Aggressive Bees & A Physiological Reaction
Aggressive Bees Produce More Honey?
Some people think aggressive bees make more honey but I have seen no evidence of this. I have only experienced terrifying attacks and their relentless and uncanny ability to find any weak spots in my protective gear, which now includes marigold washing-up gloves under my leather gloves. See video below.
I apologise for some muffled swearing at the end. I thought I was fully protected and I thought bees only walked up … but apparently they can also walk down … down my boots in this case, plus they got one of my ears (again).
Is anyone else having the same level of aggression from any of their hives – and if so, what’s to blame? Is it nature, nurture – or just they don’t like the look of me? I mean these bees are not just a bit annoyed by my visits – within seconds of lifting the lid I have 15 stings protuding from my gloves!
And I thought these bee suits were meant to protect us but even with my DIY layer of insulation underneath (thick shirt / jeans and my trusted marigolds), they are still finding routes to attack (seemingly especially fond of my ears and ankles).
Even when I make my retreat, they don’t accept their victory graciously, no, they follow me 100 metres with one even escourting me to my front door, and attacking again when I re-emerge five minutes later. No wonder I have a persecution complex!
My Physiological Reactions
20 minutes after the above video I was in a mild state of shock. I could see that my arms and legs were covered in hives (skin looks like it is having allergic reaction) and I noticed that my ears felt like they had been injected with wax. Apparently I was shouting. I think the hives (on the skin) and ears were stress related rather than bee venom related as they had settled down after an hour.
Here’s a photo of my feet the evening of the stings. Stings in the ankles are painful. The feet swell by 30%.
For hours (and days) after the experience I could still hear their buzz in my ears. I flinched at small sounds. I jumped nervously when my wife touched my shoulder. I have, it must be said, become a nervous beekeeper!
Re-queening Aggressive Hives
Despite all the above, I’m not giving up on beekeeping! So what’s my plan of counter-attack?
Next June I will re-queen with queens that are proven to generate gentle bees. Re-queening now runs the double risk of the bees not accepting the queen and of winter losses.
So how am I going to co-exist with these bees for the next 10 months? My wife and I can generally talk through our differences, and though she can be quite scary at times (“I’m gonna get you in the night” – terrifying), at least I don’t get beaten up or swell up as a result. I know this blog is called “talking with bees” but there is no opportunity for any bee whispering with these aggressive bees. So I think the only interim solution is to put a top of the range bee suit (made from kevlar?) on my Christmas list and looking at my wife’s reaction to events (she doesn’t like to see me getting hurt) – I might get one.
Post script: Sherriff (the top quality bee suit manufacturer) have now supplied me an Apiarist Bee Suit. So far, so bee tight!
Read More
- Related Post: First Sting Is The Deepest
- Related Post: Bee Stings Numbers 2-15
- Page: Review Of Bee Suits
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Yikes! Definitely requeen. I, personally, would do it now. Popular theory (at least around these parts) is that requeening in Autumn is the right thing to do. That means the queen is ready to go in Spring. If you wait until Spring you lose a month or so of production while she ramps up and the hive settles down. There is the risk of the queen not taking before winter but if you act fast, you have time to try twice.
That said, I do feel for you. I am apparently a lucky beekeeper. I was helping out with one of the club hives which was an ornery one when a bee got into my boot and stung my ankle. I calmly moved away from the hive (there were rookies and I didn’t want to scare them) but obviously not far enough. My ankles were swarmed and I could feel my ankles and feet being stung (that pheromone they give off when they sting really can create a frenzy) so I exited the apiary at a quick click stomping and slapping. By the time I got my boots off there were about 20 dead bees in each boot. A good percentage of those had stung me. I thought I’d be in a wheel chair with swollen ankles but I barely had any sign. With each sting I get, my reaction is less and less. If this keeps up I’ll be one of those beekeepers who goes out without any protective gear. I feel really lucky – more so after this post.
If your bees are always that aggressive they should be requeened as soon as possible. Certainly don’t wait until June. By then the colony will be very strong and you’ll have had two months of unhappy beekeeping. If you have followers as well it makes everyones life a misery around the colonies. It’s an easy trait to eradicate … simply squash the Q between finger and thumb 😉
However, it might just be a phase they’re going through. Mine are much more aggressive than normal at the moment. There’s no forage and I’ve pinched all the honey in the supers. The weather has also been poor. This combination makes for some tetchy bees. I therefore only inspect if I have to (and generally you don’t have to this late in the season) and do it in the middle of the day – best weather – when they’re all out and about.
Protect your ears with a headband. I always wear one to stop sweating quite as badly, or at least mop up the sweat. But with an aggressive colony I overlap my exposed ears to provide some additional protection. It also stops you hearing all those bad words should you get stung.
Ankles are more tricky … long, tight wellies work well. I’ve even seen gaffer tape used to seal up any gaps.
In re-reading your post I see you use leather gloves. If they’re not regularly washed they’ll retain the smell of the stings and will just incite the bees more. I only wear marigolds or thin blue latex gloves, even when requeening truly beastly hives for other people (though I do then wear two bee suits, with a single veil). Wash your suit as well. Thinner gloves make for more careful beekeeping … and provide ample protection in my view.
A combination of bad tempered bees and a nervous beekeeper is a recipe for unhappy beekeeping. Requeen your colonies, make sure your suit, gloves, boots etc. are bee tight, wear thinner gloves to avoid squashing bees when manipulating frames and regain your confidence.
Finally … check with your GP about anaphylaxis. After several years beekeeping I now react much less to stings (fortunately) though it’s still bl**dy painful when they get to some of the sensitive bits. If you’re reacting worse you should seek medical advice.
Roger, I think everybody is in agreement, requeen them before you shy away from the rest of the hives. It is difficult, more an ethical one than physically doing the deed. However the hive from what I have seen with my hives does not necessarily do better when aggressive queen is laying..
Regarding your clothing I find duct tape is my true friend for all foraging but light housework with the hives. Duct tape everything so I could potentially survive a hazmat spill. Last I believe in good gloves. once the little devils sting you others will follow the scent from the previous bee.
Great website and enjoy reading your comments.
Hi Roger.
Really horrible ain’t it? I started beekeeping last year and the little nuc I got last August was drone-laying by this Spring. Someone in the association gave me a strong colony so I could save the little one with a frame of eggs. It turned out to be a colony from Hell. I have now re-queened with a queen bred from the bad queen (Fingers crossed, Brother Adam reckoned you can’t breed for gentleness in bees).
The big problem I had was finding the old queen in a hive intent on my death. The most useful advice I got was to remove the brood chamber about 10 yards from were the hive is, leaving behind a super so the flying bees return there. Leave the blighters for say 30 mins, with no lid on, and then you can go through them with much fewer bees on the attack. Hopefully just young nurse bees!
Hope this is helpful.
Richard
Hi Roger, I agree with what has been said so far, and there is lots of information regarding re-queening, however here is a tip I have used when dealing with an aggressive hive.
Firstly close the hive entrance the night before. The next day move the effected hive 50m away and put an empty hive at the old location.
Around midday strip the hive down and start your search for the old aggressive Queen, when you get to the point where you can’t take anymore; put the top cover over the brood box and retreat.
All the angry bees, including the bees that follow you home bees will instinctively return to the old hive location, they will be a bit shocked to find that someone has been in and nicked all the valuables and most of the furniture and all of their friends have gone, but hey ho these ladies are thugs.
Leave them to settle down for an hour or two then return to your Queen and Princess murdering, you will find the hive although still aggressive; much easier to manage.
The following day you can re-queen the hive but leave the hive in the temporary position, again after dark close the entrances to both hives and swap locations; old hive with the new Queen back to the original position and aggressive thugs to the temporary location, after a while when they have recovered from the jostling around you can open the entrances.
The next morning the wayward ladies will return to the old hive and be amazed to find that all goods and chattels have been returned.
After a couple of days the new Queen and her entourage will eventually eat their way out from the cage and ma’am will start laying; within a two weeks you will find the bees are already starting to become much calmer.
Wow Roger, I have never seen bees like that and we inspect hives for customers all over Auckland.
I have only seen bees like that in video with Africanised bees!!! What is the variety you have?
I guess over winter the bees will be much quieter, so that may help. I wonder if the hives are being bothered by animals at night to make them more aggressive. Are the hives up on stands? Not sure if this is an issue, but I have heard bees get aggressive if bothered by raccoons and such. Not that you have Raccoons in England? Maybe Badgers?
Putting the hives on stands exposes the animals belly to make it easier for the bees to sting them.
I have also heard that bees are more aggressive to the smell of banana peels, this why you should never eat bananas before beekeeping? You are not using banana scented soaps or do you work in a banana peeling factory? 🙂
Try one day working your bees without any perfume of any kind, maybe it’s your aftershave that is causing the issues?
Yes I agree I would re-queen them with calmer bees in spring, and avoid them like crazy until then. I can see these bees causing issues with your neighbours, hopefully you are not close to walkway or other houses?
We use and sell the three layer ventilated suits, which we hardly ever get stung through these. The stingers are not long enough to get to our skin. Not that we need that with our calm New Zealand bees, you could look at asking Santa for one of those, we can send our products to England. But first up get some calmer bees, that doesn’t look like much fun at all Roger.
Gary Fawcett
One other thing I meant to add … the mood of the colony can improve almost overnight after requeening. I don’t know why this is but I’ve discussed it with experienced beekeepers and they’ve see it as well. There’s still a good 6 weeks or so left, so ample time to get fresh workers for overwintering. The only possible advantage of leaving it until Spring is that the colony will be that much smaller then … but queens may be in very short supply.
Many, many thanks to everyone for all the advice. This has been extremely helpful.
I don’t wear deodorant or aftershave so it can’t be that.
It could be the time of year multiplied by the fact I needed to wash my beekeeping suit and especially gloves as they have been subject to multiple stings. I have now thoroughly cleaned my clothes, gloves and hive tool (as per Bee Hygiene). I will give these bees a chance with my new clean clothes.
Realistically, I am not going to have the opportunity to re-queen this August. My wife is due to give birth in mid-September, she’s in hyper-nesting mode and keeps going round the house writing to-do lists for me – so I’m pretty busy over the next few weeks and won’t have the time after my next inspection (when I can test my clean clothes/gloves) to find some queens and introduce them.
I will re-queen as soon as I can in 2015.
Thanks again.
We discovered an odd thing by accident last year – we had two very strong hives but could hardly mow the lawn they were so aggressive, but we moved house and very reluctantly took the hives with us. Within a month of moving only 4 miles away they were like a new colony – to be honest we kept poking them to double check they were our bees ! but here we are 3 years later with 12 hives all home bred and not a bother with them. Beekeeping a constant learning curve…..
Interesting. Perhaps there was more forage around in the new place? Perhaps not. We’ll probably never understand.
Hi Roger,i also had an aggressive colony a while back.
I wouldn’t be in favour of pinching her highness. Their temper will change many times. They are women after all!!
Just one other trick I use is to smoke your gloves and bee suit before you enter apiary..it works.Use two pairs of marigolds. Also if you have another older beesuit(same as your own colour) set it up as a manoquin in apiary, worzel gommage style! They will get used to seeing it and see you as less of a danger when you arrive in apiary.
Also the more your poke at the hive the more chance they will become aggressive. Would you like someone lifting the roof off your house, removing your bed,removing your valuables and food(honey) or even worse interfering with your wife.(the real queen)
You said you don’t use deodorant or after-shave..maybe that’s the problem!
Hope your find this amusing if not helpful.
Happy Beek
Thanks Jerome,
I took off the syrup today (Sunday 19 October) it must have been 17C. The aggressive hive is still very aggressive. Luckily it was very windy so they didn’t chase me too far.
I tried a pair of marigolds under my leather gauntlets but it got too sweaty and my fingers were sitting in sweat.
I like the scarecrow idea. If I ever have a ruined bee suit I might try this.
I don’t poke them very often especially now that I have 2 children – I don’t have the time.
I’m planning to requeen as soon as I can next Spring. I’m also planning to cull the drone brood in the 2 aggressive hives and let the other hives produce more drone and hopefully they will mate with any virgin queens.
Fingers crossed for the winter.
Hi
Just found your site and watched your video , how I understood how you felt !!!
I have aggressive bees all from two swarms I caught last summer and the summer before in bait hives now the drones have mated with my queens so I have 3 all very nasty !!! . I thought all was fine until August I had a feeling they were a bit nasty but as time went on during the summer how the gut feeling was correct mine will follow you maybe over a 100 meters , many a time I have to get in the car in the bee suit and drive off and change in the lay by with people hooting horns as they go past !! lol
All have come out of winter looking great I still treated for varroa in December and fed them fondant as well.
Went yesterday and OMG !!! cant even walk 30 feet away before opening them and they are in to attack mode. So its re queening asap , quick question when you moved the brood box and put the supers on the original spot what did you do with the original brood box ? as I do have a nuc covering six frames and would like to use that to re queen one of them ? and I will be ordering queens thgis weeek just wating to see what they have , and hopefully peace will return to my mini apiary.
Great blog
I wrote about the experience my cousin and I had here: requeening agreessive hives.
With the original brood box, we went through it, found the queen, culled her, requeened and then moved back to original site and put supers back on top.
With your nuc box – you could take the queen and use her to requeen. You could then either (A) allow nuc to raise emergency queen or (B) take the frames and introduce them to your brood boxes.