Feisty bee behaviour

[EmsE]

So as the mother was ok from what I saw (that colony didn't manage to get to full strength though before swarming) I have a good chance that the drones carry good characteristic? That's much more manageable

[Neils]

I think if you have a colony that was ok to inspect and now isn't, why might that be?

Things that I've seen that can affect temperament:

Localised weather outside the forecasts.
Ever feel the air pressure drop or even just seen clouds start to roll in?

Prolonged bad weather
Check stores, but also just long periods of rubbish weather can make them grotty.

Entrances
Where are the hive entrances pointed? can they see people wandering about close by? we turned a couple of hives 180 degrees recently, the difference in temper is remarkable.

Sparrows
WE have a pair of sparrows who live by the hives, they love to swoop past the entrances and pick off bees. Drives the bees literally mental, they hate it when the sparrows are playing and you'd better believe they hate us opening up the hives while they're around. 20 minutes of us around to scare the birds away calms them down a lot. No idea what to do about the birds on a more permanent basis.

Robbing.
Horrible because it tends to turn both hives aggressive, one because it's defensive and the other because it's on the attack.

Queenless
Seen a sweet as pie hive go horrible because it's queenless even before we got anywhere near it. Equally seen some that are fine being inspected and others that were fine until we opened it up. If you think there's a virgin queen in it, leave it well alone to get on with it.

just because...
These are the ones you have to deal with. Whenever you open them up they're batting your veil, going for your hands, following

They were nice as pie in a nuc... when they're 9 frames of brood things can change. Personally I think the warning signs are there in a Nuc as well just not as obvious but a small colony is generally more manageable than a full sized colony and I think that takes many new beekeepers by surprise.

I guess the point is that sometimes they can be grotty for a reason.

[EmsE]

Agree with everything there and think there is another reason to add to the list.

Rough beekeepers.

I'm as gentle as possible going through the hive however on 1 occasion in the first year of bee keeping I managed to knock the hive over. When lifting the top brood box, I wasn't aware that the frames in the lower brood box were attached to the bottom of the frames in the top box. the lesson learned to that was to always turn the boxes as I remove them.

Needless to say the bees were furious and would make a bee line for me whenever I went to the apiary. Within a couple of months it was back to its usual self.

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[gavin]

I'm with Jon. Some sort of random event might be the cause, but more likely is the fall-off in nectar income, the growing strength (dare I say confidence) of the colony, its own propensity to be tetchy, and possibly the situation with the queen.

The inherent temper of a colony can be hard to judge when times get tough, but if you have several colonies you can spot the mild and the less nice ones early in the season when things are quieter. Usually that ranking continues when they get frustrated due to lack of nectar or turn queenless.

Like Jon, I use the smoker as infrequently as I can. I found myself doing the puffs at the entrance the other day but this was at a colony I knew to be powerful and normally tetchy on a cool day when they hadn't been able to forage. That was the first time this year I'd done that.

Beg a mature queen cell from a mild colony from someone if you can, and start to shift the genetics of your stock in a better direction. Or if your better colony makes more Q cells, use one of these. You can protect the base and sides of a 'foreign' cell with kitchen foil, just leaving the tip exposed.

[HJBee]

Nellie has me thinking re sparrows, there is a large family that cavort around in the Hedge that was next to the feisty hive?

Shame all round re neighbours being stung & needing to move, but a real lesson / experience for myself as a beginner!

[The Drone Ranger]

Nellie has me thinking re sparrows, there is a large family that cavort around in the Hedge that was next to the feisty hive?

Shame all round re neighbours being stung & needing to move, but a real lesson / experience for myself as a beginner!

Quarriers Village that sounds great
Are there many other beekeepers around you?
If you are in a rape growing area there will probably be a lot of commercial hives around
When you have only a few hives you are always at the mercy of the local drone congregation
Personally I would let them raise queen cells and select the nice ones.
That takes time because until all the bees are the new queens kids you still have old crazy ones in there
If you choose to use Snelgrove or swarm boards you will always have 2 queens laying in your hives
That lets you get honey and choose between the two queens later in the season
Also if you do acquire a new queen from a gentle strain you can easily put her in the box above the swarm board.
Meanwhile you don't have to open the grumpy bees so often and the neighbours are safe

[Jon]

Opening as little as possible is good advice. If you clip the queen you can get away with two week checks rather than every week. You might lose the queen if you are unlucky but you should not lose a swarm. Even if they swarm the queen often finds her way back inside.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Beg a mature queen cell from a mild colony from someone if you can, and start to shift the genetics of your stock in a better direction.

What is the best way of carrying a queen cell from one apiary to another, Gavin? How long can one keep a queen cell outside a hive? How does one keep it at the right temperature - or are all these questions a bit irrelevant?

You can protect the base and sides of a 'foreign' cell with kitchen foil, just leaving the tip exposed.

Bees accept brood from other colonies - but are they a bit more iffy about a foreign queen cell?
Kitta

[Apiarist]

Bear in mind too that smoking a colony where there is no open nectar (as at the end of a nectar flow or when there is no nectar flow, e.g. cold day even) then the smoke will have little effect. Try this on days when the bees are grumpy (and the beekeeper is perhaps just as grumpy!) and when the bees must be examined:

Find an old squeezy washing-up liquid bottle and rinse it out really well.
Make up a feed of syrup in the ration 2 pounds sugar (or a 1 kilo bag) to a pint of water. Let it cool.
Pour the syrup into the bottle and re-fit the squeezy top.
Open the hive and brood box with a little smoke.
Squeeze a liberal 'strand' of syrup into each gap between the frames.
Keep doing this during the inspection as soon as the bees have licked up the last lot of syrup.

Result:
Slightly sticky but much less grumpy bees
Much less grumpy beekeeper, possibly also a bit sticky, but heyho, it's a small price to pay
Inspection completed without too many stings (or even with none at all)
Time to put your feet up with a self-congratulatory dram

[Jon]

What is the best way of carrying a queen cell from one apiary to another, How long can one keep a queen cell outside a hive? How does one keep it at the right temperature - or are all these questions a bit irrelevant?

It is a bad idea to try and move queen cells until the queen is fully formed, ie less than 2 days from emergence.
At this point the cells are actually very hardy and unless you physically damage or seriously *chill a cell, it will hatch normally.
I brought home 7 cells from the association apiary on Friday evening, a 2 mile bike ride, and put them into apideas before heading out to the bar.
5 queens had emerged when I checked on Sunday morning and the other two were chewing their way out of the cells. And before anyone suggests it, I was not in the bar from Friday evening until Sunday morning.

Queen cells are at their most vulnerable in the four days immediately after capping as the larvae is going through a series of stages and is very easily damaged.

* chill not shill.