SoCal Beekeeping

Had to Kill a Hive
P. Michael Henderson
September 22, 2024

I harvested honey a couple of days ago and one of my hives was quite aggressive*.  Today, I went back into the hive, just to replace the super frames.  The hive was aggressive and the bees followed me quite a long ways.

I will not put up with an aggressive hive.  They're a pain to work with, and they could be a danger to a person or animal.  I have two dogs and I sure don't want to see the bees attack them

I saved all the super (honey) frames and sprayed the bees in the brood section with soapy water (Dawn detergent and water in a spray bottle).  I didn't spray the super frames - that would mess up the honey.  It takes a while to kill a big hive and there are bees flying all around, but gradually things settle down.  The remaining bees clustered on part of the disassembled hive and I sprayed them.

I threw all the brood frames in the yard and the other bees settled on them to take the honey.  I'll pick up the frames when the bees are finished.

Here are the pictures.  First, the brood frames.  I'd take one out, spray the bees on it with soapy water and then throw the frame in a pile.

And the remnants of the brood area of the hive.  You can see the two brood boxes, the bottom board, the excluder and the stand.  I had already used my leaf blower to blow most of the dead bees into the shrubbery.

I didn't take a picture of the supers.  I extracted all the honey from the supers and got about 35 pounds of honey.

I'll clean up the boxes, repair parts, if necessary, and repaint.  I probably won't be able to save many of the brood frames.  I was able to save almost all of the super frames.

These bees are hybrid bees so there's no place to purchase a replacement queen.  I could only purchase a European queen and that would put me in the varroa suppression business - which I don't want.  I get calls for swarms all the time, so when I'm ready, I'll put a swarm in that hive.

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*You may wonder how a hive that was docile becomes agressive.  It happens sometimes when they make a new queen.  If the hive swarms, the old queen goes with the swarm and they make a new queen for the hive.  Or, if the old queen begins to fail, they will make a new queen.  That queen will make a mating flight to mate with up to about 17 drones.  If she mates with drones from agressive hives, more than likely her offspring will be agressive.  This was my oldest hive so I expect they made a new queen (for one of those reasons) and she mated with the wrong boys.  Young females are attracted to the "bad boys":-)

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