Honeybees and Robbing

Reader Contribution by Jennifer Ford
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Robbers – we’re not talking about the human variety, but honeybee robbers. I love just about everything that beekeeping offers, but dealing with a robbing situation is one of my least favorite parts. Unfortunately a few weeks ago we had to deal with some robbing going on in our beeyard.

This summer we decided to try our hand at making some nucleus colonies – “nucs” for short. These are small starter hives that we are hoping to overwinter. Since the nucs were doing well we decided to open them up to add another super to give them more room to expand. Hindsight is 20/20 – we probably should never have opened them up right then. Let me explain why. First, we were in-between nectar flows – the spring/summer wildflowers were starting to go to seed, and the fall flowers such as goldenrod and asters had not yet begun to bloom. Secondly, we had not had a good rainfall in several weeks.  This can reduce the amount of nectar in the available flowers. This is called a “dearth”, and this lack of available nectar can lead to robbing. Honeybees forage for nectar and pollen to make honey, beeswax, and the other materials they need to survive. When nectar and pollen are hard to come by they may try to “forage” in other hives – this is what we call robbing. 

The morning after we did some work on the nucleus hives, we noticed a lot of activity near their entrances. From a distance this can look like a good thing. After all, who doesn’t like to see a healthy, active beehive? But it can also be a sign of a serious problem. I put on my beesuit to get a closer look. When I looked at the nucleus hives up close I quickly realized that a robbing situation was going on. First, there were many bees flying around the hive as if they were looking for a way to get in – they seemed to be almost “frenzied” – not what a typical hive looks like. These bees were trying to find a way in without going by the guard bees, unlike the bees that live in the hive that would know exactly where to go. Secondly, I could see bees fighting with each other near the entrance to the hives and several dead bees around the entrances. We wanted to stop this quickly – the nucs are very small hives, and if they lose too many bees, or too much honey, they may not be able to make it through winter.

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