Some advice please

[orvette1]

I have a hive I think are German bees.  They are the meanest I have ever worked. I asked before about requeening.  I'll ask again.  I want to put a more gentle queen so I can work them without trouble.  I have been unable to find the queen with so many bees and the mean nature of the hive.  Any suggestions on what to do.  I really don't want to keep such a mean hive but since I can't import bees I can't afford to lose a hive. I picked up this hive from a swarm. The queen died and before I could stop it, they replaced her.

[BjornBee]

Mean bees sometimes equates into queens that are very good at hiding. If you can get a couple other beekeepers to give you a hand that may help.

Other than that, break apart the brood chamber into separate hives. Wait a few day, and look to see where the eggs are, where the queen cells are, etc. But do not stop at just finding a queen in the first box. There is always a chance you may have more than one queen.

Some isolate the queen with excluders, but putting all that back together to deal with a full size hive again another day, just makes no sense to me.

Once you break the hive brood boxes apart into individual boxes, you can go through one or all, and take your time without being overwhelmed.

Good Luck,

[jdpro5010]

If you really really are desperate and don't mind alot of work and getting stung a few times.....    You can put a queen excluder between the two boxes (assuming a two box hive) and wait 4 or 5 days.  Then go back and see which box has eggs in it. Take the other box and set it on a seperate bottom board  and put the excluder on top of it.  Then take an empty box and set it on top of the excluded box.  Preceed to take all the frames out of the box with the queen in it one at a time.  Shake every last bee off of every frame into the empty box.  Then shake the remaining bees out of the box that contained the frames.  Watch as the bees go down thru the excluder and you will probably find the Queen.  As I said this is if you are really desperate and don't mind getting stung.

[kathyp]

try spraying them with some sugar syrup.  split the boxes and go through them frame by frame.  if you can't find the queen leave them split and then see in a few days which box has the queen.  go through that box again. 

you can shake them out, but you'll end up with a ball of bees on the ground protecting the queen.  you can go through that clump and find her....

the only problem with separating the boxes is that the queenless box will try to make a queen from the brood they have.  you don't want them to requeen from the same stock.  it would be better, i think, to have a queen...kill the one that is in there, and put the new queen (in box) into hive.  give them 4 or 5 days to get used to her and then turn her lose if they have accepted her.

an alternative might be to kill the queen, swap the brood out with brood from other hives and let them requeen themselves from new stock.  distribute the brood from this hive between several others.

[gmcharlie]

not sure,  but I have been told  if you dump out all the bees in the grass a few yards away,  the queen won't make it back?   just something I read somewhere so I am not sure if it will work.

[Brian D. Bray]

One way to requeen is to take a frame of brood with eggs from another hive that is gentle and has other desired traits and place it into the hive of the hot hive after killing the queen.    The in about 3-4 days go back through and kill any queen cells that are not on the selected frame.  Do the same in another 3-4 days.  That should insure that the new queen comes from the frames transferred into the hive and will change the genetics but some of the drones from the hot hive will mate wit the new queen but the cross out should greatly reduce the hotness of that genetic line while retaining other desirable traits.

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm