Hive robbers are bad for your beehive. I am not talking about the two legged kind. I am referring to honeybees which will rob other beehives. Not too long ago I received the following sad message from Fred:
We’re pretty much beginners, our third try at keeping bees. We have learned from our mistakes, but our latest hive has just succumbed to raiders after being so promising. We had a healthy hive as far as we could tell and had added two honey supers and were looking forward to harvesting one after opening the top one and finding it almost completely full.
We noticed frenzied activity
Yesterday evening we noticed frenzied activity around the entrance and upon closer examination it became apparent the hive was being raided by other smaller, darker bees. We do not know how long this had been going on. I tried driving away the raiders with a smoker then a garden hose, but the raiding continued till dark. After browsing a little, I found a source that said close the hive entrance to about a 1/2 inch opening–it had been wide open to facilitate ventilation. What causes raiding ? How can it be prevented or thwarted if it is discovered ‘in time’? Our hive is now totally emptied out, stripped bare–both supers and brood box……..We are stunned.
Ouch. Hive robbing is never good. From the sound of it, Fred’s beehives were being robbed by feral, or wild, bees. Scout bees from a feral swarm probably smelled the large amounts of honey inside the hive. They probably found that the beehive had a weak defense and they were able to slip into Fred’s beehive quickly, grab some honey and get out. The scout bees would have gone back to the main colony and reported to the other bees where to find the honey. Soon, all of the feral foraging bees were robbing from Fred’s beehive. Robbing can get so bad that the bee colony being robbed will abscond, which is apparently what Fred’s did.
How can you prevent hive robbing? Reducing the entrance does help. This assists the honeybees in defending their home by giving them a smaller space to guard. However, the best defense against hive robbing is a strong hive. The healthier and stronger your beehive is, the better it can defend itself. Also, make sure that your bees have plenty of forage. If your beehives are in an area with few flowering plants, move them to a better location.
Try to remove the robbing beehive
Once hive robbing starts, there is really no way to stop it except to eliminate the robbing hive. You must follow the robber bees back to their hive and find a way remove them to another location for a few days. If the robbing bees are from another beehive, try to move the beehive at least two miles away. Move the beehive at night so that you are sure to get all the honeybees inside the beehive. If the robbing hive is a feral colony, you can remove them from their location and install them into a new beehive. Then, move them at least two miles away. After a couple of days, move them back to see if this stops the robbing.
Often moving the beehive will take care of the problem. But sometimes a bee colony is a chronic robber colony and nothing can be done to stop this beehive from robbing other hives. In this case it is up to the beekeeper to decide if he should re-queen the hive. Some beekeepers will even kill a robbing hive, seeing that robbing can spread throughout an apiary with each bee colony following the bad example of the others. While these can be drastic measures to take, they might be the only way to save your beehives.
Build strong beehives!
In summary, the best way to protect your beehives from robber bees is to build them up strong in the spring and summer, reduce their hive entrance in the late summer and early fall, and to check your beehives on a regular basis.
14 responses so far ↓
drgnflyz // November 19, 2008 at 9:00 am |
I saw a documentary about hive robbing by wasps. Absolutely brutal! Love your blog, keep the posts coming! Is all of the photography on your page your own? Spectacular stuff!
Nick // November 19, 2008 at 10:37 pm |
drgnflyz – Thanks for your kind words. Yes, all of the photography is mine, except where indicated. Glad you like it!
Paul // November 21, 2008 at 5:11 pm |
The best way to prevent the honey robbing is to narrow your entrance to the hive with a long piece of wood. I would leave only about an inch opening during the winter. February or March I would remove it.
Nick // November 22, 2008 at 11:55 am |
Paul – Thanks for mentioning that! In some areas of the country, beekeepers may need to leave an opening of two or three inches…especially if they have a large hive. The best way to find out how big a winter hive opening you need is to check with other beekeepers in your area.
Paul // November 24, 2008 at 8:56 pm |
After reading your site, it made me want to check on my bees. I only have about 10 hives. I have 4 hives at my father in law’s home and so I checked on them. I lost one of the hives. I checked and there were no bees except robber bees. I removed the hive completely and narrowed the other entrances to the other hives. The other hives were very strong, but I did not want to get a frenzy started.
Nick // November 24, 2008 at 10:42 pm |
Paul – Glad to hear most of your hives are strong. Too bad about that one hive. At least now you have an empty beehive ready to go for next swarm season.
kurt // March 6, 2009 at 11:56 am |
how do you follow bees back to the hive? i have alot of bees in my garden,and i would like to find the hive so i can get me some of that honey! my grandfather was a beekeeper and showed me alittle about the little guys…but these were Michigan bees…not arizona bees where i live are 100% integerated with africanized bees(but not as agressive as evryone says)…so i feel ok about getting the honey…but how do you find them? can you help? than you
Nick // March 6, 2009 at 1:50 pm |
kurt – Sounds like you want to learn bee-lining! Bee-lining (also known as bee-hunting) is a process by which you can discover the physical location of a beehive in your local area by observing the flight patterns of honeybees. Here are some links to get you started:
http://www.savethehives.com/fbp/Beelining.html
http://sites.google.com/site/beelining/
http://www.bindaree.com.au/hints/hint12_beelining.htm
kurt // March 7, 2009 at 11:02 am |
thank you so much Nick! i hope that you and yours stay covered in the sticky stuff!!
Nick // March 7, 2009 at 1:11 pm |
kurt – Thanks! Same to you.
ric // March 16, 2009 at 7:53 pm |
It’s ridiculous to automatically blame feral bees on the robbing. I’ve been beekeeping for 12 years with 30 colonies and never heard such nonsense.
Firstly, the likelihood of feral colonies these days is remote due to decimation in the last 20 years. And one of my apiaries has been peacefully coexisting for years near a feral hive without incident. Robbing mostly occurs during times when natural sources of nectar are scarce anyway. Hives that are strong will rob out the weak especially when there is no current nectar flow and subsequent to the harvest. I’ve had neighbors tell me that some of my bees were robbing their hives. These were newbies that did not know about hive strength, proper harvesting times, entrance reduction, etc. If you harvest honey from a hive other hives will want to rob it due to the smell of the honey. If you do not take measures to close the entrance during this time the stronger colonies can get a foothold and eventually overwhelm the weak hive. This happens all the time if you’re not careful. It is coincidental that the robber bees coloring is dark too. I have bees that are light golden and some hives are jet black, others are gray. My neighbors were telling me that dark bees were robbing theirs. That’s half of my apiary!
This article is another case of the Blind leading the blind.
Nick // March 28, 2009 at 11:26 am |
ric – Thanks for your comment! Here are some thoughts for you:
It’s ridiculous to automatically blame feral bees on the robbing.
It may seem I was jumping to conclusions, but all I had to go on was Fred’s description. He has only one hive. So, there are only two sources of bees that could be robbing his hive. Either they came from another beekeeper’s hive, or they came from a wild hive. Wild bees are very common in my area, and in many areas around the US. Wild hive density has actually been going up in my area over the last 15 years. So, I thought it may have been a feral hive, but I did not rule out a bee colony kept by a beekeeper. In the latter part of the article, I describe a solution to the problem if it is another hive: If the robbing bees are from another beehive, try to move the beehive at least two miles away. Move the beehive at night so that you are sure to get all the honeybees inside the beehive.
The likelihood of feral colonies these days is remote due to decimation in the last 20 years.
I don’t agree at all. I can vouch for literally hundreds of swarms that were caught and hived just last year in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. I would be interested to see some evidence to support your claim. I have been directly and indirectly involved in the collection of feral swarms for years, and I cannot agree with your statement. It may be true for your geographic area, but it is not true across the board.
It is coincidental that the robber bees coloring is dark too.
Again, the majority of feral swarms I catch are darker colored bees compared to the golden and golden-gray Italians you get in bee packages from suppliers. I have wondered about the coloring, and so have asked other beekeepers, and even done some research into this topic. It does seem that feral swarms are consistently darker colored most of the time. Occasionally you get golden and yellow swarms, but this seems to be rarer.
This article is another case of the Blind leading the blind.
I welcome discussion on these topics, but let’s play nice with others. Thanks!
Dave Coblentz // September 20, 2009 at 1:23 pm |
Is this thread still alive?
Follow up question re a hive that’s being raided.
I fear my hive is being raided and the suspect hive is across the street and belongs to someone else. Moving the hive-of-the-raiders is not an option. How about moving the victim-hive? Not much room to move it; certainly not two miles (and keep it in my backyard). Would moving it to the other side of the yard (of a half-acre) do any good at all? Winter is fast approaching and if I can’t my hive w/o feeding the raiders, I fear my hive is doomed.
Thank for any advice!
Katherine White // September 30, 2009 at 7:47 pm |
Sorry about your robbing situation, Dave. Here are a couple thoughts that might help.
First, make sure the entrance to your hive is reduced. A smaller entrance will make the hive easier to defend. I had an unexpected robbing situation develop while combining a Lang hive body with a Warre hive last week. It was bad, with lots of fighting going on. Something had to be done fast, so I grabbed a fistful of weeds and tucked them across the hive entrance. (It happened to be ragweed – I finally found a use for the nasty stuff!;o) The next day there were only about ten bees dead on the bottom board. I’m sure it would have been worse with an open entrance.
Second, if your hive is a Warre, I’d highly recommend building and using Warre’s fall feeder. We built one, and it’s been great. It sits over the top hive body and under the quilt, so it’s completely inaccessible from the outside. It holds a lot of syrup, and gives the bees a lot of safe access. I was amazed how quickly the bees got it down into the comb.
I’m hoping to get pictures of the feeder up on a blog soon. In the meantime, good luck with your bees!
Katherine