Tag: beekeeping

How to requeen an Aggressive colony

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Before I start on the topic of how to requeen an aggressive colony I would just like to talk a little about what we term as Aggressive.  I have been working with honeybees for over 12 years and in all of those years I have only ever encountered 2 colonies that were “Aggressive”. One of those was not a colony we owned but one we did end up with and it was troublesome to requeen. I have also experienced bees that “buzz” and “bounce” off you, and whilst this is perhaps not the most desirable trait it definitely does not fall under the description of “Aggression”. Often there is a reason for the colony behaviour. If, your normally nice bees suddenly turn nasty almost overnight then there is probably a very good reason.

The other experience I encountered with a colony that was extremely aggressive was with one of our own colonies; it was on a pollination contract at the time and it just went for me literally straight away.  I can recall there being of lot of activity as I removed the roof and as soon as I lifted the crownboard that was it.  I am pleased to say that I have never experienced that again, and I hope I never do!  I did find out why the bees were so aggressive towards me and actually they had every right to be as they were defending themselves. They were pollinating raspberries and, rather sadly the grower did not have orders for the forthcoming fruit crop, so they turned the water supply off to the greenhouses as they could not afford to keep the plants alive.  The nectar source had suddenly been turned off and therefore their food stores were now very precious to them as it was mid-season and the colony numbers were big and still growing. 

Bad handling of your colony can upset them as well inappropriate use of smoke.  Bees are still wild animals and they have a naturally evolved defence mechanism that is there to ward off predators. If you go in all guns blazing with lots of smoke and noise and rough handling, you should not be surprised if you bees are less than happy to see you!

If you do have an aggressive colony there is always something that can be done.  I have heard beekeepers say they are so aggressive I have no option but to kill them.  You do have options and whilst killing them may be one of them, it should always be as a last resort.

If you are feel you are able to inspect the colony to locate the queen then do so. You will probably need to use more smoke than usual, which could be counterproductive as it may make the queen run more and she may end up being somewhere you’d least expect her to be. You can try using sugar water in a spray instead off smoke, as this will also stop the bees flying and they will hopefully be side-tracked by the sugar water too. If you inspect at the height of the day on a nice warm sunny day then most of the flying bees should be out and therefore you will have less bees in the colony to deal with.

If however, the colony is so evil that it makes it impossible to inspect, then you can try doing something to reduce the volume of bees you are dealing with. Again you should make sure it is a nice warm sunny day as you need the flying bees to be out flying.  The idea is that you move the hive several feet away from it’s existing location, place a queen-right nuc or small colony on the original location and you will find the flying bees, and these are more likely to be the ones that sting you, will return to original site and go into the new colony there.  It would be a good idea to cage the queen in this new colony to protected her from the returning bees, unless of course this queen was one you were going to replace anyway and then it won’t matter if they do overwhelm her.

If you move the hive in the morning then by early to mid-afternoon, depending on what time of the year it is, the vast majority of flying bees will have gone out foraging and will return to new colony you located on te original site. The activity at the entrance will be much less and there should be mainly young bees left in the colony. These younger bees will be far less aggressive and therefore will make it easier to inspect.  This will also mean there is a much better chance of them accepting the new queen too.  Now go through the colony, find the queen and kill her. Do not under any circumstances be tempted to keep her!

Put your new queen, still in her introduction cage with the tab on so it is sealed, into the colony and reassemble your hive. Leave the colony for 48 hours then go in and do an inspection and either remove the tab from the queen cage to let the bees let her out, or you can carefully open the cage and release her yourself.

If however, the colony is still too difficult for you to go through and you can’t find the queen, then you could try splitting the colony down. Take out some of the frames and bees to make up 2 or 3 smaller nucs which you can leave for a few hours and then go back and inspect and see if you can find the queen.  You may see from the behaviour of the bees which colony is likely to have the queen in. Once you have found the queen and killed her you can replace the combs back into one hive and add the new caged queen as described in the previous paragraphs.

If you did manage to find the old queen in the colony without splitting it down and reducing the bee numbers etc then do bear in mind that the bees may well overwhelm the new queen when you put her in. We have had a better acceptance rate by removing the old queen and leaving them for a few hours before putting the new queen cage in. I would suggest that at this stage you do spray the bees with sugar water before putting in the new queen and again leave the cage sealed for 48 hours so you can check she is still ok.

You may find the bees temperament improves just with the new queen heading the colony but in most cases you may need to wait until the new brood emerges that your new queen has laid to see a change in temperament.

If your bees do kill the queen and you try again only to find they kill her as well, the best thing would be to let them make a new queen using a frame of eggs from a colony that you do like the temperament from. Or you may have a queen cell that you can carefully take from another colony and see if they accept that.

Hopefully this will be of help to you, whatever your plan, remember to stay calm and focused, and do ask a friend to be there for reassurance and support if you can.

How do I make a split / Make up a nuc?

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We make up splits or nucleus for various reasons. It may be that you want to increase your colony numbers and making your own splits, if you have strong healthy colonies is a good cost-effective way of doing this. Depending on the time of the year you do the splits it may affect your honey harvest from the colony. Splits are also made as part of swarm control /prevention.

There are a couple of things you need to take in to account when making up splits. Firstly, if you are to keep the new colony in the same apiary as the parent colony the flying bees will return home. You must therefore ensure you shake extra bees into the nuc to mitigate this.

If you have several colonies, but none that are exceptionally strong, you can make a split up by taking frames from multiple colonies. It would be best practice to take bees from 3 colonies not 2 as it is said that bees from 2 colonies will fight but from 3 or more, they will not as there will be confusion with the different pheromones.

And lastly, you need to make sure that the colony/colonies you are splitting from, are strong and disease free.

Equipment you will need is a nucleus hive, these usually take 5 or 6 frames. These are available in both wood and polystyrene; the advantage of the polystyrene is that they are lighter, which makes moving them much easier.

A rule of thumb is that a split is made up with 2 frames of brood and 1 frame of food. You can of course put in an extra frame of brood but ensure that you have enough bees to cover all the brood. So, all frames of brood that go into the nuc should be covered with bees. Make sure these brood frames have plenty of sealed brood rather than wet brood on them, this will ensure you have young bees quickly which will help the nuc to grow.

If you are making up a split from a colony that is throwing up queen cells and plan to use one of the cells as your new queen, make sure you remove all other queen cells on the frames and only leave one. If you are leaving the nuc on the same site as the parent colony you will also need to shake in 3 frames of bees to compensate for the flying bees that will return home! Do make sure you don’t accidentally shake the queen in from the parent colony!!

Fill the rest of the Nuc box up with new frames and foundation. If you are adding a new queen, you can do this at the same time but do observe the reaction that the bees have to the queen. You may need to leave them for an hour or two before adding her. Some beekeepers will leave the bees for a few days before adding her. The bees will of course start to make queen cells in this situation so, if you do this, ensure you go back through the frames and remove any queen cells they start before putting the queen cage in. Leave the tab on the cage and then check the frames again 2 days later for more queen cells. Remove them all and remove the tab on the queen cage at the same time. Ensure the small nuc has plenty of food, offering them syrup will help them with the new foundation they have to pull, make sure you give them enough food to last them until at least your next inspection. We recommend leaving then for 10 days now before you check to see if the queen has taken.

If you are making up a nuc using a queen cell, select a queen cell that is not sealed. This will allow you to estimate when your new queen will emerge; it will be 8 days after the cell has been sealed. The queen will hopefully mate successfully and start to lay anywhere between 2 to 3 weeks, the weather may affect this. I leave my colonies for 3 weeks before I check them for eggs. Do however, keep an eye on this colonies food stores and offer them syrup if they need feed.

Replace the frames that you have taken from the parent colony/colonies with new frames and foundation.

If it’s in the earlier part of the season that you make your nuc up, you will need to keep an eye on space and make sure you have a full hive ready for when it’s needed. If you are making your splits late in the season, they overwinter well in the nuc box.

Summary:

  • Ensure parent colony is strong and free from disease
  • If you are letting bees make their own queen, make sure you select an unsealed queen cell
  • Ensure the new colony has sufficient food to last until at least the next inspection
  • Make sure you have enough bees to cover the brood in the nuc
  • If you are leaving the bees on the same is site as the parent, shake in an extra 3 frames of bees to compensate for the bees that will fly home
  • Don’t make a nuc up from 2 colonies as the bees will fight, make it up with bees from 1 or 3 colonies

This Nuc is 2 weeks old. It was made from a single colony taking 2 frames brood, 1 frame food and adding 3 new frames with new foundation. Fed with Ambrosia Syrup.

Shook Swarm

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This is a very effective way of quickly changing all your brood frames and will result in removing all pathogens from the hive, it can however be quite stressful for the bees, so you need to ensure you have a good quantity of young bees in the colony before you carry out the shook swarm. 

The best time to do the shook swarm is late spring, you should have plenty of young bees by this point. The method is quite simple: Lift your brood box off the floor and move it to one side. Place a queen excluder on the floor then place a a new clean brood box, containing brand new frames and foundation, on top of the queen excluder. Remove 5 or 6 of the center frames to create a gap.  Now go to your original brood chamber and remove the first frame. Shake all the bees off this frame into the gap you created in your new brood box. Repeat with all the frames, look for the queen as you go. Personally I would lift the queen off the frame and place her into the new brood box, you can just shake her in if you prefer. If you didn’t see the Queen throughout the procedure do check the walls of the old brood box and make sure she is not there.  Shake any bees left on the brood box walls into your new box too.

Gently replace the 5 or 6 frames back into the gap in your new brood box, place the crownboard on top along with a feeder full of syrup.  Keep this feeder topped up until your bees have sufficient stores in their new frames.  The queen excluder on the floor will stop the queen from leaving and taking the bees with her. Once your queen is happily laying you can remove the queen excluder (2 weeks is a good bet)

The old frames you removed that have stores in them can be extracted and the wax rendered, any frames with brood in are best burnt. If you do extract stores from these frames, make sure you are confident they are stores of honey and not syrup that you may have offered in your winter preparations.

Carrying out a shook swarm on a colony with a good volume of young bees will very quickly work the new foundation in your frames, you may be quite surprised how quickly this happens. Do ensure they have a constant supply of syrup.

How long does it take for a new queen to come into lay?

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It takes 16 days from egg laying to your new queen emerging. Once emerged the new queen needs time to mature, and then she will go on her mating flights before she comes into lay.

Maturing – When the new queen emerges her outer layer, Chitin, must harden and thicken, this is the same for most insects, and this can take several days. Her pheromones also develop over the first few days, these are essential to attract the flying drones. This whole process may take 5 days before she begins her mating flights.

Mating Flights – Once the new queen is mature she will take her first mating fights, some workers will accompany her, so she has her own royal entourage! She will fly to one or more drone congregation areas, here she will be pursued by hundreds of drones, and if all goes to plan, she will mate with 12 or more drones.

The aim is to fill her spermatheca with sperm from drones she has mated with, it takes a few days for the sperm to travel from the oviducts to the spermatheca and it may require multiple mating fight to collect enough sperm to complete this process.

When will she Lay – So, if we count the days as if all goes to plan, and with her only needing 1 mating flight, the minimum time will be 8 days from emergence to laying: 5 days to mature, 1 day for mating flights and 2 days for her to get ready to lay.

But, this very rarely happens, so a more typical timescale to work with, would be 12 days: 6 days to mature, 4 days of mating flights, and 2 days to get ready for laying. If you have a week of poor weather you can extend this to 19 days.

My rule of thumb is check the bees in 2 weeks, if all looks and sounds well then leave them for another week. You may find that when you check you have polished cells, these are cells in the middle frames of the brood box that the bees have backfilled with nectar but, now their new queen is coming into lay, they will remove any nectar/honey from, and polish them up ready for her to lay in. If you see polished cells but no eggs this is a good sign.

Risks – There are of course risks along the way. The queen may get eaten by a bird on her mating flight or get caught in the rain. Or she may not be able to go on mating flights due to poor weather and therefore she will become a drone layer. So, once you see eggs it’s a good sign, but you need to wait to ensure the eggs she is laying are fertile.

If your bees have swarmed, I hope this post will help you to be patient with the bees and give them some time before you make the decision they are queen-less!

Feeding bees, what, when and why?

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What you feed your bees will be dictated by the time of the year and why you need to feed them. In most cases, with the exception of the winter months, you will feed your bees with a syrup, this may be a manufactured product designed especially for the honey bee, or you may decide to make your own syrup using sugar and water. There are advantages and disadvantages to both which I have listed at the bottom of this blog.

As a rule of thumb, you will feed fondant during the winter months. You can use fondant all year round but if your bees are desperate for food, close to starvation, then offering them fondant is not going to be effective. Offering a starving colony syrup can save them, before you put the syrup in the feeder, trickle some syrup directly onto the bees and onto the tops of the frames. The bees will be able to use it straight away and it can make the difference between life and death for your colony. Make sure you check the colony the next day and top up the feeder as necessary.

Ideally you will always leave your bees with enough stores to get them through the winter months, but if something has gone wrong and you find, as you are preparing them for winter, that they are short of stores, then you must feed them. There will be no forage out there for them once the Ivy has gone, so if they are short of stores, they will not survive. At this time of the year you should be offering your bees a syrup feed in a rapid feeder or some other sort of top feeder. They can easily move the syrup down and store it in the brood area ready for when they need it. A colony needs roughly 40lb honey/stores to get through winter months, I have a blog dedicated to how much stores do my bees need for winter.

Winter – If your bees are short of food during the winter months you offer them fondant, not syrup. You assess what stores they have by weight, the process is called hefting. Read the blog mentioned above for more detail on this, you must feed them fondant which is placed directly over the central hole in the crownboard. The bees will not leave the cluster to move up into a feeder to take syrup, they will only be able to access food that is directly over them.

Spring – Spring feeding is often needed most because the colony has come through winter and is starting to expand. The weather is unpredictable and we often find that stores are down to a minimum. If your bees need feed in the spring this is most commonly done with syrup however I do know of some bee farmers that only feed fondant all year around. I don’t really understand this as fondant is more expensive for the bees and generally, but not always, they will feed off the fondant from the packet rather than move it down into the brood nest.

Mid-Season – You may need to feed mid-season if there is a dearth in the nectar flow. There is something called a “June Gap”, it’s not always in June, some years its earlier and some years its later. The June gap can be for just a few days, and you barely notice it, or may last for a few weeks. It’s the time of the year when the spring flowers end but the summer ones have not quite got going. This is a critical time for honeybees as the Queens will now be laying at the maximum, the colonies will be full of brood which needs feeding, and the bee numbers will also be very high. If you have taken a spring harvest off and not left enough on the bees and we do get a June gap your bees may be a risk of running out of stores. At this time of the year you should be feeding syrup. I recall one year we didn’t do a spring harvest, as we just didn’t have time, and that particular year the June gap was long, some of our sites were more badly affected and the bees had eaten through all the spring forage. It was fortunate that we hadn’t harvested or we would have had to feed the bees.

Nucs/Splits – If you are making up a nucleus/split then the chances are your going to give the bees new foundation to draw out, or you may have drawn comb but it won’t have stores in it. In this situation you will need to feed your bees, again, syrup would be the best feed for them.

Swarms – Offer any swarms you take in a feed by way of syrup but, don’t feed them for a few days. If you feed them straight away you may find they have gone when you next check! A swarm carries enough food with them, in their honey stomachs, for 3 days. Leave them to settle into the new home you have chosen for them for a few days then put a syrup feed on to help them. If they are on new foundation they will need a lot of food to draw the comb.

Shook Swarm / Swarm control – If you carry out a shook swarm onto new foundation you will also need to feed the bees. Likewise, if you carry out some swarm control methods like an artificial swarm, and you use new foundation, you will need to feed the bees; syrup would be the choice.

Pollen Substitute – This is a type of fondant that also has pollen in it, your bees need protein and carbohydrates, the pollen is the protein. If your bees are short on pollen stores this will affect colony growth and colony development. You can offer your bees pollen patties on the crown board or directly onto the tops of the brood frames. You will most often hear of pollen substitutes being fed in early spring. It will help the colony to get going.

I have listed below, what I consider, to be the advantages and dis-advantages, of feeding honeybees syrup that is made especially for them, against making syrup with household sugar and water.

Pre-made Syrup for Honeybees (Ambrosia)

ADVANTAGEDISADVANTAGE
Made for bees, is close to nectar in composition, therefore could be considered to be better for your beesSlightly more expensive than mixing your own
Has a very long life
No aroma so can be fed anytime of the day
Is ready to use, no mixing required
Bees can use if straight away it has very low water content

Mixing your own Sugar and Water

ADVANTAGEDISADVANTAGE
Marginally cheaper than buying pre-madeDoes not keep long before it starts to ferment – fermented syrup can give the bees dysentery
 Has an aroma so can encourage robbing if fed during the day
 Needs preparation time. You don’t to make too much and waste it
 Can be toxic to bees if overheated
 In order to store it they need to be reduce the water content, this uses more energy, which in turn means they consume more