Dear Charles,
Sorry to be so slow with your reply. I must have gotten a little
overheated while doing a split. Blacked out. Had a valve job last June
(Mitral Valve) and still have to be a little careful.
The Queen excluder is just that, a Queen Excluder. The queen is the
largest in the colony. The excluder keeps her out of your honey frames.
The bees have a tendency to move upward in the hive. I don't know if this
to move away from entrance.(Protection, weather or whatever.) It seems
better for me when adding a super...to put it next to the excluder..it
shortens the distance to the hive entrance. The workers must pass the
nursery bees attending brood and if they need food the workers just pass
it off to them and go for more...if not they can go upward to the first
available super, comb, etc. I watch my honey flow carefully when adding a
super. If it slows in any way, I feed sugar syrup for a couple of days.
It just helps as a filler for drawing comb.
 
As for the aggressive hive that you have. There are a couple of ways to
handle it. If you have any hives in an isolated area, this would be the
first one to place there. (It may deter vandals)
You may requeen with one from a more gentle hive. I would not use a
virgin queen. She would mate with a drone from the aggressive hive and
possible carry over the same genes. It is possible that you may need to
requeen more than twice to be effective. Just remember, an aggressive
hive is usually more productive.
 
Thanks for your interest.
 
Bob Neely
Goose Creek, SC USA
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On Thu, 15 May 1997 14:48:53 -0600 Charles Hatton <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
>Dear Bob Neely,
>
>Thanks for all your info on Bee-L.  I always look forward to reading =
>anything you have to say.  I read a letter you sent to an 11 year old
>=
>young man that is just starting his first hive.  My three daughters
>(11, =
>10, and 8 years old) and I just started our first hive in April.  I
>also =
>bought one for a high school senior down the street.  This has been a
>=
>great thing in all of our lives.
>
>To that 11 year old young man, you said that he should use a queen =
>excluder.  I was told by the store where I spent $600 for my two =
>unassembled hives, that a queen excluder will stop the other bees from
>=
>doing much up there.  The lady at the shop said it really is a bee =
>excluder.  I don't know what to do.  Please advise.=20
>
>A second problem I'm having is that of the two hives we built and
>bought =
>bees for, one of them has a personality of a mean wet cat and the
>other =
>is more like a friendly kitten.  Why is this?  I was thinking that if
>I =
>didn't do anything to the mean hive for six weeks, all the mean bees =
>would have been replaced by new young bees and the temperament might
>be =
>better.  Is this true?
>
>Thanks again for all you add to Bee-L.
>
>Charles in Salt Lake City
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>
>