r/Beekeeping Wiki

Mean Bees

For what it’s worth, bees are not really “mean.” They are defensive. They are protecting resources: food, safe shelter and young brood. From a human perspective they begin to appear mean as that defensive zone moves from “right in front of the colony entrance” to “hundreds of meters away from the colony.” From a beekeeper’s perspective, bees begin to appear mean when management becomes difficult. A nice hive may continue working on a frame when removed from a hive – as if the keeper wasn’t there. A mean hive may cover your hands and face entirely when brood areas are exposed.

Reasons for defensive behavior

There are many reasons a hive may become defensive.

• Size. A small colony has very little to protect. It also has fewer guard bees to protect it. You may catch a swarm bare handed without a veil, move it into a nuc, grow it and over winter it before it turns into a fire-breathing monster the following spring. Often temperament cannot be properly judged until the colony has reached full size.
• Queenlessness. A docile colony may become defensive when they sense they are queenless. Queenlessness is a life-or-death situation for a colony and may heighten their defensive behavior.
• Predator stress. A predator visiting the colony may provide stress to cause their temperament to change. This can be something as simple as a skunk foraging for tasty bees at night. Some predators will leave scratches at the entrance. Skunks and opossums will often leave chewed up exoskeletons in piles near hives. A motion activated camera can be a simple tool to investigate.
• Pest/Disease stress. A sick hive will not be a happy hive. If the hive has high varroa infestation or small hive beetle infestation, for example, they may be stressed and defensive.
• Resource stress. In times of dearth, incoming resources are low or nonexistent. Bees will be on high alert to protect the resources they have. There are often common times for this increased stress that will be geographically dependent (dry summers, just before spring, etc.) Feeding can help reduce defensiveness, but will not likely eliminate it.
• Genetic tenancies. Some bees just have a more genetic tendency towards defensiveness. Africanized bees, for example, have well known defensive traits. But almost any line of bee may develop these characteristics as they interbreed with surrounding localized bees. Buying gentle bees from a well known source is your best defense. If you are in an area that is likely to produce defensive bees, replacing queens annually from a trusted source may also be needed.
• Takeover. Honey bees may actually takeover another colony. This is called usurping. A swarm of bees (sometimes fairly small) can land on the outside of a hive and attempt to work their way inside and kill the queen. Once accomplished, the swarm queen (well guarded) eventually becomes accepted and begins reproduction.

Take defensive behavior seriously

Defensive honeybees can be dangerous. They can cause serious injury or death to humans and livestock. This behavior should not be ignored. There are some that purposefully keep defensive bees. (They often are very good honey producers and may be pest resistant.) But if doing so, please keep your bees well away from people and livestock. Also be aware that your colonies are adding to the gene pool via swarming and drone production.

It is a good practice to plan ahead for a “mean” hive. If you are keeping bees in a neighborhood back yard, there may very well be a time when a hive becomes a nuisance or a danger to your neighbors. If you have an exit strategy in place ahead of time, you won’t be scrambling for ideas. This may be as simple as “move the mean hive to Uncle Bob’s apiary in the country and deal with it later.”

Record keeping may help.

Keeping records on your hives may give you some insight into temperament over time. Develop a personal scale for temperament ranging from “looks at me lovingly” to “evil devils.” Rate your hives with each inspection. A common threshold in hobby beekeeping is the “three strikes rule.” If you deal with “evil devils” three times over a queen’s lifetime, then they should be dealt with as soon as possible.

How to deal with a hot hive

There are a multitude of ways to deal with a hot hive. Deciding how to proceed may depend on your experience as a beekeeper, the perceived reason for being defensive and the immediate danger to those nearby.

Assemble what you need before you try anything. You will require:

• A good full suit.
• Boots. The suit should fit tight around the boots. If not, duct tape or Velcro straps should be used.
• Good gloves. Your hands will get multiple stings. The more sting resistant the glove, the better. For hot hives, something like long cuff PVC gloves can be useful.
• Protection under your glove gauntlet. Take two pairs of thick socks and cut out the toes. Pull these up on your arms underneath the elastic of the glove gauntlet where it is tight against your suit.
• A clear plastic tub. Sometimes it is just easier to spot the queen if you shake the bees into a clear tub and spread them out.
• An extra brood box or two
• Queen exluders

Euthanize them.

This is by far the simplest method. Honeybees are not an endangered species and sometimes this is a necessary solution. One simple method is to mix up 5 gallons/20 liters soapy water. (Mix 1 part dish washing liquid to 4 parts water.) Open the top of the hive and dump it in. The equipment can be reused after a thorough rinse.

Move them.

Close the hive up, strap it together securely and move it to a safer location until it can be dealt with.

Give them away.

In many cases, there may be beekeepers in your area that are more tolerant of hot hives and have space away from people to keep them. You may be able to give them away or even swap them for equivalent empty equipment.

Requeen them.

This is by far the more difficult solution. Be aware that defensive bees will often reject new queens. This is also by no means a quick fix. Your new queen must be accepted and raise new brood. It will take a little over 5 weeks before that first egg laid becomes a guard bee and begins to replace the current demon bees.

Take a deep breath.

You want to be calm, methodical but as quick as possible when you are in the thick of it.

Finding the queen.

This is just one of many methods. It is geared toward spending the least time in the hive and dealing with the smallest number of guard bees.

• Smoke the hive well. Give them 10 minutes or so to react to the smoke before you even open the hive.
• Open hive and unstack it down to the bottom box. Place a queen excluder on top of that box. Restack and add another excluder between each possible brood box.
• Close up the hive and wait 3 days. The box with the queen will be the only box with eggs in it.
• Repeat the smoke/wait.
• Unstack the hive bodies. Take each possible brood box 50+ feet away from the original location.
• Place an empty hive body/frames back in the original location. As bees are disturbed, many will fly back to the original location. This gives them a landing place.
• Wait about 15 minutes (longer if you have the time). Let guard bees settle and let any stirred up bees fly back to the original location.
• Examine a brood box. As you pull frames, scan for the queen quickly. If you don’t see her, shake the bees into a clear plastic tub and spread them out. The queen should be easier to spot here. Look at the frame and try to determine if it has eggs. (Remember: The box that contains eggs is the box that contains the queen.)
• Place the frame into a spare brood box. Put a queen excluder on top of it and another empty box on top of that. Dump the tub of bees onto the excluder and smoke them. They should move down and cover the brood on the frame below. Look very closely for the queen. This should be the last chance catch-all to find her.
• Repeat with each frame and eventually with each brood box.
• When you find the evil queen, thank her for her service and pinch her or squish her with your hive tool.
• When done, remove the equipment from the original location. Add these bees to splits/combines outlined below. Do not put any equipment in that location. If foraging bees return to this hive, they should have to beg their way into another hive.

  Hard split

  Once you have found/killed the defensive queen, you have a few options. The first is a hard split. The smaller the number of bees, the easier it will be for them to accept a new queen. A typical hard split would be 4-5 way split of a production colony. Requeen with either eggs/cells from a docile colony or with a mated queen. If you add a frame of from a docile colony, be sure to mark that frame so you can identify it later. One good method of marking frames is using a thumb tack on the top bar. (And remember: raising queens in an area that has hot bees may be the reason you have a hot hive.)

  Combine with other colonies

  If you are not looking to expand to more colonies, you can split the defensive hive hard and combine each split with a strong colony using a typical newspaper combine.

  Introducing a mated queen

  Defensive colonies have a tendency to reject new queens. To attempt to alleviate this tendency, it is suggested you introduce the queen with a push in cage. Place the mated queen under a push in cage on a large section of capped brood. As the brood emerges, they will accept her and she will begin to lay in their cells. After young brood begins to appear, you can release her.

  Followup: Killing queen cells

  After you combine or requeen, it is good practice to recheck the old brood frames 4-5 days later. Look closely for any queen cells being built and remove them.