I had a couple of old supers (from first owner of the
bees) that were pretty rotted out and decided to replace them. I bought some lumber and made new boxes and
painted them. It was a pretty nice
morning on Wednesday. I waited till I
saw bees coming and going from the entrance and suited up and lit my
smoker. I knew (even with my normally
docile bees) that moving the brood frames would probably anger them so I put on
the gloves this time.
Removing the honey supers brought angry buzzing and lot's
of head butting. I should have just put the supers back on and walked
away. However I knew that I only had to
move 10 frames. Huge mistake!!!
The first three frames brought six stings through my bee
suit. I went into the house and took a
shower and removed any stings from myself and my suit. The suit had several dozen stingers in
it. I washed and dried the suit then
went back out. The shower and clothes
washing did nothing I was immediately attacked in force upon getting within 10
feet of the hive. At the time I thought
I just had a "hot" box. I
moved a few more frames, taking stings through my bee suit the whole time. I gritted my teeth and pressed on moving
frame by frame.
Now I've been keeping bees for three years and in that
time I've only gotten one sting up till now.
I've done cut out's, pulling brood comb from RV's and attic's etc. I've caught swarms. I've even captured feral bees. Never have I dealt with bees this aggressive
or angry before.
Usually if my bee's got a little stirred up I would
simply walk away from the hive about ten or fifteen feet and they would settle
down after awhile and I could get back to work.
That trick didn't work this time.
These angry bees followed me through the woods and even into my barn
stinging all the way.
I know that requeening is the recommended action in these
cases. However I can't imagine holding
the frames in front of me calmly and finding her with literally hundreds of
bees attacking me at the same time, especially with a surprising number of
stings making it through my bee suit. I
ran into the house and removed as many of the stinging bees from my suit as I
could. Then I fished my phone out and
sent a text message to my family warning them of the danger. Our bees are usually about 200 feet from our
house. Fortunately they were all out.
I have children, elderly, and animals on the property
with the bees. I decided this time
around the prudent course of action was to burn the aggressive hive. I carried the boxes to a clearing, getting
stung every step of the way, and piled them up and burned them. When I went back in I pulled one stinging
worker off my arm and put her in a zip lock bag and froze her.
I had hoped to build up to four hives this year but I am
down to just one. I am not sure if it's
aggressive or not, still working up the courage to go back out there.
The doctor counted 22 stings about my back, shoulders,
left arm, and left leg. He gave me
Benadryl and sent me home and told me to rest for three days. I've had a few nightmares and I am a little
gun shy from bees now.
Don't know if these were Africanized or not but
demonstrated the behaviors that I've read about AHB.
If I stay in beekeeping I'll probably requeen all my
hives every other spring or so.
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