Bee hive on coop roof?

[Pullet-Shut Chicken Doors]

No big deal, I always tell beekeepers who cant lift to bring extra boxes and take out a few frames at a time.

Mine are about 50ft away and in 20 years never had a problem. I would never keep hot bees like that. Responsibly you should requeen those hives so your not producing drones that could breed with other beekeepers queens.

They wont win the war of me pouring a bucket of water with dish detergent on them.

Agreed overall. Where there is a will, there is a way. And there will always be various obstacles.

Note, I'm in central Texas, and africanized genetics just dominate. Less so in the cities, but out rural areas as I'm in is a always-losing battle. Yes, I could requeen. Would have to do it at least once a year. Times 150 hives. Times $25 each (and that's a good price). So talking $4k per year just for keeping queen genetics non-AHB. No thanks. I've found a way that works for me keeping AHB genetics. In fact I created and teach a class I call "Managing Mean Bees" which has had hundreds of students take over the past few years. It's not for everyone, but I teach methods to improve safety for all (people, pets, and the bees). Hopefully it has helped people to avoid many of the mistakes that I've made over the years. And "mean bees" are not just AHB, everywhere you will find people with a mean colony, the vast majority of which will tell you it's their most productive and rugged colony.

This is one of the wonderful things about beekeeping. There isn't "The way". I teach "My way" and understand that other people will have "their way".

And we can sit together and laugh about both our common views and our differences. An example, I call my brother (who lives near Chicago) in January and ask him how the weather is, when it's 70F outside by me. He calls me in August and asks how the weather is down here, when it's 105F and 70F up there. To each their own, for good and for bad. I choose not to own a snow shovel, he chooses not to die in the heat... to each their own!

 

[Pullet-Shut Chicken Doors]

Africanized bees are a whole other kettle of fish… they’ve been known to rundown humans and kill them. my hives are right next to my coop for years and I’ve had zero issue with chickens and bees interacting.

Very true. And a kettle from Mars! As I replied to Apis Melifera, we each have our own preferences.

For me, I've never bought a bee and every colony I have are from removals I've done over the years. I'm in central Texas, and the majority of feral bees out in my rural area are modest to dominantly africanized. They can be nice, and they can be nightmares, and sometimes it depends on the day I see them. I like these genetics for multiple reasons. 1) treatment free. 2) 90% annual survival rates. 3) decent honey producers. 4) Lots of splits available if I want. 5) Zero mite treating, or even checking. 6) Minimal "management" requiring my time.

I have 150 hives across 20+ apiaries, and go into each hive maybe 6 times a year. Feed in Spring, split+super, pull honey, feed through summer dearth, check in fall (I leave any fall honey for them), and feed again going into winter if needed. I don't look for queens. I don't worry about their strength. They know how to be 'bees' better than I can teach them. It has taken a number of years to iron out my process, but it works for me. I know it's not for everyone.

 

[Birdinhand]

Very true. And a kettle from Mars! As I replied to Apis Melifera, we each have our own preferences.

For me, I've never bought a bee and every colony I have are from removals I've done over the years. I'm in central Texas, and the majority of feral bees out in my rural area are modest to dominantly africanized. They can be nice, and they can be nightmares, and sometimes it depends on the day I see them. I like these genetics for multiple reasons. 1) treatment free. 2) 90% annual survival rates. 3) decent honey producers. 4) Lots of splits available if I want. 5) Zero mite treating, or even checking. 6) Minimal "management" requiring my time.

I have 150 hives across 20+ apiaries, and go into each hive maybe 6 times a year. Feed in Spring, split+super, pull honey, feed through summer dearth, check in fall (I leave any fall honey for them), and feed again going into winter if needed. I don't look for queens. I don't worry about their strength. They know how to be 'bees' better than I can teach them. It has taken a number of years to iron out my process, but it works for me. I know it's not for everyone.

Would love to start a whole other thread on THIS subject! I’ve never gotten as serious as you with bees but I have been around them since I was a child, with the advent of the first big issues with hive callapse/mites in the 70’s and more recently as my kids came to be, me wanting to share some of my old farm life with them even though we are in the suburbs!

Your experience brings up a whole flip side to this subject ans it relates to this thread: are we breeding out hardiness as we breed out aggression? Seems like it! It’s very hard to keep “domesticated bees” alive once they have been bread so much by humans selecting for specific traits not necessarily with what’s best for the bees in mind. It’s fairly clear to me that we have created an unintended selection pressure for non-hygienic bees that need a lot of coddling. It happened with the first German bees brought over in the 1700’s, requiring new strains from Italy and now even those strains are collapsing with the new trend being wild Russian bees, which, surprise surprise, are more aggressive. Then there’s this very interesting situation we have on the Olympic peninsula with an apiary that claims it has found the original German strain out in the wild, a strain that has learned/evolved for centuries to handle the damp winters of the Olympic temperate rainforest… relatively mite free! The state of things in the commercial bee world are rather screwed up it seems, pesticides that inadvertently lead to the mites developing resistance the bees developing reliance and I’ve been coming to some of the same conclusions as you. but it’s hard being so close to neighbors, where we are supposed to register our hives and are vulnerable to complaints. The science side of me wonders if correlation and causation truly collide here or if there is a way to breed hygenic/mite resistant bees that are docile/urban friendly. Time will tell. Certainly allowing them to go wild and occasionally cross breeding seems like a good thing to keep the gene pool diverse.

 

[Pullet-Shut Chicken Doors]

Would love to start a whole other thread on THIS subject! I’ve never gotten as serious as you with bees but I have been around them since I was a child, with the advent of the first big issues with hive callapse/mites in the 70’s and more recently as my kids came to be, me wanting to share some of my old farm life with them even though we are in the suburbs!

Your experience brings up a whole flip side to this subject ans it relates to this thread: are we breeding out hardiness as we breed out aggression? Seems like it! It’s very hard to keep “domesticated bees” alive once they have been bread so much by humans selecting for specific traits not necessarily with what’s best for the bees in mind. It’s fairly clear to me that we have created an unintended selection pressure for non-hygienic bees that need a lot of coddling. It happened with the first German bees brought over in the 1700’s, requiring new strains from Italy and now even those strains are collapsing with the new trend being wild Russian bees, which, surprise surprise, are more aggressive. Then there’s this very interesting situation we have on the Olympic peninsula with an apiary that claims it has found the original German strain out in the wild, a strain that has learned/evolved for centuries to handle the damp winters of the Olympic temperate rainforest… relatively mite free! The state of things in the commercial bee world are rather screwed up it seems, pesticides that inadvertently lead to the mites developing resistance the bees developing reliance and I’ve been coming to some of the same conclusions as you. but it’s hard being so close to neighbors, where we are supposed to register our hives and are vulnerable to complaints. The science side of me wonders if correlation and causation truly collide here or if there is a way to breed hygenic/mite resistant bees that are docile/urban friendly. Time will tell. Certainly allowing them to go wild and occasionally cross breeding seems like a good thing to keep the gene pool diverse.

Ask and you shall receive. Birdinhand, I've started a thread "Bees, temperament and toughness' in the "other pets and livestock" forum.