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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #7714  by AdamD
 11 Jun 2020, 11:16
Smoker bellows are also a good place for stings to reside from the previous inspection - something I saw once.
 #7715  by AdamD
 11 Jun 2020, 11:26
NigelP wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 11:28

I've noticed that hive temperament is a bit of Ying and Yang. Sometimes the queen influences it strongly and sometimes it's the genetics of the worker bees. As queens mate with several drones you only need one "bad" drone and you get an approx 10% aggressive workforce. Bit simplified explanation but near enough.
Yes, often a new queen will calm the bees down after a couple of weeks. Sometimes though, it takes 2 months for the genetics of the previous queen's bees to go. VERY occasionally, bees are better when queenless after the former queen is removed. I've seen it a couple of times, the last time was when the queen was not performing well, so maybe the bees sensed something was wrong but she kept destroying supercedure cells as they were produced so they couldn't get rid of her.
 #7716  by AdamD
 11 Jun 2020, 11:28
AndrewLD wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 12:34
My biggest nuisance this year has been a colony that was actually a locally collected swarm - I wonder if the beekeeper let them go because he didn't want the hassle.
I bet that's happened more times that people would want to admit!
 #7717  by AndrewLD
 11 Jun 2020, 13:09
NigelP wrote:
11 Jun 2020, 08:26
It's not a red herring Mick, it can cause well behaved hives to appear very bad tempered, as you don't notice any stings received in thick leather gloves that are giving off alarm pheromone.
I am 100% with Nigel on this sting pheromone on leather gloves. I do use them but if I get a sting (rare but certainly felt through even posh goatskin gloves :lol: ) I immediately rub peppermint oil on the spot and I wash the gloves in warm soapy water - doesn't seem to do any harm to the gloves.
I did have some brand new gloves that always provoked a response until I rubbed malt vinegar into them (pre-peppermint oil days) must have picked up a sting and I hadn't noticed.
 #7728  by AdamD
 12 Jun 2020, 20:21
I can't recall seeing this question asked;
So, if Buckfasts are hybrids, And if I had an island 20 miles from anywhere and only had Buckfasts on it, what would the resultant bees bee like 2, 3 or 4 generations down the line? (And would that be the same for, say a pure bred Carniolan which isn't a hybrid which I assume would breed 'true' but could become inbred if there was not enough genetic diversity?).
 #7729  by AndrewLD
 12 Jun 2020, 20:55
If you had an island...... but with how many colonies?
Apparently, and I think Tom Seeley asked this about bee colonies living in the wild with no real chance to intermingle, they shuffle their genes to increase genetic diversity...
Vespids can do it too; I think people were expecting the Asian hornet to die out because it all started with just one queen in France.... still waiting ......
 #7732  by Alfred
 13 Jun 2020, 08:46
I took NPs advice to ditch the leather last year and it's paid off
Dealing with vile tempered local swarms had the gloves looking like I'd been clearing brambles in them.
Plus my huge hands pull the leather tight over the knuckles and the stings get through anyway
Marigolds work well for my current level of inspection tasks
I still use the goatskin for feeding and general tasks ( moving woodware, mowing pruning etc) near the hives because they're more durable.
I bought in cheap queen's last year and was rewarded with lovely hives that won't even acknowledge my presence on inspection.
This year however,I used exactly the same scenario and both times they didn't get beyond the ten day mark.
NigelP wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 13:47



In which case you need to man up (or woman up) and go commando and wear very thick leather gloves
Round here that means something completely different :oops: :lol:
 #7733  by Patrick
 13 Jun 2020, 09:22
Same down here Alfred, my mind was racing - and not in a good way 😂

When I started I don’t remember an alternative to leather gloves ever being discussed. The inability to wash them meant when you did they went stiff as heck and otherwise just went black with crud. I am not as good as I should be regarding hygiene between hives but leathers are a step too far.

Also, the longstanding advice that “you can’t handle queens with gloves on” meant that many beginners dutifully removes them to pick up queens and found out what happened and never attempted to pick up another queen. If by gloves you instead mean nitriles or even marigolds, just pick up the queen and get on with it.
 #7734  by AndrewLD
 13 Jun 2020, 09:48
NigelP wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 13:47
In which case you need to man up (or woman up) and go commando and wear very thick leather gloves and work as fast as you can…..no pain but lots of bee aggression.
I decided to start off our beginners course with a series of photographs showing happy beekeepers around the world handling frames of bees with no gloves and their veil back (I did carefully explain it they were portraits and thus to be treated with caution).
In my internet search for these photographs I came across a surprising number of photographs of naked beekeepers with their bees :D and no, they were not included in the slides.
 #7735  by NigelP
 13 Jun 2020, 09:50
AdamD wrote:
12 Jun 2020, 20:21
I can't recall seeing this question asked;
So, if Buckfasts are hybrids, And if I had an island 20 miles from anywhere and only had Buckfasts on it, what would the resultant bees bee like 2, 3 or 4 generations down the line? (And would that be the same for, say a pure bred Carniolan which isn't a hybrid which I assume would breed 'true' but could become inbred if there was not enough genetic diversity?).
Buckfast lines (there are several) are pretty stable hybrids. Brother Adam spent a lot of time ensuring the traits he introduced into them bred true.
So the answer is they will remain pretty much as they started.
Same as Carniolans/Italians/Amms etc. But like any population there will be some variability..