Robbing

[Jaytee]

I did a false swarm on my very strong colony 7 days ago and all was going well until yesterday when I noticed lots of dead and fighting bees around the entrance and on the ground in front of the hive with the queen, flying bees and 2 supers on it. The colony that I am feeding with syrup until the new queen successfully mates and becomes established was being totally ignored. I am sure the hive was being robbed so I closed up the entrances on both hives to 1 bee space and on the advice of a very experienced bee keeper in my club sprayed water scented with vanilla on the fighting bees which did seem to calm the situation down.There was still some fighting today and dead bees on the ground but no where near as bad as yesterday.
Has anybody else had this problem after doing a false swarm and do you have any more tips for how to deal with it as I know that robbing is hard to put a stop to once it has started.

Jaytee

 

[tonybloke]

reduced entrance is your best bet

 

[Nellie]

Agree with the reduced entrances, another trick that you can try with robbing is to swap the hives around. I.e. if the robbers are coming from one hive into the other, swap the brood boxes so that the robbed hive becomes, essentially, the robber. I've not tried it personally, but I'm told that can help stop robbing.

 

[ultreen1]

I had robbing bees last week, I reduced the entrance, covered it with grass, put a glass pane in front and sprayed water. They left and never came back.

 

[Jaytee]

Thanks for replies. The robbers are coming from outside my apiary as I only have 2 hives; the second one created from the false swarm last week. The queen cell in the original BB hasn't yet hatched and most of the bees are not flying from that colony at the moment so are being fed syrup with an Ashforth feeder. The new colony created with the original queen are flying strongly as weather has been quite dry and sunny here for last 2 days consequently they are all piling up at the entrance trying to get in and out. How long would you leave the reduced entrances after seeing things return to normal? Luckily the hives are at the end of my garden so I was aware of the commotion so able to do something about it.

Judy

 

[Midland Beek]

It is maybe the feeding that has precipitated the robbing, although the colony being robbed isn't the one being fed, all it takes sometimes is a splash of syrup on the ground. My point being, the robber bees may have recently had their supply of syrup turned off.

 

[Jaytee]

Today has been a much better day with no signs of fighting but there are lots of dead bees being thrown out of the hive with quite a big pile on the ground. Both hives have been foraging well as it's been warm and sunny with no rain so far; in fact I had to remove the foam from the entrances as they were all struggling to get in and out carrying lots of pollen. I was wondering if they had flown through insecticide which made them smell different and so started the fighting which might account for the number of dead bees. Will keep a close eye on things as I've spoken to all the local farmers who have agreed to ring me the night before spraying. Hope that's the end of the problems at present.
Judy