invesitigating for weak spots that it gets a bit thought provoking! Mine go for the ankles when they are really serious, and try to climb up the trouser leg! I advise wearing gum boots and tucking your suit inside the boots. They always try to crawl upwards.

[zacharyyolles]

I am wondering your opinion, I have heard that the problem with re-queening the mean hive is that the drones that will mate with other queens in the future will pass along the mean genes and it is better for the bee community as whole to destroy the mean colony to remove the mean gene completely from the gene pool. I am not an expert so appreciate your thoughts.

[miketullo]

All of your videos are informative. This one was tough to hear due to the bees buzzing your microphone

[douglassutherland]

Your apiary is directly under power lines and bees do not like the effects of electric currents as amply demonstrated by their reaction to the camera.
I have had to learn the hard way and if you mist spray the bees with cool water with a small amount of sugar dissolved in it, the aggressive bees wings become sticky and they find it hard to fly up at you. They should be lightly smoked not blasted with it.
Remember the smoker is there to calm the bees it is not a weapon but if aggressively used it could potentially turn into a flame thrower and that is not what you want to happen.
Do not make sudden hand moves over an open hive with aggressive bees as they will turn into dive bombers. Do not bump the hive. Most certainly do not breathe all over them.
Turn away from the hive and breathe in and hold it while working on them then turn away and exhale. Repeat the process to keep your breath away from them. Do not wear black or red because they do not like those colours.
Always have a cover cloth handy to keep the bees confined with only the one or two frames being worked on being exposed.
There are other ways of handling aggressive bees. I once had a bad lot next to my rows of apple trees and found it hard going to prune and thin the crop.
I bit the bullet and took a very calm queen out of her gentile colony put her in a cage opened the problem brood box and got 35 stings on my gloves and suit before I caught the nasty queen which was in full laying mode and caged her. I immediately released the quiet queen directly where the bad one had been working expecting the bees to attack her, but instead to my delight the nurse bees took to her immediately and I saw an egg protruding from her which she promptly laid and carried on calmly laying. The bad one I took over to the mating box the quiet queen was from and repeated the switch over of the queen into the other colony without any fuss.
For some time the bad hive were being aggressive but in about a fortnight they had changed into much quieter bees. The mating box lot started showing aggression and I showed them that beekeepers can also do a bee dance on them.

[johnnybstuddd]

Great idea but I have two questions: Wouldn't the field bees go back to the spot of the old hive and not into the hive next door? And wouldn't be bees in the hive next door try to kill the field bees from the moved hive, since they have different pheromones?

[tjonesful]

Why would the other hive accept them? Is it because they are bringing in resources?

[tprater]

Maybe Cameron is emitting his “scared” pheromone and that’s why the bees are all over him so often.