Wasps attacking hive

[derekthegardener]

I am in my second year of beekeeping this year. In July this year I was alerted to a swarm, which I captured, hived in a spare National hive and fed. Over the past few days I've noticed a serious wasp problem at this hive, my other hive seems ok. I've narrowed the entrance to about 40mm (1.5 ins) but the attack on the hive is constant. Yesterday the defence by the bees was very strong, but today the wasps seem to be getting the upper hand. Any suggestions what I should do?

 

[gentle001]

I had the same problem so i narrowed the hive to 1 to 2 bee space and it has helped loads.

Have put wasp traps everywhere!!! Catching about 100 wasps every day, 100 wasps less attacking my hive. They seem to leave my ladies alone now and just drown themselves. Have hunted in vain for the nests but they best watch out if I find them!!

Iam only a newbie so iam sure there are far more experienced people to advise you

 

[rae]

Reduce the entrance to 1 bee space - an aperture enough for 1 bee to go though.

Once the bees have given up, they will be quickly overwhelmed, even with a tiny entrance. They eventually get to a point where they know they are stuffed, and don't try any more.

If they get to the point where they give up, then you either need to close them up (make sure there is weak syrup for them), or move them. A move will often give enough respite for them to recover their morale, but if they are very weak, then this respite won't last long.

 

[user 6228]

What makes the wasps give up? They tried my Nuc and gave up completely and so far have not returned... They are still attacking the main hive but with only two wasps.
The entrance to the nuc is an inclined tunnel 150mm wide by 12mm high by 50mm long . When the attack started on the nuc It lost about 30-40 bees (the nuc is surrounded by concrete slabs). I then closed the entrance to 25mm wide at one side, with some clear plastic ,at the hive end of the tunnel, late one evening. The choice of entrance size, material and timing was unplanned and an act of desperation. After that the wasp attack quickly diminished and dissapeared. Any clues why?

 

[Erichalfbee]

You could try moving the colony two to three feet to the side and putting a wasp trap in its place

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Rat glue!

 

[Erichalfbee]

No
It catches birds as well

 

[WelshPaul]

What's rat glue, as I have the same problem with wasps, and I've reduced the entrance to one bee space?


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[Monsieur Abeille]

No
It catches birds as well

Yes, best not to leave it where birds are likely to land

What's rat glue, as I have the same problem with wasps, and I've reduced the entrance to one bee space?

Numerous threads on here about it. Smear some on a piece of cardboard with some jam, wasps love it, bees ignore it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have a waspbane near the hives...........will give it a try.
They're persistent buggers aren't they?
I reduced all my entrances down and the hives with Apilife on have lots of bees out on the front so nothing is getting past those at the moment.

 

[rae]

What makes the wasps give up?

Like the terminator, they never give up.

We have wasps having a go at one of our largest colonies - they must be nuts, but they try and get into an absolutely huge hive, and either get thown out intact (the lucky ones), or come out in pieces. Presumably they don't tell their mates that there are easy pickings there, but they still try.

A nuc will not mount such an effective defence, but as long as the entrance block is small, they should be good enough to make sure the wasps don't think it is easy. As soon as the bees give up, they are rapidly inundated.

I think wasps exhibit random + learned behaviour. If you put something sweet in a field, you will get wasps: the number depends on the number of wasps in the area. As soon as they realise there is a good feed, they will come back for more, thus you get the random wasps + the educated wasps. I'm not sure if they have the equivalent of the waggle dance to tell their mates where the food is. So even a strong hive will get the random wasps all the time, and as soon as they find a weakness, the number will rise very fast.