"Peter Taylor" wrote in message
...

I have a question Mary

I once had a girlfriend whose dad was a beekeeper and he used to let me
help him
tend the hives sometimes. I don't remember much about it now, except that
it
was my job to puff the smoke generator thingy, and it seemed to me that
the bees
in one of the hives were much more aggressive and became angry sooner than
the
others. I will always remember my trepidation when we approached this
particular hive and removed the lid. Was this my imagination or do
different
hives really have different "temperaments" (if that's the right word)?

They do seem to. Some beekeepers say that it can be a function of the
'strain' of the bee. I don't know if properly controlled studies have been
done on this aspect, it's very difficult to guarantee identical genetic
inheritance.

Some beekeepers say that it's a function of weather. I'd agree with this in
that if the weather isn't good for nectar production the bees are definitely
tetchy. My mentor used to say that women at home with nothing to do are to
be treated with respect ...

The queen has a very complex funtion in the hive, if there is a problem with
the queen - not laying well, getting old and not producing the chemical
which maintains colony cohesion* the bees are very 'defensive' (I'd rather
not use the term 'aggressive', they don't go looking for trouble but react
to outside stimulants). If a queen is removed from a colony the bees are
disoriented and defensive within a few minutes.

There are other things which can go wrong inside the, again, very complex
social structure of the colony and can make it display this defense symptom.
There are external factors too, some chemicals (such as agricultural
sprays), while not necessarily killing the bees, disquiet the colony.

Bees, like many insects, respond defensively to vibrations. If the beekeeper
is clumsy and bangs the hive the bees will often respond. Some beekeepers
think that this is the very way to manage their colonies, that you hve to
show them who's master. I suspect they're the ones who beat their dogs into
submission ...

I've had the experience of a tetchy colony in our apiary, an apparently
similar colony to all the others, has gone into defensive mode. Sometimes
it's temporary, at other times the only way to deal with it, short of
destroying the colony which no-one likes to do is to re-queen, that can have
a dramatic effect.

But to re-queen you have to go into the colony, disturb it even more and
find the old queen - one insect in, say, 50,000. To do that when you're
frightened and they don't want you in there is daunting ...

Another thing my mentor used to say is that "bees do nothing invariably".
Many beekeepers don't believe this, they think they know all about their
charges. They're wrong, no-one knows everything despite more research having
been done over centuries on bees than any other animal except Man. That's
one of the fascinations I suppose, we can never be in absolute control of
honeybees.

This won't have helped you at all, sorry! There's no one answer to your
question and from this distance in time and space I couldn't even begin to
suggest a reason.

Mary

* the beekeeping world is unimaginative in its Naming of Parts. The chemical
which the queen exudes from her skin is licked off and transferred orally
round every bee in the hive and is absolutely essential to maintaining a
'happy family'. I think its chemical name is something like
di-hydro-methyl-oxy-furfuraldehyde but I might have got a bit of it wrong.
It doesn't really matter, few know it as that. Its official name is 'queen
substance'.


Peter