# Novice beekeeper with one aggressive hive planning to add second hive soon



## Lucinda Jenkins (Feb 26, 2018)

I have questions concerning 1) what to do with an aggressive hive and 2) precautions to take when adding a new hive nearby.

I populated my first hive with a local Italian bee package on my rural property in late March 2017. The new bees were quite mellow. I did not have to suit up with my veil to feed them in the boardman feeder. The hive had a brood box and a deep super in early May. In late May for various reasons I did not appreciate the burgeoning bee population and I lost the original queen in a swarm. There were queen cells in the hive and a new queen was apparently selected from them. The breeding after the swarm created bees that became more defensive in the fall, buzzing me and my dog as we walked up the driveway near the hive, with a few stings when attending to the hive, but honey production was excellent. At that time I had two medium supers on top of the original hive components. 
We have had unseasonably warm temperatures here in coastal South Carolina; the bees weathered the winter well and have produced much honey. I added another medium super last week not knowing when I could find time to harvest a super. I attempted to harvest one of the lower medium supers yesterday by myself. The bees became quite aggressive and I was stung many times under my arms as I lifted the frames. I was able to continue the harvest once beekeeper friends arrived. The bees have not stung me without provocation, arguably, but they do follow me back to the front door of the house. 

My first question is what should I do with this aggressive hive, if anything. I confess I have not invested in a beesuit so I was easy pray. So may be that’s all I need to do. I have read about queen replacement and splitting but do not know if this is necessary. 
My second question involves a second hive I plan to populate with a new Italian bee package in mid March. My question is should I place the second hive near the first or in a different location to keep them away from the aggressive hive and to make frequent feeding and maintenance easier. 

I appreciate the insight and advice and am glad I found BEESOURCE!


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## Tim KS (May 9, 2014)

Don't jump to any conclusions about having an aggressive hive. Mine always get a little testy & protective of their stores in the fall & very early spring. They should calm down once the weather warms and a honey flow starts.

I would buy yourself some protection from the bees. A simple veil or maybe even a jacket will be enough if you have mellow bees, but don't gamble on stings to the face especially.

I don't think it will make much difference if the hives are close together. If they are within a mile or two of each other, they find each other.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Hi Lucinda, and welcome to BeeSource - we're glad you found us!

The new bees are not going to learn naughty tricks, or get a bad attitude, from the old bees.

The guard bees that have decided you are a threat that needs driving away will become foragers in a week, or two. If you can leave them alone for that interval it may help.

You need to buy a jacket, or organize some kind of equivalent protection. It doesn't need to be a real bee jacket, a heavy canvas work shirt from Good Will might do the trick. Look in the men's department to get something nice and loose. It doesn't need to be white, any lightish color will do. (The spiffiest - and pricey - brand of suits and jackets made in in England, "Sheriff" bee gear, come in all kinds of pastels and sherbet-ty colors.). I use rubber bands around the cuffs of my oldest jackets where the elastic has given up the ghost. Or you could sew the sleeve placket closed and sew on knitted cuffs on the sleeves, like medical scrubs. (Joanne's sells those cuffs.) 

What kind of gloves are you using, if any? Heavy leather gloves always seem to result in more defensive reactions because you are actually clumsier with them on. I encourage my first-year students to move to thinner nitrile gloves as soon as they can dare to do it. It really does make a difference, almost on the first time you use them.

Also, are you using smoke generously and appropriately while working with your bees? That will make a big difference in the bees' demeanor. Many new beekeepers are reluctant to do so, out of misplaced concern for their bees. Actually a proper smoking is far safer for the bees because you will squish fewer of them, and fewer of them will die attacking you.

I think that your bees have simply grown into the typical boldness of a mature hive, especially last fall when as a mature hive they were naturally more protective of their vital honey stores. Meanwhile your bee-handling skills may be stalled at an early stage out of fear or reluctance to tackle them. Nothing to do about this, other than get a jacket and increase your bee-work until you progress to a stage where your movements are not irritating the bees, needlessly.

Have you spent any time watching experienced beekeepers work? How they move very smoothly, and often slowly when the hive is open? How they almost never reach directly across an open colony? How they watch the bees closely and will immediately still their hands in place if they see a slight shift in the bees' defensive posture? How they use their smoker, and take a minute or two to let the bees settle afterward? When moving whole boxes, do you know how to keep the bees from being squashed between them? Do you hang frames on a frame hanger, or put frames that are out of the hive in a quiet box? Until I had observed this in person, I'm sure my bees were regularly over-excited by me and became reactive as a consequence. 

I was constantly telling with my bees in my first year, "I am not a bear; I mean well, but I know I am sometimes clumsy." 

Trying to harvest w/o a jacket is pretty much going to result in stings. Next time, you might also try using a bee escape board to move the bees out of the super and then take it off all at once.

And an entrance feeder is more likely to attract and promote robbing, which may result in your new bees being defensive just for that reason alone.

Since you are in SC, I suppose it's remotely possible that you might have acquired a touch of Africanized genetics when your new queen got open-mated, however, she herself has the same genetics as her older sisters (the workers last summer from the original queen, before the swarm.) 

But I would start from the simplest things, first: get some more protection on your torso, and less on your hands. Use your smoker a lot more. And pay closer attention to exactly what you've been doing just before your bees get cranky, and stop doing that. or do it another way. Adopting the use of a quiet box is very beneficial, particularly if you've just been setting frames out of the box on the ground or on a frame rest on the side of the box. Move the boxes differently, more smoothly. Practice that with spare equipment. Go watch a very skilled beekeeper who works barehanded. 

Make sure there is nothing aggravating them at night or while you are not in the yard: a skunk, ants, possums, etc.

If you finally feel you need to re-queen, then that's a possibility, too. Just splitting and raising a new queen from the split may result in two colonies that are filled with grumpy girls. 

Things will get better. I didn't really get comfortable handling my bees until the first winter when I had to take off my heavy gloves just to fit my hands into the narrow slots when I had the stacks open briefly for adding sugar bricks. And then, of course, when I started to pick up cold-stunned bees from the snow and re-warm them in my bare hands, often tucked into my pocket or under the bibs of of my overalls. Don't beat yourself up if you aren't comfortable with that, yet. You'll get there. 

If anything I mentioned above isn't clear, just post back and I will try again.

Nancy


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome! Any time you do not like the temperament or anything else requeen. As Tim said it might just be from stealing their food. Away from the first would mean two miles any less is nothing.


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## Lucinda Jenkins (Feb 26, 2018)

Thanks so much for all the information. I really appreciate your patience. 

I am going to invest in a good beesuit since that will be cheaper in the long run than visits to allergy doctors for allergy injections or ER visits for allergic reactions to bee stings! 

I do use leather gloves with sleeves, and my hands are small, so I do have trouble with clumsiness. Never would have thought nitrile gloves would be adequate protection. I will try that!

In the past I have had trouble keeping my smoker going throughout the hive work, which was really frustrating. I used some long smoker pellets I found online this time and that seemed to help at least initially until I really made the bees mad. I was not working slowly enough and I was not in a very calm and collected mental state, with which I normally approach the hive work. I think my being in a hurry was a big part of what ensued.

I do not have a frame hanger to temporarily hold the frames, nor do I have a bee escape board, but both are a really good ideas. I do use a quiet box for the frames I remove. 

I don’t know for sure if nighttime predators are an issue but have not seen any evidence of any. I did wage a hard fought battle with fire ant beds near my elevated hive. I used cinnamon generously on the beds every several days during the summer and fall. I never saw any evidence of ants in the hive, however. The ants have not set up in the old, cinnamon doused beds this month as yet. But there are many active fire ant beds nearby on the property which I used to treat with andro before I had bees. The hive also came within a couple of inches of being flooded by the adjacent pond during a hurricane last fall. I had planned to place heavy black plastic under the hive and elevate it further this spring, but may have to scrap that plan in light of the bees temperament.

Regarding the possibility of Africanized genetics in the open-mated queen, that is a possibility that my beekeeping mentor had mentioned to me. After conferring with you and others at BEESOURCE I think I will wait to decide upon re-queening until later this spring. Your point about splitting the hive resulting in two colonies with bad temperment is a good one, which I had not thought of.

Thanks again for the great feedback!


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## Lucinda Jenkins (Feb 26, 2018)

Really good food for thought. Thanks very much.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

@Lucinda, 

Oops! I was suggesting that you use a quiet box, but NOT use a frame rest. Frame rests leave the bees hanging out in the daylight which is stressful - if you tuck them into a quiet box they may be perplexed by the move but they will be calmer as they try to figure what's going on and keep their brood warm as they do. Plus it's a far safer place for your queen when you encounter her on a frame. Slip that frame into the quiet box and then you'll be able to work more freely because you know she's safe and sound. (Just don't forget to put her back!)

I almost never use my full suit at all anymore. Jackets do just fine for me (but not with fashionable skinny jeans - baggy Mom jeans are my standard bee-working kit.) You're in a hot area, though, so a suit, especially a ventilated suit may be better for you. You could go with just shorts and a tank top underneath. We have a lot of ticks up here so I need pants that are tucked into socks for that reason, but when it gets hot, all I've got under my ventilated jacket is tank top.

Smoker management is something to work on when you are not about to work the hives. Practice lighting it, and getting it to stay lit when it doesn't matter if it goes out. I use MannLake Kwik-Start firelighters. ignited with two strike-anywhere matches. A trick I use to get the MannLake lighters easily lit is to hold one slightly down into the open, conical top which sets up a nice draft through the snout. This works particularly well on breezy days, when the matches may blow out prematurely.

As far as fuel, I mostly use cedar shavings from Tractor Supply, though for really long bouts I'll throw in some wood-stove pellets, which I have on hand because we heat with them. Newspaper, untreated burlap or balls of untreated sisal baling twine, pine cones, dry pine shats, sumac bobs, cut-up old blue jeans are some of the fuels I've used. You should try lots of things, to see what works best for you.

Anyway, fill the clean smoker about half-way up. Drop the lit Kwik-Start pellet down on top (as well as the used matches, for safety's sake). Pump the bellows a bit to get the firel going. Then add some more loose material, pump again and start to tamp the fuel down. Repeat until your smoker is well-filled and somewhat solidly pushed down. Pump after every addition. What you're looking for is steady, cool, _white _smoke from a slightly oxygen-starved fire. 

Get in the habit of giving the smoker a few pumps, regularly as you work on the bees. I find that if I pump it whenever I'm kind of stumped for what to do next, that once I've figured out the answer to that, I'm ready to do it and the smoker is just at the right point. Instead of scratching my head, I pump the smoker!

A really good tip I got here on BeeSource is this: After you've schlepped all your gear out to the hives and are eager to start - pause for a few minutes, rather than just launching in. Sit down and put a mindful, focused effort just on getting your smoker well-lit and ready for the long haul. Use this time to think through what you plan to do, and why , etc. Put all the other thoughts (Will I be done in time to make dinner? Will the bees be mean to me today?) away, just think about what you there for, and why. 

You may think this is pure bunk, but while I'm working on the smoker, I try to out to reach my bees' collective hive mind and let them know what projects I've got planned for the day. Whether the bees get it, or not, I find that this little centering exercise gets me on the bee-wave-length more effectively than otherwise. 

Work from the calmer colonies to the less-calm ones (so you can get out of Dodge right after you've dealt with the crankiest one.). Smaller to larger. Be ready to stop and pack it in, if everybody's feelings are aroused. Best time of day is mid-day, with only a gentle breeze and with a flow on. Of course those days don't always happen just when you need them, but don't waste any that come your way.

I find that after a long day of bee work, I am so relaxed and mellowed out that as I walk back to the house I often encounter small animals (rabbits, woodchucks, raccoons, even deer) that seem to have little fear of me, when in my ordinary mindset and hustle and bustle they would have bounded away immediately. I think that's because the bees have got me completely chilled out.

A final tip: buy yourself a small metal garbage can and deposit your smoker in it every time when you're done. That way you can safely end the day by pushing any remaining fuel down, and plugging the tip of the smoker with a thick twist of green grass to smother the fire. Pop the smoker in the can and you're done. Just don't really cram the smoker's lid down when it's hot. It will contract as it cools and be the very devil to get open the next time.

For nitrile gloves you can buy some small packages of them at Staples, or, I think Harbor Freight. I really like the Tru-Blue brand ones made by Neogen, like these: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail...9JrR7YPF2QIVxiSBCh2RngVDEAQYBCABEgJyUvD_BwEse 
I find they can last through more than one day of work, though they will get filled with sweat on a hot day. Bees can, and do occasionally, sting through them, but it seems to not occur to them to do so most of they time. With gloves like these you will easily feel if you are about to accidentally pinch or crowd a bee and just intuitively shift your fingers a bit, avoiding a _contretemps._ With new beekeepers that I teach, I pick a favorable day when what is planned isn't likely to get anyone riled up, and get them to try nitrile gloves instead of their usual leather paws. By the end of the session, they are almost always amazed at how different the bees seem. It's the gloves. And bare hands are even better, but I don't always use bare hands in my own hives - just when the going is easy. For really upset, traumatized bees - say after a bear attack, I always bring out the long-sleeved leather gloves. You need them in those cases.

Nancy


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## Lucinda Jenkins (Feb 26, 2018)

Thank you for the clarification concerning the frame holder vs. quiet box. 

All of your advice is so impressive. I really appreciate the finer points of smoker techniques and management you thoroughly explained. Also, I think the nitrile gloves will greatly improve my technique.

Lastly, I do not think mentally communicating with the bees and the collective hive mind is baloney at all. I totally blew that aspect of hive work before I started my hurried attempt to harvest honey yesterday. The fact that I have 10 stings on the underside of my upper arms and 2 on my thigh attests to what I did wrong, even without regard to the overall change in the bees temperament since this fall. My beekeeping mentor explained that the first stings on my thigh caused pheromones to be released signaling the bees to attack me, which they did in a matter of a few minutes. A well designed ventilated bee suit will put an end to that potential outcome, I hope.

When you have time, please explain the use of a bee escape board in directing bees back into the hive. I am not sure how that process works.

I am feeling much more informed and confident and I am most grateful for your advice and expertise. Thank you. 

Cindy


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## laketrout (Mar 5, 2013)

Lucinda you may find like alot of beekeepers that your hands will sweat profusely with nitrile gloves to the point of being downright uncomfortable I can't stand them I buy nice thin goatskin gloves at the hardware store and sew my own cuff on them and get about two years from a pair and you will probably get less stings as they will sting through nitrile gloves you will have to see what works for you but if your more comfortable knowing you won't get stung you will enjoy working your bee's more and the process will go smoother and be more fun .


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Cindy,

The stings on your thighs mean you were wearing fashionable clothing, which is more than I can say about my loose/sloppy-looking bee-yard attire. Some of the ventilated suits are very pricey, but good-quality ones are available for less than the cost of an Ultrabreeze. Be sure to get one with a detachable hood, so you can wash the body in your washing machine and only have to hand wash the veil part. Washing clears any residual sting pheromone out of the fabric. (I use the gentle cycle on my front loader, and a plain, powdered detergent -Cheer - with no fabric softener. Oxy-clean added if the garment is really filthy.)

Your mentor is correct about the sting pheromone provoking other stings. One thing you can do is immediately give the sting site a very good smoking, which helps to cover over the scent. I often smoke my hands.

Bee escape boards are really cool. You use them this way: say, you want to harvest a box of capped honey, or even a box which has some frames which may be ready to pull, and some not. The day before you want the honey, you go out and lift the box (or boxes) off and set the escape board down, then put the box back on top of the escape board, cover the stack back up and go home and have your supper. 

The next day when you go out, you'll find that nearly all the bees have figured out how to go through the bee escape board and returned to the hive, so the box is nearly empty of bees. Take it off and haul it out of the yard right away (or cover it very securely), or just remove the frames that are ready, add some new ones to fill it out. Take the bee escape board off and place the box back on the stack for the bees to continue to work on. (Be sure to stick the removed frames immediately in some place bees can't reach them, like a closed-up nuc, or your quiet box.)

A bee escape board works like a maze. It has a central area where bees go in and wander their way through and downward, and then can't figure out (in the short-term) how to get back up into the super. They want to go down at night to join the main cluster. It can be either a dedicated board with the maze built in, or there are some tricky detachable mazes you can pop into the hole in an inner cover. I use the boards, just for simplicity.

A couple of tips about using them.

1) Don't leave them on more than, say, one day, or the cleverest bees will figure out the maze and go down and teach their sisters the trick. (And SHB beetles will get out of hand with no bees to harass them.)

2) Paint the side of the board so you can tell at a glance there's a bee escape in place in the stack.

3) They must be placed on the stack so that the entrance to the maze is on top, and the exit is on the bottom. The entrance is usually the round hole. I have written on the surface of the board itself "this side up" after messing up this point a time or two.

4) There must be no opening (inner cover, or top entrance) above bee escape board and the super(s) you are clearing out. Otherwise bees will find their way back in again through that opening, defeating the maze. It's OK to have the inner cover off the stack overnight.

Bee escapes take all the drama out of robbing the bees, so I put a high value on them for that reason. Large scale beekeepers haven't got the time for doing this (two trips to the yard just to pull honey.) But for small-scale keepers, they are the nuts. They are just one of the many clever things that ingenious beekeepers have devised over the years.

Here's a link to a good picture of one, _looking at it from the bottom surface_: https://www.betterbee.com/harvesting-equipment/triangular-escape-board.asp 

If you find the nitrile gloves are too sweaty on hot days, you can nip tiny little drainage holes (1/16th in diameter) on the tips of the fingers which allows sweat to escape. Seems silly to do with fresh gloves, but it works. I place the holes over my fingernails - good luck to the bees getting a stinger in there!

As always, if I am not clear, please ask for a clarification. Lucky you to be already working your bees - up here in northern NY, the best I can manage is briefly cracking the lids and slinging in some winter patty. I am hungry to see and work my bees again!

Nancy


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