Question: I Made My Bees Mad
Beekeeper Yvette Renee posted a question on her blog, and I'm cross-posting it here. You can answer in the comments here or on her blog:
I am a backyard beekeeper. I also have dogs and cats, and a new baby girl!
I am trying to connect with the alameda beekeeper's association, which has its own blog on vox. I need some beekeeping advice.
I have two hives. One we call Adeline, the other Betty so that we know which hive we are talking about. Betty has always been a bit feistier than Adeline. Both Adeline and Betty are going real strong and healthy this year. Betty was so strong about three months ago, she had 8 swarm cells. I have never seen so many swarm cells in either of my hives! With the baby due, and no extra honey super wax (the two supers on there were already pretty full) we decided that the easiest way to give her some more space quickly was to add a second brood box. This was a first experiment with a double-decker brood. By the time I got through the hive and got that second box on, Betty was really angry, and I didn't have a chance to carefully space out the brood frame, which would have been a good idea since we only had 9 brood frames.
Betty went crazy and drew out the comb and filled it with honey and tons more brood in no time. The few times that I worked through Betty's hive it was hard for two reasons, in my opinion. One, the extra space meant everytime I pulled out some of the frames I wrecked some of the free from brood Betty was happy to make in the free space. The second reason it was hard was that it takes forever to work two brood boxes! I honestly don't understand how anyone manages it without leaving the hive open for far too long! So Betty has not been happy with me any time I worked her boxes.
So my problem is that after the last three times I have worked Betty she stays pretty mad. How do I know this? The hive is in our backyard. For two-three days after going through Betty, as soon as we walk out the back door a group of bees end up buzzing around our heads. Sometimes darting at us. It always seems like one bee is on the lookout and she goes and fetches some of her buddies to come back with her to investigate us. They follow us around the side of the house even!
This seems aggressive, doesn't it? It seems like they have fixed on the area of our back door and are constantly patrolling it. The hive is about 20 feet from the back door.
Does any beekeeper have any ideas about what to do? Betty is stressing my hormone-driven girlfriend out in a major way! She lost her bee-nerve when she got pregnant.
This weekend I reduced the brood back to one box. The majority of the brood was downstairs anyway, and they can replace the brood with honey when the rest hatch out, hopefully. We also just got more wax, so I can put another super on her soon.
We plan to requeen Betty in the fall, since her hive seems overly aggressive.
Does anyone have any other idea?
All comments and suggestions are
welcome.
For background, Adeline has always been pretty chill. Betty started out as a
swarm from Adeline.
Comments
I'm less experienced than you, so I don't have an answer. But I do have two questions:
First, what exactly do you do when you "work the brood boxes?" Is it necessary?
Second, I'm curious about what you did with the contents of that second brood box. I also will need to remove a little-used second box.
When I wrote that i worked the brood boxes, I meant that I did the following:
I looked for the queen to see that she was healthly and laying eggs.
I looked for swarm cells!
I looked to see that there were not signs of disease and that there was brood in many stages.
I do this because I love honey so I want to keep the bees alive, and I don't want to piss off my neightbors with swarms! I guess the necessity is in that fact that I don't want swarms to land in my neighbor's trees.
To answer your second question. I left the second brood box on the hive. For two reasons. There was still brood in there that needed to hatch, the comb is all drawn out, and there is plenty of honey already. I hope they fill cells that hatch with honey now, and that I can lift the darn box the next time I check on Betty!
After we harvest honey this fall, I will just store the box and frames, and use those as back up frames if I ever need to swamp any out.
The names really help keep track! I wonder when I am out and about in the neighborhood and see bees if they are an Adeline or Betty bee!
Good morning Yvette,
Up north here (Connecticut) we do not have Africanized bees yet. You may not either but that is something you should have checked out by an experianced beekeeper. Join your local bee club if you do not belong already. Having said that, if you do not have africanized bees you should first replace the queen to get some more gentle stock in your hives. Up here two hive bodies are the norm because we have long winters, you may not need two because your bees probably do not need a large supply of honey to make it thru the winter. You should pratcice swarm control measures such as splitting out frames of brood and clinging bees to a new colony. The key is having space in the brood chamber for the queen to lay. Your local beekeepers can help you with that.
Good luck
I have been keeping our bees for a good 4 years, and have never had them be so aggressive. I definitely want to requeen. I am hoping someone can give me advice on how soon I can do that though.
I think you are right, we don't need two brood chambers out here the bay area.
We do check our bees religiously for swarms, because our bees have so robust!
"clinging bees" what do you mean by that? Thanks for your imput.