Spiders

[ikeepbees]

I was checking one of my yards the other day, and in this particular yard I have a couple of nucs that I established from splits with new queens about 2 months ago. They both had been doing fine at last check. But on this check I found one to contain just a small handful of bees with the queen and no brood or stores. The other nuc was still booming with bees and stores.

In trying to figure out what happened, I realized that there hadn't been enough time for the large population of bees to have just died off even if the queen had malfunctioned in some way. Where did they go? There was no evidence of a robbing incident, no dead bees on the bottom or in front of the hive. Then my wife pointed out something that was a first for me - approximately 15 banana spiders and associated webs arrayed all around the front of this nuc. While there were a few bees in these webs, it didn't look like enough to have cause the crash of this colony, but no other explanation was immediately evident.

Anyone have experience with spiders causing big problems like this? Do you think these spiders could have caught enough bees to have caused the nuc to crash?

I did, out of curiosity, put the queen in a full size hive to see if she is in fact still capable of laying or if she is part of the problem. I'll know more about her this weekend.

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Rob Koss

[BULLSEYE BILL]

Last weekend I killed three different spiders on three different hives. They were big, gray, and their abdomans were very bulbious, perhaps as big around as a quarter. One had a web stretched out in front of the hive across the landing zone. I did not see any bees wrapped up, but it was obvious that she was eating good.

I squished 'em all.

Spyder Squisher, Defender of the Honey Makers

[Michael Bush]

I usually move the spiders. I like the spiders too much and I hate the flies too much. I haven't seen the spiders put a dent in the population myself. They can't eat too many bees a day.

As to ruling out robbing, sometimes a nuc gets robbed clean out and doesn't put up much of a fight because they can't. A lack of dead bees does not preclude robbing as a possible explanation.

[ikeepbees]

Good point on the robbing Michael - thanks.

I agree with you on not killing the spiders. Since this colony was gone I just knocked down their webs hoping they will move- If they are back up this weekend I plan to just move them to a nearby oak tree.

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Rob Koss

[Michael Bush]

They won't move. You'll have to move them. I knock down webs all the time and have never gotten them to move because of it.

I have seen some gorgeous spiders that were fattened up on my bees. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

[dragonfly]

I had a large orb spider that was living out in the beeyard, and several times, I just tore down the web hoping she would move elsewhere, but shd didn't, so finally, I physically moved here several yards away to a tree, and she stayed away. She did get pretty fattened up on the bees, though. Every once in awhile, I see black spiders that appear to live inside the top cover, but they don't appear to cause any harm.

I feel certain that spiders couldn't decimate a hive the way you described. Most spiders that I observe, and there are many that I have living in the gardens, eat one or two insects a day.