Mailing list for the Person County Beekeepers Association, Roxboro, NC

[Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com>]

Kim,

I didn't notice yellow jackets being particularly bad this year in my neck of the woods (northeastern corner of Orange County). I will say that when you become a beekeeper, you do notice all sorts of things you've never thought about before. Have you seen wheel bugs (a variety of assassin bugs) feeding on your bees? They look a little like a praying mantis but have what looks like half of a circular saw blade on their thorax. I only see these in fall. Careful -- they bite!

Yellow jackets, European hornets, wheel bugs, dragon flies, etc. etc. are all opportunistic predators of bees and robbers of hives. Around here, they are an interesting factor but are not a genuine threat to hive health, any more than they are a genuine threat to human survival. A strong, healthy hive can fend them off perfectly well, no problem. We have truly serious pests that we should be concerned with (enemy #1 is varroa mites); these others are just a fascinating part of nature study and you don't need to give them a second thought.

Randall Austin

On 11/14/2014 5:27 PM, Kim Buchanan wrote:

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I have had ALOT of Yellow Jackets this fall, and in addition to the entrance reducer, I have set traps and caughtkilled hundreds, (no exaggeration) of yellow jackets on the outside of the hive. I have watched diligently, and I never saw a yellow jacket make it past my guard bees, but they sure wanted to. 

I am relatively new, but don't remember seeing a yellow jacket problem last year. Is this year particularly bad? Thoughts?

Kim

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 3:49 PM, James Latimer <pipesnc AT live.com> wrote:

Hey all,  I went by my hives to see how they are doing in this cold weather.  I added top feeders and could tell the hives are still full of bees.  But I saw quite a few dead bees in front of both hives.  I did notice a dead yellow jacket among the bees in front of 1 hive.  Is this just the hive cleaning house, kicking out the drones and the weak?  Or do you think they are dieing trying to defend the hives?  Is this normal or something to check into?

Both hives also have the reducer on; 1 hive it has been on since September and I added it to the other (stronger) hive just a few days ago.  At that time we had 70 degree weather and all looked good.

Thanks,
Jamie 

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