Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This is the combination of two videos ... one is a swarm I found in the woods this morning, I am zoomed it but the swarm is about 100 feet up in this huge oak tree several hundred feet from my bees.
Then a few hours later I was checking on rhubarb and some other fruits in bloom and also just walking by the front and rear bee yards to get to those locations. I noticed an empty hive had a lot of bee activity (and its probably from that earlier swarm checking out the hive) - this video is the empty hive I knew wouldn't make it over winter youtube.com/watch?v=NHHndiZ5QCI
I was recording that activity thinking that swarm I saw earlier was checking out that hive and preparing to move into it .... which I was ok with because I didn't know their temperament. While recording that activity video, just the sound of my voice caused those bees to attack from over 60 feet away.
I had a very similar thing happen last spring. I had set up a bee hive to move an over-wintered nuc into and set the hive up 2-3 days before I was ready to move the nuc. During that 2-3 days, some bees moved into that hive (I also have that video on my channel I believe). But those bees that moved into that hive were some of the meanest bees I have ever experienced in my lifetime. You could be just walking toward the hive and the vibration of your feet hitting the ground would cause those bees to swarm out to attack when you were 30 feet away. I compared them to those really mean ground hornets, they had about the same temperament ... attack first, ask questions never! I would have to suit up in a full bee suit with gloves to deal with them. I ended up squashing the queen 3x and letting them requeen to get the mean out of them and that finally worked but took pretty much all year to accomplish. I didn't expect a new swarm this year to be the same way. That makes me think someone near me has uber mean bees because feral bees are seldom mean or maybe there are feral bees with african bee dna in kentucky now?? Either way, I am not looking forward to dealing with them if they move into that empty hive. Like, I'd rather burn the hive down they are that mean lol
This is the combination of two videos ... one is a swarm I found in the woods this morning, I am zoomed it but the swarm is about 100 feet up in this huge oak tree several hundred feet from my bees.
Then a few hours later I was checking on rhubarb and some other fruits in bloom and also just walking by the front and rear bee yards to get to those locations. I noticed an empty hive had a lot of bee activity (and its probably from that earlier swarm checking out the hive) - this video is the empty hive I knew wouldn't make it over winter youtube.com/watch?v=NHHndiZ5QCI
I was recording that activity thinking that swarm I saw earlier was checking out that hive and preparing to move into it .... which I was ok with because I didn't know their temperament. While recording that activity video, just the sound of my voice caused those bees to attack from over 60 feet away.
I had a very similar thing happen last spring. I had set up a bee hive to move an over-wintered nuc into and set the hive up 2-3 days before I was ready to move the nuc. During that 2-3 days, some bees moved into that hive (I also have that video on my channel I believe). But those bees that moved into that hive were some of the meanest bees I have ever experienced in my lifetime. You could be just walking toward the hive and the vibration of your feet hitting the ground would cause those bees to swarm out to attack when you were 30 feet away. I compared them to those really mean ground hornets, they had about the same temperament ... attack first, ask questions never! I would have to suit up in a full bee suit with gloves to deal with them. I ended up squashing the queen 3x and letting them requeen to get the mean out of them and that finally worked but took pretty much all year to accomplish. I didn't expect a new swarm this year to be the same way. That makes me think someone near me has uber mean bees because feral bees are seldom mean or maybe there are feral bees with african bee dna in kentucky now?? Either way, I am not looking forward to dealing with them if they move into that empty hive. Like, I'd rather burn the hive down they are that mean lol
