They've started!!

[EmsE]

Esme, there's people here with much more experience than me giving advice so I wont, I would just like to say that I love that you're involving your daughter, get them while theyre young have you considered what style of white beard she should have yet

. I think she wants one like santa

[EmsE]

Well, I have to say I'm disappointed with my new colony. At first, everything seemed to be going really well- the queen was laying very well and the workers were filling the hive with stores (looking back, that was because they were the old Queen's stock). Then things began to go down hill. The bees temperament changed for the worse -you can hear the tone in the buzz change almost immediately & they like to batter off my veil. At least they don't follow too far.
The most concerning part is their ability to store. Whilst other bee keepers and my other hive (which went on to supersede their queen) were stocking up on nectar, this colony never seemed to store anything. At first I put it down to the June gap and the fact it was weaker than the other hives being a new colony so fed well, but things didn't pick up. From mid August for a month, I fed well but only just had the 7 full frames of sealed stores. When I went to see them yesterday, the sugar bag I put on 2 weeks ago was completely empty. I didn't have a look in as it was too cold & they weren't impressed to see me as it was. Considering the benefits of re-queening next year- if they make it through the winter.

[Jon]

Hi Emse.
What race of bee was the original queen in your 5 frame nuc?
Temperament quite often goes downhill somewhere down the line if you cross one strain of bee with another.
AMM crossed with Carnica has a particularly bad reputation.
If your colony has developed bad temper associated with a change of queen I would wait until next spring and then requeen with a queen from a local beekeeper who keeps the type of bee prevalent in your area.
If you get a bad tempered colony - and everyone does from time to time - you have to bite the bullet at some point and requeen it.

[EmsE]

I think my original queen was a mixture of breeds. The first queen from her this year, I took over 20 miles away to mate with a feral colony my friend (a fellow bee keeper) has had in the eves of her house for the past 25 years- I thought it would be good to get some new genetics into the local area. The feral bees are reportedly placid. Another bee keeper managed to get a swarm from the ferral colony and has reported they are well behaved.

My original queen was superseded (the 2nd queen from her) and this daughter was left on the apiary. Her brood are just as lovely as her mothers (although you do still need gloves!).

I gathered a sample of the stroppy bees yesterday for the Morphomety workshop next week. One thing I did notice was that they seemed smaller- unless it is my imagination

[nemphlar]

As a rule of thumb I would suggest that any hive that can't be inspected without gloves in reasonable conditions ought to be requeened, vicious bees are hard work. there should be someone in the area can sort you out with a local queen.

[EmsE]

I'm lucky our local society is very good in that way and one day hope to be contributing to the efforts myself (with docile bees of course)