Mark posted yet another way to attempt to requeen the Africanized hive.  The
discussion may have strayed a bit to requeening a nasty hive, and I am at
least partially guilty of the digression.  However, I have never to my
knowlege worked an Africanized hive.  But I have worked a few that made me
wonder if AHBs were established in my yards in upstate New York.

Suggestions to shake bees or manipulate the hive in any manner would not
have worked with the particular hive I have in mind, which was located at my
sister's house.  The hive was a good quarter mile away from any
building/garden/area any human activity whatsoever.  The hive was showing
signs of getting hot after a late summer superscedure, but given the time of
season I chose to let it lie to see how things were the following spring.
The hive overwintered and seemed "workable" the following spring, but as the
population grew, so did the "heat".  It got to the point that whenever I did
even the slightest manipulation on the hive the bees were nasty and would
remain so for days, harrassing folks around the house/garden/barn which as I
said, was a quarter mile away.

I made a split from the hive, figuring with a new queen the bees in the
split would calm down and with a reduced population in the donor hive it
would be easier to depose the nasty queen.  I was just barely able to make
the split before the bees persuaded me to leave the yard.  The split
remained nasty for the life of the bees and hatching brood (as Jim pointed
out), and to this day the guy who bought the split, forewarned that the
donor hive had a nasty attitude, ribs me about the nasty nuc I sold him.

About a week later I moved the nasty hive many feet from it's original
location, leaving a catcher nuc in its place.  Yes Allen, it was on a nice
day when the bees were flying and foraging.  I moved the hive with my Helvy
Hive Carrier (don't ask, check the archives), so the movement was smooth and
quick.  Smooth though the move was, the bees again persuaded me to leave,
and harrassed folks for the next few days up to a quarter mile away.  3 days
later I attempted to find the queen in the once-split, once-moved, thusly
depopulated hive, but the bees were extremely persuasive that I leave the
area, actually escorting me into my truck and coaching me as I drove away.

I had been debating simply offing the hive right from the get go, but I did
not want to sacrifice the worker population and brood, which was impressive.
Thinking, "One more try", I quickly separated the two deeps onto separate
bottom boards, splitting the once-split, once-moved hive in half.  It was in
this manipulation that I finally found the nasty queen, upon which I did a
joyful and jubilant victory dance, and successfully requeened both halves.
I thought the problem was solved, but both halves retained an attitude
sufficient to have me move them to a different yard, even further removed
from human activity.  Eventually they lost their attitude and produced a
single medium each, but neither successfully overwintered at the end of the
season.

So, from 1 nasty hive I got three splits, eternal damnation from the friend
who purchased one nasty split, two medium supers, more stings and stress
than any beekeeper should have to endure, and near banishment of hives at my
sister's homestead.  Obvious folly for a problem which should have been
handled with my shoot from the hip advice of two days ago, "Cut your losses,
kill the hive and start from scratch."

Now, "Kill the hive" is always repugnant to me.  If I had it to do over
again I'd skip the first split and jump right to the move the hive (on a
nice day when bees are flying and foraging, leaving a catcher nuc at the
original location) and separate the two deeps to separate bottom boards.  I
suspect the bees would have at this point driven me off, but I'd have
shortened the ordeal by one nasty split, one eternal damnation and over a
week's time.  And I suspect the results, although shorter and less damning,
would have been no better.  So the next, next time, I'd follow my own advice
and cut my losses, probably in the fall when I first noticed that the
supersceded queen was not the kind of queen a beekeeper should tolerate.

Aaron Morris - thinking do as I say, not as I do!

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