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Author Topic: Robbing bees  (Read 3727 times)

Offline Shawn

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Robbing bees
« on: September 15, 2008, 04:07:40 pm »
Here are some pictures of my hive being robbed. I reduced the entrance yesterday and the entrance is nothing but a ball of bees fighting.






Offline annette

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Re: Robbing bees
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2008, 04:20:18 pm »
Did reducing the entrance stop the robbing??

Offline Shawn

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Re: Robbing bees
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2008, 05:45:00 pm »
I dont think so. I think the hive is so low in numbers the intruders are still getting in. I did notice, not that you can see in the pictures, that the fighting appears to be happening at the entrance and more bees are just flying around because they cant get in, lets hope! So my new questions is what happens to the queen during an all out invasion? Do they kill her, does she fly off, does she help defend? When I took off the top hive body I did notice the laying worker must still be inside because a few of the cells had mutiple eggs, like 4, and I saw one cell had the eg on the side of teh cell instead of the bottom. 

Offline Cindi

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Re: Robbing bees
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2008, 10:39:06 am »
Shawn, the queen will not defend her colony, that is not her job, the bees do.  If you have laying workers, I must wonder if you have a queen even there?  Have you checked lately to see if she is present, that could be why the numbers of the colony are so low, if there is not a queen. Sometimes when there is such a severe robbing of a colony, one has to completely close off the entrance so none can get in or out, like with a piece of mesh or something, so there is still air flow.  It won't hurt the colony to be locked up for a couple of days.  Sounds like your colony needs some help.  Have a wonderful day, Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Shawn

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Re: Robbing bees
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2008, 01:37:29 pm »
I had checked on the queen less than a week ago and she was doing ok. I looked in the hive last night and saw 3 bees. Today I looked at the hove and losts of bees coming and going. I figure since the bees are gone I might as well let the other bees enjoy the honey. Once the frames are cleaned Ill cleen the bottom board and seal up the hive for the winter.

Offline Shawn

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Re: Robbing bees
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2008, 09:30:32 pm »
Well after looking at the pictures of what I thought was the hive being robbed, the time frame from when I thought the bees had move din to the time I posted the update on "First pictures of my bees on a frame" I think I might have an answer. Can the above pictures be of a hive moving in? it does not seem like it took very long for the hive to lay the eggs, feed them, and the new bees were already emerging. My theory is my queen that I bought, Goldline Queen, was still hiding in the hive when I inspected and saw the eggs but not her, and a queenless swarm moved in with her. I just posted some different pictures with little bes coming out on the landing pad that looked way too small to be coming out. If you nocite the difference in color. Some of the bees are very dark and their defined stripes and others are a very light in color with almost no stripes, at least not very dark.

Is this theory way out of wack?

Offline ski

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Re: Robbing bees
« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2008, 09:51:56 am »
You might try and close up the entrance after dark.  IF there are bees trying to get the next day they are most likely robbers.    You may want to add robber screens.

 

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