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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>
  • To: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Another newbie question- robbers?
  • Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:42:06 -0400

Thank you Randall and Lewis.

It appears that I have very happy bees. I spend a few minutes every
day watching them from the side of the hive. There has been no
aggressive behavior yet. I fall on the careful side, so hopefully
there won't be too many more false alarms. Any books/references are
welcome (like: get another hive or visit your neighbor's setup)...
I've found them in 5 different types of flowers around the
yard/garden, and they have plenty of pollen in their baskets.

Best,
Blair

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 5:46 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:
>  Blair,
>
> Does your nuc have a lot of bees? Young bees will "flurry" around the
> entrance the first time they come out to make cleansing flights. They'll
> bobble in the air, facing the entrance. They can do this in large numbers.
> But these are Happy Bees, and over time you'll learn to tell the difference
> between this activity and robbing. If you stand near the entrance when these
> Happy Bees are flying, they leave you alone. On the other hand, if the hive
> is being robbed and you stand near the entrance you may very well get stung.
> If the robbing hasn't been going on for long, you'll see bees fighting at
> the entrance. If the robbing has gone on for a long time, the "home bees"
> will be defeated and you may not see any fighting.
>
> A cup of sugar syrup a day isn't a whole lot, so that by itself doesn't
> suggest a problem.
>
> Check the comb on your frames. If they are empty and ragged-looking, and/or
> there are wax flakes on the bottom board (if you have a solid bottom), then
> that is a sure sign of robbing. Robbers are obnoxious guests and they rip up
> the hive looking for what they want.
>
> If you decide that you are in fact being robbed, shut off the entrance
> entirely and leave it that way until tomorrow. If you've got a screened
> bottom board, you can use a towel or something similar to close the entrance
> (the hive won't suffocate because of the screened bottom). If you don't have
> a screened bottom board, close the entrance with some screen or something
> else that "breaths".
>
> Once robbing starts it is hard to stop, so prevention is much better than
> remediation.
>
> Reducing the entrance is a good idea when you are starting a small nuc. I
> would use a 3/4 by 3/4 stick, long enough to cover ALL but about two inches
> of the entrance. In your video, bees are coming and going at will all along
> the front of the hive, so the stick you've used doesn't seem to be
> fulfilling its purpose of creating a small "defensive line".
>
> I would also highly recommend using something other than a Boardman entrance
> feeder. There are lots of interesting options but I prefer cheap, simple &
> effective. If you have an empty hive body, put it on top of the bottom deep
> and simply set the inverted mason jar that you already have directly on the
> top bars of the frames, making sure that most of the lid holes are
> accessible to the bees. Voila, now you have top feeder. Any robber bees will
> now have to travel through the entire hive population to steal syrup. You
> can use more than one jar if you like, or a bigger one.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Randall Austin
>
>
>
> On 6/19/2011 12:28 PM, Blair Christian wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I just got my first bees last week- a nuc from the Carolina bee
>> company in Youngsville.  Call me paranoid, but sometimes there are
>> just a few workers flying in and out, but other times there are
>> "large" (large relative to what it usually is) numbers of bees
>> zigzagging and flying in/out of the hive.  I remember seeing a Keith
>> Delaplane video where he mentioned that was a sign of robber bees.  I
>> put a few sticks around the entrance to restrict the movement.  The
>> behavior has been consistent since the day after I got them, but these
>> bee clouds around the front of the hive have gotten bigger and bigger,
>> they come and go at different times of the day.
>>
>> Video here (15 sec):
>> https://picasaweb.google.com/blair.christian/Animals#5619965362738696914
>>
>> Photos:
>> https://picasaweb.google.com/blair.christian/Animals#5619963851425860354
>> https://picasaweb.google.com/blair.christian/Animals#5619963828383035842
>>
>> They've been going through about a cup of 1:1 sugar syrup a day as well.
>>
>> Is this normal, or if it is robber bees, what do I do?
>>
>> Best,
>> Blair
>> _______________________________________________
>> ocba mailing list
>> North Carolina Beekeeping
>> http://www.theocba.org/
>>
>
>



--
Blair Christian, PhD
919-627-1122




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