CHESHIRE BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION

Apes curamus et nos curant (We look after bees and they look after us)
Founded 1899
Registered Charity No. 227494
We've been buzzing over 100 years 1899-2016

Re-queening an aggressive colony

My recent article on artificial swarming prompted a CBKA member to ask how he might deal with an overly aggressive colony which he had twice attempted to de-queen in order to re-queen. On both occasions he failed to find the queen, and gave up because the bees were becoming increasingly hostile, which he found unnerving.

The following notes form the basis of my reply. As always it is better to work with the bees rather than against them. The solution lies in removing from the search the foragers, which are also the main aggressors.

Hence, prepare an empty hive complete with combs. Introduce a frame or frames containing eggs preferably from a more docile colony, but failing that from the aggressive colony itself, as the temper is likely to improve after any new queen has taken over from her predecesor.

Put the new hive with eggs�made up to 11 frames - on the original stand, and replace over a queen-excluder any supers. Move the original colony to one side in the same apiary. The flying bees will return to join the new hive. This depletes the original brood-box to create conditions in which the chances of finding the queen are considerably enhanced. Once found, she may be killed off, or transferred pro tem to a nucleus box with some bees (plus food) as a hedge against failure.

This presents two opportunities. Either the old brood-box may be re-united to the colony on the original stand, or the separated colony may be left to produce a new queen for itself. The latter course should only be followed if the beekeeper wishes to make increase and has no other colony better suited to the task. If re-combining the two units is the preferred option, this may be accomplished in either of two ways. The preferred approach would be to go through the original brood-box to remove queen-cells before re-uniting. Alternatively, this could be done shortly after re-uniting (always over newspaper) when nurse-bees only are in attendance.

To eliminate queen-cells from the original brood-box by either method would be preferable to re-uniting with queen-cells present, as ultimately it will become necessary to re-arrange the brood-frames in the bottom box. If, when doing this, a virgin were introduced unnoticed, the consequences could be disastrous, especially if she had become infertile by being trapped �upstairs� for too long.

Malcolm Brierley

© 2015 Cheshire Beekeepers' Association