It may be the weather. Bees get anxious when it is about to rain / thunder,
and it feels rather like that here.
In general bees which have swarmed are really nice... too nice to judge
their real character. At first, you see, they have nothing to protect in
their new home. It generally takes about a week for them to settle down and
have brood and comb and stores to defend, and only then d you learn their
true demeanour.
I have been wondering about my own bees, one hive seems more defensive than
usual since it re-activated in Spring. I've been thinking about this. I
note that I just added a box to that hive without trouble, probably because
I lifted the entire 3 boxes already there as one unit and never broke the
nest up, just confused them a bit. (Note: I would have difficulty lifting
just 2 boxes if they were full of honey! I'm not some kind of muscleman.) I
have also done observations on them without protection. I think my memory
is selectively exaggerating the bad events when I got buzzed by guards
(like mowing the other day, or standing in the bee line of their busy
entrance while gardening) and forgetting the more numerous OK ones. This
cognitive bias can confuse matters.
Anyhow that's my bees. Yours may differ.
Lynne points out wasps seem quite active now. I'm not sure if they raid
hives in Spring - I know they do at the end of Autumn. That could be a
stressor.
Paul
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 at 17:07, Dawn Gosling <magikmum49@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Do you know ( I'm a bit of a dreamer) but think they are not aggressive
but checking you out. If they are a little insecure they may just be
seeking comfort in someone they know???
Ready for ridicule now be gentle:))
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019, 15:47 Marc Sheikh, <marc.sheikh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Gilliane,
Interesting you have noticed increased aggression, I have also had the
same experience the last couple of weeks. I’ve also noticed quite a few
hornets and wasps around and had assumed it was spike in competitive
activity due to the increase in temperature which has put the bees up to
deathcon 5. I have the stings to prove it which has not been an issue in
the past...
Regards
Marc
On 23 Apr 2019, at 15:05, Gilliane Sills <dmarc-noreply-outsider@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
from a sailing trip yesterday to find them in a bush - a big swarm.
The bees in my hive swarmed some time over the weekend - we came back
Richard helped me get them off the bush into a box and I hived them
yesterday evening. I shan't know for a couple of days whether they've
settled in the new hive, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The colony
had seemed very vigorous earlier, I thought I'd seen drones, and the parent
colony had swarmed last year early in May so I was half expecting that
they'd swarm soon this year.
was hiving them than the parent colony has ever been. I shook the box on
One thing that surprised me is that they were more aggressive when I
to a white sheet in front of the hive and they started going in
immediately, but quite a few bees buzzed noisily round me, clearly trying
to get at my face. Does anyone have any thoughts why this might have been?
Best wishes
Gilliane
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