Wasps!

[Fiona in South View]

Woke up this morning to see the fronts of my hives covered with wasps! There are loads! I have reduced entrances, which I am about to heavily clothe up in order to go and reduce to as little as possible, and I have jam jars out. The jam jars are working brilliantly by another hive a few metres away, but they are being ignored around these hives. And I was doing so well this year! Do pray for heavy thunderstorms? Will that get the wasps away? I don’t know what else to do other than watch helplessly, the downside of having them in your garden where you can see them from nearly every window. Presumably removing capped frames for extraction is not a good idea at present!

 

[enrico]

Have a look at this thread. Cheap and easy to make and work a treat. Or buy from Thornes or use underfloor entrance's
https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/wasp-tunnel-mark-two.45362/

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

It sounds like the wasps have penetrated the defences and are now robbing?
If you get the respite from rain, try to make up some tunnel entrances - there’s details if you search the forum and get them fitted asap.
It’s heartbreaking isn’t it? I have a bad wasp issue this year too. I have 8 traps out which are all filling, but still have a real issue. Like you I’ve been putting off opening the hives because of the danger of letting the wasps in. I’ve been unable to find the nests so far.
Good luck.

 

[Ian Cowdy]

I have just lost two colonies to wasps plus lbs of honey! I noticed that in my garden where I have Asian hornet traps they are extremely effective in trapping wasps - the bait is Trappit plus a dried fish (Dog treat type). Extremely smelly after a few days. I have now installed these by my hives and the wasps have moved to the traps instead of hawking outside the hive entrances. No hornets yet!

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Woke up this morning to see the fronts of my hives covered with wasps! There are loads! I have reduced entrances, which I am about to heavily clothe up in order to go and reduce to as little as possible, and I have jam jars out. The jam jars are working brilliantly by another hive a few metres away, but they are being ignored around these hives. And I was doing so well this year! Do pray for heavy thunderstorms? Will that get the wasps away? I don’t know what else to do other than watch helplessly, the downside of having them in your garden where you can see them from nearly every window. Presumably removing capped frames for extraction is not a good idea at present!

Know thy enemy! Have a look at the Beekeepers section of the waspbane site.
In the meantime try to relocate the besieged hive.

 

[viridens]

I have just lost two colonies to wasps plus lbs of honey! I noticed that in my garden where I have Asian hornet traps they are extremely effective in trapping wasps - the bait is Trappit plus a dried fish (Dog treat type). Extremely smelly after a few days. I have now installed these by my hives and the wasps have moved to the traps instead of hawking outside the hive entrances. No hornets yet!

Are they really hawking, or are they loitering and looking for a chance to nip into the hive entrance?

 

[Fiona in South View]

Thank you everyone! Have shown all the photos to ‘as good as’ half and he is going to see what he has for a quick solution. Interesting enough, when I went out, the numbers around the hives had reduced, but I found them all clustered up the sides of the lids, especially the one deep lid I have. They weren’t over the top, just sheltering up the sides. I have also opened up my bee shed which is close by as that proved a great wasp attraction
last year, but not so much for the bees.

 

[david230757]

Read this post this morning and then saw the wasps were going to town on a couple of our hives but luckily I had some spare ducting in the garage and an hour later it was on both on them and working a treat, thank you so much for the prompt & brilliant solution. I left both ends open and the bees are just using the nearest one. I also found some small screws were much more secure than drawing pins. The wasps have been a nuisance for a few weeks now but today is bonkers