On the subject of no protection I once collected a big swarm (not mine) which I put in a hive under the tree I had climbed to get them.
Later I went back closed them up and lifted the hive so I could move it to a final site.
The floor fell off and the bees, which I thought would be a gentle swarm, piled out on mass.
I had 30+ stings on my legs alone (jeans) before counting the belly and lower back.
Lucky I had a bee hat on at least.
That was the day I learned just how fast a fat boy can run
had my fair (and unfair) share of stings. I find the experience of working with bees without any protection focuses the mind much better on what is in front of me.
Stings are not that bad, unless they are on the end of the nose. Even that is not as bad as one on the end of your wee man. Trust me on that. Wasnt so wee after though...
Most of the bees in in the UK will be hybrids that's not a problem your bees were OK to handle before and they will be again.
Weather, temperature, no incoming nectar,wasps getting in, other bees robbing having to poke about putting on treatments etc.
Less brood bad mood syndrome.
Rapid feeders are good if your bees are in the garden or close to home because you fill them without taking anything off the hive, they only hold a couple of litres though
Bridget,
I had a nuc this year that was boiling out of the hive and not gentle as I would have expected when opening up. They were bursting at the seams and once moved to a larger box, became much better behaved. I put it down to them finding it difficult to all squeeze in the small box.
If you do that you will need to ensure the box is not too big or they will be unable to keep it warm so the spare space will need to be packed with something. I have a couple of supers I use on nucs occasionally and I have some 8 frame nationals too. Both work for overwintering.
Weather can also have an effect on temperament.
How old is your queen? If she has been laying for - say 5 - 6 weeks and her own daughters are now reaching maturity as older flying bees and are being a nuisance, then you may just be unlucky with a difficult colony to deal with.
Adam - Very interesting - this was our original thought, 10 days ago, that they were getting over crowded so we added a super, then didn't know what to fill that with so added some frames. A few days later we decided this was a bad idea as winter was coming so we took it all off again and confined them to the brood box ( and the sugar syrup feeder) as we thought they would then fill the last couple of frames with honey from the heather and have good stock for winter. They have 11 frames and a dummy. As newbies we don't have any more kit or boxes to move them too and as I guess the queen will stop laying soon, the numbers will go down. Who knows whats for the best!
We got the nuc and the queen, who is a 2010 queen, white marker, about 7 weeks ago so maybe her mature daughters are playing up. I shall feed them all quietly this evening and then perhaps have another look in the brood box on Monday if the weather improves.
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