Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Question on the Temperament or attitude of the hive. I have one hive, that is the parent hive that I started with back in 2006 I believe, that has had the same Temperament the entire time. No issie with mowing around them, no issue with working them, and this is consistent year to year. They are not what I would call quiet on the comb bees, as they do take to air, and buzz quite a bit when worked all the way down to the bottom board, but that is beekeeping. My question is this, why do splits, or swarms from that hive, have a more aggressive attitude about them? This hive swarmed last year, and I caught and hived them, and they are on the hot side of bees. A split, and swarm from it, both got to the point that I said enough. They both now have marked Minnisota Hygenic Queens in them. The split from my parent hive accepted the queen, and is middle of the road with temperament, the swarm from the split, that was the most aggressive, is still a bit on the hot side of the scale. They still have the marked Minnisota Queens, so, what determines the hive temperament?

Evrerything.....

The location, IE: amount of sun and/or wind.

Pests, IE: skunk, ants, dog

Hive condition, IE: more/less ventilation

weather

There's probably some I'm leaving out.

Then the bees themselves.

You said gentle bees went mean when they swarmed? The old queen goes with the swarm. The meanness had to come from conditions rather than genetics.

That is what I thought too. But the swarm is certainly more agressive. The only thing I can figure, is that the swarm was an after swarm, with a new queen? But that still does not explain the other hive maintaining the temperament it had?

Got me.