Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Unfortunately only a couple of her offspring had nice natures, and after three years, I
found Rose dead on the hive floor.
A variety of factors may influence how aggressive a colony becomes. As a general rule,
established colonies are more aggressive than small nuclei, and so any test of aggression
should be made when a nuc grows into a colony. The degree of aggression also depends
on the beekeeper's perception - I inspected a colony of so-called aggressive Italians in
New Zealand and thought they were flies!
The factors that may influence a colony's aggressive tendencies and possible remedies
are listed in Table 4.
Cause
Remedy
Queen genetics/race genetics
Re-queen from a gentle race of bees
Hive being robbed by wasps/bees
Find and destroy the wasps nest (see the
section on robbing later in this chapter)
Hive being disturbed by large animals
Resite hive or fence off hives
Hives badly sited - under power lines, near
Resite hives
a busy road, under dripping trees, etc.
Bad weather (affects some colonies)
Work in good weather. Obvious!
No honey flow
Check for sufficient stores
Beekeeper works an aggressive colony,
Always work the aggressive colony last
which then disturbs other colonies
Colony found to be queenless
Re-queen if no laying workers/disease
Bees affected by spray poisoning
See the section on spray damage later in
this chapter
Too much use of smoke. This can make
Use only the minimum of smoke
some colonies aggressive
Table 4.
The causes of, and remedies for, aggressiveness
