robbing

[tryintolearn]

was out in yard yesterday and working on house....had checked in with my 2 hives earlier and everything seemed fine.   after about an hour of innattention i looked over and saw a huge cloud of bees just flying in a frenzy in beeyard..bees on ground bees fighting beeees everywhere just a festooning mess...one weaker hive one strong....i could not tell which was being attacked could have been both...dead bees everywhere on ground looked like a war zone...i quickly wet a sheet and covered the weaker one...smoked up the stronger one and placed an entrance reducer on it...a cpl of hours later it was lots calmer...yet the bees on reduced hive were really balled up...and still this morning same balled up around the reducer...would my queens be endangered in this attack or these attacks? help me out here....oh yeah ordered 2 robbing screens but it will be several days in getting here

[Sundog]

Keep your entrances very small, 3/8 x 3/4 inches.  Makes the hive much easier for them to defend.  Don't know the answer to your queen question, but I think they will survive.

Good luck.

[AllenF]

Just take some wood and close up the entrance to very small.   You hive should be able to defend a small opening.   You can loose a queen in very very bad robbing.  But average robbing, no.   

[Wolfer]

I once had a hive robbed out while I was at work, when I opened it up the queen was the only live bee left.

[tryintolearn]

the robbing has seemed to slowed to almost none that i can tell.  but this is the kicker while all the chaos was taking place there was a small swarm in the mix.  i captured it and have it in a small nuc now.  thanks for the replies everyone

[tryintolearn]

disaster here....last week sitting by my usually docile bees...several pegged my dog who was minding his own business...i started thinking something is up.  started to rise out of chair and one dinged me just under my eye...swelled shut for 3 days....

i wondered what was going on with the hive but didn't go right in to check...then the robbing started...thought i had it under control... thus the small swarm i captured...was hoping it came from afar...but the hive just boiled out everywhere for several days...went in yesterday no brood...many empty frames that had brood and young last week....my poor bees were not mean towards me when i got it in the eye they were just starving....

wish i could have put the pieces together earlier...but this is what i did yesterday...went in and completely took it apart...found lots of I'm thinking hive beetle larvae on bottom board...the bees didn't even want to go in the hive...i found the queen on the top deep hive even though it isn't nearly filled out...i put her in another deep and most of the bees that were clustered on outside of hive body went in...added an additional deep with no frames and feeding 1/1 sugar water and put a reducer on entrance

can i add the frames in freezer back in a few days so they wont have to fill out comb this late?  i apologized to my bees all nite at work last nite

[iddee]

http://www.beekeepingforums.com/threads/5223-Robber-screen-moving-screen


Yes, you can re use the frozen/thawed drawn comb.