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Angry or Aggressive Hives

Overview

Some bee colonies are aggressive enough that they need to have intervention by the beekeeper. My granddaughter's colony was quite aggressive, and I found that wearing gloves was quite necessary. The last time we got into that hive, my gloves sustained 38 stings!

If you have a similar colony and do not address this, beekeeping will no longer be fun (you will get stung much more often), and others in the area may also get stung.

Common Causes & Potential Solutions

Space Is Limited

When the colony is running out of space, either for the queen to lay eggs, or for the workers to store nectar and pollen, the colony can become aggressive. Some options include:

• When the brood chamber consists of 2 medium boxes (or 1 large box), adding a new box to the brood chamber may alleviate that problem.
• Another option is to remove some of the honey frames from the brood chamber, replacing these frames with ones which give the queen space to lay eggs. The best frames to use for the replacement are fully pulled out and ready for immediate use (e.g., frames from which honey has recently been extracted).

If nothing else, this is an easy solution to try.

Night Time Pests

Skunks, raccoons, and bears prey on bee hives at night. You can verify what you have using a spotting camera like is used by hunters.

For smaller pests (e.g., skunks and raccoons), you can do these things:

• Add carpet tacks to the hive entrance. This makes it harder for the pest to put their paws on the bottom board.
• Add a carpet tack surface below the entrance (same as above, but for the back paws).
• Ensure the hive is at least 16" off the ground. This exposes their belly to the bees for stinging the pest.

For larger pests (e.g., bears), you may need to install an electric fence around the apiary.

Too Near Other Colonies

Some colonies just don't like being close to other colonies. My mentor and I have both experienced this with colonies in 5-frame boxes. This colony was sitting by 3 other colonies, one in 5-frame boxes, and two in 10-frame boxes.

By moving the aggressive colony 25 feet away from the other colonies, the colony settled them down within days. They stayed relatively calm when we removed honey, and when we split the hive.

Again, this is an easy solution to try.

Bad Genetics

If none of the above-listed solutions work to resolve this issue, you will need to replace the queen. Within 2 months, this should resolve the situation.

More Information

Published Articles

• “Hot Hive Inspections” by Burns, David. Bee Culture magazine, June 2023.

Books and Papers

• ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture, by The A.I. Root Company.