River Cottage

We had to move our hives away from where customers were looking at plants after a couple of them were stung last year. To be honest I'm glad. They are followers and very willing to sting. The annoying thing is that the more aggressive hives seem to produce far more honey. So if we can keep them away from people and avoid requeening with a more placid queen we will, as the 2 really placid hives that we had last year were robbed by wasps and were all but destroyed.  

It's certainly a balancing act. I like my bees placid and since the honey is primarily for home consumption maximum production is not a priority (it would be a pain at present with working full time elsewhere actually).

Followers are a real problem though. It is very difficult to get away from them and their aggression makes them very nasty sometimes. Pippa, sometimes moving bees can help. There may be nothing wrong with a site as far as we can see, but if you put a hive there, the bees go really nasty. We had that problem at the Association apiary some years ago, but if you have moved yours, it seems it is the breeding. If you are lucky, as the queens changes, they will calm down a bit, but you will not lose the production. Mr. Alchemist suggests requeening as the following trait can breed into other colonies. If you can keep them away from people though, you may be able to live with it.

When hives turn bad!

I had the same when I kept bees. I had one hive that would get aggressive with anyone less than 30 feet away. They even attacked our neighbours in their own garden. I had no choice to destroy them. It was as if they changed character overnight. From placid to aggressive in a very short time.

I've never heard that moving them would make a difference Alchemist. That wouldn't have been an option for me at the time but good advice.

I was under the impression that to move a hive you either do it six inches at a time or you needed to take them outside the foraging zone (3 km) to avoid them coming back to where the hive was and flying around in confusion until they died. How do you go about doing that?

The hive I was thinking of was really vicious. After we refused to take the honey off again after being given that hive 2 years running they zapped it. Put another colony on the site and they went bad too so think there must have been something to do with the site.

Ozzi, moving bees it has to be something like no more than 3 feet or 3 miles. If we need to move bees medium distances we can use the garden and the woods which are about 2 miles apart, and that doesn't seem to be a problem. Otherwise move them about 3 feet at a time. If you have more than one colony and you are just moving one, any that get confused will join the other colony. As long as too many don't come in at once, and they submit when challenged, they should be accepted.

Goodoh - at least I got that right. I have arranged with a friend at five miles distance if I need to reorganise them at home. I plan to do so once shipping containers, sheds and internal fencing are sorted (which may be some time at this rate).

Don't want to confuse them more than I already have by accidentally creating a second hive.

The very worst hive we moved to mum and dad's which is 6 miles away then back again 8 weeks later to its new position, but the other 3 we just moved straight up the hill to the orchard. An old beekeeper told us that if you move them during very cold weather while they are clustered they will re-orientate themselves before flying. It seems to have worked as during the last couple of days while it's been mild there havn't been any lost bees buzzing around. 

One thing that has been a bit puzzling today though, we have a large pile of road planings  in the car park that we are using to make new paths. This is the tarmac that they scrape of the road when they're resurfacing. It is covered in bees. Do you think it's likely to just be honey bees warming themselves up or some sort of mason bee? I'll try to get some photos tomorrow, they don't seem to be staying still sunning themselves, they're walking around as if they're looking for something

I reckon I'll know if there are lots of little tunnels being dug over the next couple of days! One thing's for sure, while it's covered in bees I wont be volunteering to move any down to the new path! 

Hi Pippa - they could be either warming up, or maybe there's a little bit of moisture on the surface, and they're drinking? My bees will ignore any amount of good clean water in favour of the mankiest drippings 

Incidentally, please requeen your hive if moving it doesn't improve their temper. Drones produced by an aggressive queen may very well  pass on her undesirable characteristics, by way of every virgin queen in the neighbourhood. My bees are very docile, yet they produce wonderful amounts of honey.  I find Wasp Bane, destroying every wasp nest I can find and keeping the smallest possible (easily defended) entrance on my hives stops wasps becoming too much of a problem for them.

They are actually Dad's bees, not mine (thankfully), but I will nag him again to requeen. I appreciate that their 'bad genes' are probably being passed to other hives, and this shouldn't be allowed to happen. Having been on the receiving end of their thuggish behaviour I know how unpleasant it can be. It did however provide amusement for onlookers (crazed girl running full speed down hill shouting 'bee... someone get rid of this bl**dy bee' that was the point at which it stung me)