Identifying robbing

[Queen Brenda]

Excuse me if this is a bit of a nitwit question, but I've read a lot about 'robbing' causing bad temper, low stores etc.

My question is, how do you recognise robbers? If you see a wasp or 2 sniffing around, presumably that is a warning that more may be on the way, but does it take whole swarms/loads of wasps to qualify as robbing and how do you know if a crowd of bees entering the hive entrance are robbers or just workers coming home after a hard day's work?

Yesterday I checked a newish colony requeened in early June. Lots of eggs and healthy brood but I was surprised at low stores although busy bees at entrance and lots of pollen going in. Today, crowds of bees flying around entrance and 1 or 2 wasps around there too. Might the crowds be alien robbers? Or are they just pulling their fingers out to lay down stores?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Robber bees dart backwards and forwards trying to get entry and you will get fighting at the entrance. There will be dead bees in front of the hive. Another thing to look for is a sudden noticeable amount of torn off cappings under the hive if the robbers have got in.
You might be seeing so called orientation flights and the odd wasp investigation.
I hope you have the entrance reduced right down, especially as you have seen wasps.
How much in the way of stores have they actually got?

 

[Queen Brenda]

Each of the 8 frames in the BB has a full and healthy load of eggs and brood in a nice pattern with most, not all, frames having capped and uncapped honey in the corners. I was about to start feeding with syrup but there is so much activity and pollen, I thought I would wait and see. It's lovely and warm/sunny here too. I am about to go and drastically reduce the entrance now. No bodies, uncappings or fighting seen yet. The 2 outside frames have not yet been drawn out and they are all squeezed together with spacer boards.

 

[madasafish]

If you MUST feed, wait until evening when all fliers have gone. and spill nothing. And only feed enough to last overnight.

Feeding only one hive encourages robbing by the others.

(One of the ways which may prevent robbing by your own bees is to feed all the hives. Of course if the robbing is by other bees..it won't work )

 

[itma]

Each of the 8 frames in the BB has a full and healthy load of eggs and brood in a nice pattern with most, not all, frames having capped and uncapped honey in the corners. I was about to start feeding with syrup but there is so much activity and pollen, I thought I would wait and see. It's lovely and warm/sunny here too. I am about to go and drastically reduce the entrance now. No bodies, uncappings or fighting seen yet. The 2 outside frames have not yet been drawn out and they are all squeezed together with spacer boards.

Yes, reduce the entrance anyway.

Move an undrawn frame "in" - between the end of the brood nest and the first stores-only frame. It'll be drawn much quicker there than at the outside.
You'd want to have a brood box full of drawn (and then well-filled) frames before winter. Drawing wax gets harder as the weather gets colder. So that is your next priority.

Wasps inside the hive is a very bad sign - watch for it!

 

[Queen Brenda]

Right, entrances on all 3 hives about 5 bees wide. In the hive I'm worried about with ?low stores, although lots of pollen coming in, I have no frames full of stores only at the edges. All the frames in use have brood and eggs only, with 4 or 5 central frames with stores only in the corners. No frames are full of stores on,y.

I know not nearly enough for winter yet and am prepared to feed syrup, then fondant only later, but I was hoping they would be building up stores now. As they are in the garden, I can keep a close eye, although I'm quite happy to feed syrup now if those stores present are thought to be critically low.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Counting all the stores in this hive, do you think they have a frames worth? If they do this will be ok for a week. The queen should be slowing her lay rate down and the bees will start to back fill the brood nest. You have lots of time yet to get winter stores in, especially if you feed invert syrup.

 

[itma]

If there is less than one frame (total) of honey stores in the hive, you'd be best to be feeding now.

On that small colony, I'd reduce the entrance even more than you have.
There is absolutely no point in feeding wasps!



Looking ahead to Winter, the worry is that you could do with some more drawn comb - so that you have enough capacity to store enough to see them through.

Something that might be worth considering is stealing a drawn frame from each of your other two hives - and getting them to draw a new frame each. The frames I'd choose to steal would be fully drawn, no brood, but with the least stores.
This is the time of year that some bee farmers (and some others) would get a frame drawn by sticking it right in the middle of the brood in a strong colony …

For building stores fast, commercial bee syrups are best. But there's no panic yet - 2:1 sugar syrup should be fine for now. Thinner syrups fuel comb-building, and need more work to lay down as stores.