good queen won

[ox]

I united two weak hives. One had a drone layer queen and the other with a new "midnight" queen grafted to it. The yellow jackets were murdering both hives.
I rigged a seperater screen in a TBH and placed the midnight hive in the empty half with their drawn comb and their own opening. I kept searching for the drone layer queen with no success. Just lots of capped drone cells, larva and eggs.
In a couple of days, I was about to go searching for the queen again when I noticed all of the bees of the midnight half of the hive were no longer in there! They apparently crawled under my not so professional triangular shaped seperater?
Today (a week later) I decided to take a look. Much to my great surprise the new queen was plain to see walking about the comb with new eggs and larva everywhere.
They are now effectively staving off the yellow jacket onslaught also.
Needless to say I am thrilled and grateful that they are getting along in spite of me.

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the ~ox-{ at www.singingfalls.com

[oregonsparkie]

Hey OX,

What are the yellowjackets doing to your hive.We have a bunch here but I havent seen any problems with them

[ox]

When the hives were weak (seperated) the YJ's were going in and dragging out whatever they could. I saw many bees taken in flight just as they emerged from the hive also.
On the subject of YJ's in Oregon. I was just contacted by a reporter from the Oregonian. They are doing a right up on the YJ infestation this year. I sent them pics of my homemade trap . It is really taking the pressure off the girls. The drones are getting nailed still if they are slow to get going off the ground in front of the hive but not like before the trap was there.

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the ~ox-{ at www.singingfalls.com

[beebarf]

I just saw on NWCN the yellow jackets were really bad in Oregon this year. One bee exterminator said he was getting 25 calls a day, and its not peak season for them yet.

[oregonsparkie]

Wow,

I guess I will put a couple YJ traps out. Today I just sprayed a couple small paper hives in the process of being contructed. Ive been cleaning some used frames I got and they were thick around me.

[chemistbert]

Trapping now is futile. You could catch a hundred a day and make no dent in their population. Best best is to bee line them and kill the nest. I try it all the time because of a deep rooted hatred of the little monsters. I really enjoy killing them.

[ox]

I have no intent to search out the YJ's. I'd be spending many days covering a 1,000 acres. I have set the trap near the hives and I am catching quite a few with it using goat meat as bait. It seems to pay to keep the bait fresh. It sure has taken the pressure of the workers and it is effective enough to prevent too may YJ's from discovering the hives.
I did manage to wipe out a large hive a short while back. I didn't realize how huge YJ drones are until the soaking wet nest came crashing down 0_0 ugly ugly. the larva are really nasty too.

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the ~ox-{ at www.singingfalls.com