Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Unusual robbing question  (Read 1688 times)

Offline Aroc

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 294
  • Gender: Male
Unusual robbing question
« on: September 06, 2017, 03:49:54 pm »
 For reasons I won't get into right now we have a very small hive that we are trying to salvage.  Added a couple frames of brood. In doing so I believe we may have introduced some flyers and caused a robbing situation. Tried to  stop the robbing with screens and so on but doesn't seem to be working. We decided to simply move the hive about 15 miles away to a friends property.

 My question is when we sealed up the hive  to move it could we have trapped some fliers inside.? When I checked on it this afternoon I noticed a lot of bees out front again not necessarily robbing but chaotic is the best I could describe it. If we did trap some robbers inside could they continue to at least attempt to rob?  They really would have no place to go to return home.
You are what you think.

Offline iddee

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 10853
  • Gender: Male
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2017, 04:38:17 pm »
When I have a weak hive being robbed, I screen it in and move it about 10 miles and leave it for a couple of weeks. The robbers take up with the hive and boost it's strength. It works well.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline eltalia

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1170
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2017, 05:05:13 pm »
"Question is when we sealed up the hive  to move it could we have trapped some fliers inside.? "

... is what I always did as the default on finding one or more colonys in a group
being attacked.
Dollar wise you could nott stuff around trying to protect the robee, way more
productive to close them up and move them, regardless of time of day. Those left
behind from the robee colony left to fend for themselves, someone took them in
and largely the robbing at that locale ceased.
The real loss, dollar wise, was having to take the robee colony(s) back to
depot, meaning you then lost the paid work for those boxes.

Cheers.

Bill

Offline Eric Bosworth

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 998
  • Gender: Male
  • I love New York... I hate the government.
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2017, 09:33:23 pm »
Leave them alone for a couple weeks. The robbers will realize that they must have a new home and the unusual activity is all the foragers reorienting at the same time.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. ---Mao Tse Tung

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. ---Benjamin Franklin

Offline BeeMaster2

  • Administrator
  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 13494
  • Gender: Male
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2017, 04:14:40 pm »
Aroc,
Locking in the robbers is what you want to do. The minute you move them more than 3 miles, they become workers for the robbed hive. Hopefully your queen survived. In about a week, check for eggs or if not present, queen cells. Do not wait more than a week, if the queen was lost, you do not want to bee inspecting this hive after she hatches. If you find queen cells, wait at least 3 weeks for the next inspection. That will give her time to prove herself as a good queen.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline Nico

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 95
  • Gender: Male
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2017, 06:16:47 pm »
Aroc, could the chaotic situation you described possibly be an orientation flight in the new hive location?

Offline MikeyN.C.

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 525
  • Gender: Male
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2017, 10:21:57 pm »
My Q is how strong was hive in the first place.  And if robbing was from your other boxes,  imho,  that means the robbing boxes are doing without.  Fix problems in yard and bees seem to be happy. I've found that feeding with top feeders works best.

Offline Aroc

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 294
  • Gender: Male
Re: Unusual robbing question
« Reply #7 on: September 07, 2017, 10:31:16 pm »
It's a bit complicated as to why we have this small hive.  All other colonies have top feeders this time of year.

I thought at first it might be orientation flights but it didn't look quite right.

For now they seem to be doing well.  A lot calmer today and a bit of what I would expect.

Thanks for all the info.  In the future I know what to do in case of robbing....move them.  We are fortunate we have a place to do that.
You are what you think.