Ugly (Mean) Bees (035)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast · Aug 19, 2021 · 13m

What do you do about ugly or mean bees? It can be difficult to determine which colony in a beeyard with several colonies is the one, or maybe one of several, that has scouting guard bees meet you at the gate when you go to a beeyard.

If you can determine which colony is the one with the problems, why is it behaving so aggressively? Several reasons come to mind – something is bothering it at night, maybe a skunk for several nights, then you come along and they've about had it with being disturbed.

Or, you caught a swarm. Where did those bees come from? Did you make a split, keep the…