Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: 2Sox on June 18, 2017, 12:00:10 pm
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What's going on my my back yard is nuts! I've got 5 hives, and I've needed to keep robbing screens on each of them for the past 5 days. It does not let up! Whether feral or cultivated, there is some parasitic hive or hives in my area that are like Terminators! They don't stop - sunrise to sunset. I can't even get to my hives to inspect them. This is particularly crazy because the Linden is in bloom and we have high pollen alerts for the past week or so. I've been keeping bees for 10 years and I've never seen anything like this. Last year the same thing happened but not for long. I didn't have robbing screens and my two hives were wiped out. I'm thinking these robbers have an heavy African gene influence. Whatever the case, this has got to stop. If anyone can help me with a solution, I'm all ears.
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Are the robbing screens working?
I have serious robbing when I try to remove honey after the flows have stopped. As soon as the robbing starts, I close up the hive and turn on sprinklers, placed on top of the highest central hive, that sprays water in all directions at the same time. Rain birds don't work. That stops the robbing until i start opening hives again.
Jim
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You have to transport the hive to a new place and feed it well, than after some while you return it back
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You have to transport the hive to a new place and feed it well, than after some while you return it back
Sent from my D6502 using Tapatalk
Thanks for your reply but it's out of the question. I don't have another location to go to.
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Whether feral or cultivated, there is some parasitic hive or hives in my area that are like Terminators! They don't stop - sunrise to sunset. I can't even get to my hives to inspect them.
There are two things you could do. The first is to check for sure that the robbers are coming in from outside the apiary. Simply block-up the hive entrances during the late evening, and check those entrances again first thing in the morning. If the robbing should then be shown to be an internal apiary issue, the solutions are fairly easy. BUT - if the robbers are indeed coming-in from outside, that's a b-i-t-c-h.
Inspections ARE just about possible during an outbreak of robbing, if you make yourself a 'Robbing Cage' - this is the type Laidlaw used:
(http://i64.tinypic.com/eg96rk.jpg)
If you make one panel hinged - like a door - then the cage can be placed over the target hive during the night, and the door swung open briefly to let the beekeeper inside next morning. Hardly an ideal way of working, but better than nothing.
I use such a cage to prevent robbing from starting-up when inspecting nucs in late summer.
LJ
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Things have settled down for now. Keeping a watchful eye.
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I keep robber screens on from now until winter. I have started doing my inspections late in the evening as things cool down. Fewer robbers and they have to go home sooner.
When the burning and pillaging gets really bad, I turn the hose right on the hives. Jim's sprinkler idea is a good one.