When creating new families, collecting bees from several hives, family reunification and in all circumstances, when bees from several units mix, you have to take into account the phenomenon of hostility of bees. After meeting in a hive or in another room, bees not raised in the same nest or bees from another nest, that were temporarily separated, there may be a mutual demand. The easiest way to prevent this is by smoking and shaking off the bees – these, already in the room, and these, that are attached to them. There is little hostility among bees from different families that do not currently have a queen, i.e.. from the so-called orphan families (motherless). There is no hostility in very young bees. Occasionally, however, you can see attempts to attack young bees by old bees.
In beekeeping practice, an important issue is also the problem of hostility of bees to a queen other than this one, with which they have been a bee colony so far, and more precisely to this one, who did not bite out of the nursery in their company. This creates problems when replacing old mothers with young ones, replacing defective queens with appropriate ones and may sometimes lead to self-elimination of the swarm.
Depending on the season, the intensity of mutual hostility of bees and hostility to a strange mother varies and almost disappears with a strong flow of nectar into the hive. Little hostility occurs in the spring, greater in the fall, and the largest within a few days after each interruption of the nectar flow.
