Robber Screen for the Constructionally Challenged

[tillie]

I've been struggling with robbers all day today and read about how to construct a robber screen.  However, Home Depot didn't have the size hardware cloth I needed and when I wandered hopelessly in the window department, I found a solution for those of us beekeepers who didn't get to take shop in High School.

I bought an adjustable window screen 10" high and 19" wide at its smallest.  This is just a little too wide to serve the purpose, but I still had to create a new entrance for the bees to enter the hive.  

From reading on Beesource, I believe the idea of the robber screen is to block the main hive entrance, thus keeping out the robbers who are attracted to the honey and to create a new higher up entrance for the resident bees who are attracted to the queen and will climb, crawl or whatever to get to her.

I used a piece of 1.5"x.75" board, cut to the height of the adjustable window screen.  I hammered the piece to the back of the windown screen on both sides and then bungee corded the whole thing to the hive.

Here are pictures:
http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2006/06/robber-screen-for-construction.html

I'll know tomorrow if this will thwart the robbers, but it looks like it fills the bill for a robber screen for the constructionallly challenged (like me)

Linda T in Atlanta

[Michael Bush]

>I believe the idea of the robber screen is to block the main hive entrance, thus keeping out the robbers who are attracted to the honey and to create a new higher up entrance for the resident bees who are attracted to the queen and will climb, crawl or whatever to get to her.

You've got the basic principle.  The locals find it first, because they left that way, and second because they are not keying in on the same thing.  The robbers are going to the smell of honey.  The locals are willing to find any indirect or direct route to their hive.

[tillie]

Thanks to an idea from randydrivesabus, I have re-done the robber screen for the construction-challenged and put screw-eyes both in the sides of the screen and at the back of the hive body to hold the screen in place. 

If anyone's interested, here is a very easy way to put together a robber screen (mostly because the adjustable window screen has already done the hard part).

http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2006/06/robber-screen-for-construction.html
http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2006/06/building-more-sophisticated-robber.html

This should help anyone who may be like me, unable to nail four sides together to make a square unless they came in a kit and who has no idea what a router is or what it does!

Linda T in Atlanta