Feisty bee behaviour

[EmsE]

I went to see 2 of my colonies today with HJBee in the lovely warm, dry weather. As there is a good flow on at the moment, the hawthorn is out and the horse chestnut is now flowering and the rest, I was expecting all to be well with the bees, but 1 colony had other ideas

The hive received its usual gentle puffs of smoke at the entrance, supers removed and the double brood box separated so we could go through the bottom box. 2nd frame in and everything had to come to a halt as the bees began behaving badly resulting in someone being stung outside the apiary ( they were aware that we were opening the hives) We closed the hive back up, left the apiary and waited at least 20 minutes for the bees to leave us alone, but they continued to try and get in the bee suits. In the end we had to go into the garage to be clear of the bees but a couple were waiting for us to reappear.

The bees had to be moved so tonight we took them to a different sight.

So where has this change of personality come from? Last week they were happy, no problems at all. Only 1 hive was misbehaving, the other was as placid as you can get.

Could it be that they are almost at optimum strength and so showing their true colours? Could it be environmental factors? The other colony was fine so I think this is less likely, however, there is a track in the vegetation straight to this hive made by some kind of animal- could it be upsetting the bees in the night?

Anyway, I've split the hive in 2 so that it could be transported easily and in the hope that by reducing the colony strength will also reduce its temper. I will need to go through the 2 halves to see which has the queen, and which is to raise queen cells.

I'm hoping that the move and the split will address the temperament in the short term but think they should really be re-queened in the longer term.

Is there something else I could be missing?

When the other half raises a new queen, is this also likely to produce a feisty colony or is gentleness to dominant gene (wishful thinking here)

[The Drone Ranger]

Gentleness is an easy trait to fix when you select for it luckily
The bees will probably be completely different the next time you open them

[Apiarist]

Never judge the temper of a colony on just one inspection would be my experience, and I've kept bees now for a period of over forty years and seen many bad-tempered bees. There are so many factors that can affect them - time of day, ambient temperature, state of honey flow, type of honey flow, amount of smoke, queenless / queenright state of the colony, presence / absence of queen cells, recent disturbance by another animal (including another beekeeper!), rough handling, etc. etc. And of course, the imherent grumpiness of the bees. I would strongly advise that you give them another chance or two before you condemn them, especailly if they have been OK in the past. People can get out of the wrong side of bed. So can bees!

EDIT
P.S. Is there anything new growing near the bees, or has the grass beside them been recently cut? Bees can go wild at freshly cut grass.

[HJBee]

No cut grass around them, or even in any of the surrounding properties (appx 50m away within the week leading up to Friday. No one had been physically near them for over a week. They had started showing temperament from the week before when a few started proactively chasing me in the garden on the other side of a 6ft fence + 10ft trees at least 10m away from the hive, again no real reason.

[Jon]

If you are worried about temper don't let the colony make a new queen from its own queen cells.
It would be best to get a queencell or a queen from a better colony.
As mentioned above, any colony can have an off day but if this happens several times you should bite the bullet and requeen with better genetics.

[Neils]

I think the advice not to judge the temper on one inspection is a good one, especially if they were ok before. One of mine that were always fine were horrible earlier in the year, I'm reasonably sure it was a combination of the weather and a lack of food, since that was sorted out they've been fine again.

Some bees are just horrible to inspect. I go further than Jon, I not only don't rear any queens (actively or passively) from them I aggressively cull drones and replace drone brood from a better tempered colony.

[Jon]

I aggressively cull drones and replace drone brood from a better tempered colony.

That is a good strategy and one I try and follow myself. You need to flood your area with decent drones.
Last year I requeened any colonies I was unhappy with and at the moment I am confident that all of them are producing decent drones.
Most inspections now I remove a frame and give them a foundationless frame strengthened with fishing line so they can make as much drone comb as they want.

A few I looked into yesterday evening and earlier tonight were more lively than usual which I put down to a dip in temperature and the end of a nectar flow. I always score my colonies on a 1-10 scale and these ones were scoring a 3 tonight instead of a 1.
They were not following or going into a frenzy but there were bees in the air quite a bit and several pinging at the veil.
They needed a bit more smoke as well.

Emse, just personal opinion but I think puffing smoke in the entrance is generally a bad idea. It stirs up the colony and the queen will probably be hiding somewhere rather than laying normally on a frame. I know some of the bee books dish this out as good practice but it doesn't work for me. I try and get away with just a couple of puffs of smoke drifting over the top bars after i remove the queen excluder. Some bees get really wound up by a a lot of smoke and it does not have a calming effect on them - quite the opposite.

[The Drone Ranger]

I use top beespace hives and with double broodbox you often get drone brood between top and bottom box
Sometimes when that gets broken open by taking off the top box tempers flare (even in normally tame hives)

You won't be flooding the area with drones from 2 hives Lol!

[EmsE]

This is the first time the colony has been at full strength as it was an artificial swarm last year. The mother colony was absolutely fine, but she's now a feral colony somewhere

Looking at the behaviour that began a couple of days after the previous inspection my inkling is that it could be its true colours coming through. We managed to have a thorough inspection today. We started with the well behaved colony which has undergone the same treatment as the other. They were lovely to inspect- split in 2 for the rushed move I've miraculously got the Queen in 1 box and a sealed queen cell in the other. As the hive was only split less than 48 hours ago that was certainly good luck. They could have been looking at supercedure & if so then they'll try again, but at least I'll have a queen in each box.

When inspecting the 'enthusiastic' colony, we were being battered, bees clustered in several places including on us. I know 1 box will be queen less but I'd have expected the other to have calmed down. (still haven't managed to find the Queen, there are no queen cells in either split, but both have eggs so will need to wait until next inspection to differentiate) They've plenty of stores, space etc. Im not in a position to squash any queens just yet but unless things settle she'll be going.

So I will need to get a queen cell from another colony? I'd better christen my queen rearing stuff nothing too technical, just those things that get nailed onto a frame bar then placed into the receiving colony

Hmmm, could have a problem with the drones- there's loads of them! The ones still in the cells will be easy to deal with, but the others are already out there

[Jon]

You can have a bad colony which still produces decent drones as the drones only contain genetic material from the queen as opposed to the drones she may have mated with which have fathered all the workers in the colony.

http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/geneti...duction_1.html