I've had some problems with yellow jackets around my weak hive. At first they were just after the dead fallen bees on the ground at the entrance, but now they are harassing the guards at the hive entrance. I was'nt bothered at first, but now that there are hundreds and hundreds of them around the hive. I'm sure the honey bees find them to be as much of a bother as I.
Make sure you are using an entrance reducer. This will make it easier for your bees to fight off unwanted guests. The yellow jackets are trying to rob honey.
If the hive is very weak add some brood to the hive to help boost the population. If it gets too weak sometime yellow jackets can destroy a colony. Reducing the entrance is good. Find out why the colony is so weak!
The bees are weak due to our friend varroa! I have that problem under control now. I have found moving the bees to a new location very helpful! Once the yellow jackets had found a source of food it was impossible to get under control. Now 10 miles away at my fathers they are able to send a few of there numbers out to work.
I have also got problems with them
try to use plastic bottles cut in two and use them as traps with beer and jam or anything sweet smelling, the bee's won't go in it.Put them all around your hives .And you will be able to catch hunderds of them.
When I was a kid,my parents used to use empty jam jars half full of water, with paper over the tops, and a small hole in the middle for the wasp to go through. Sometimes they ended up full of wasps after a few days.
If you put your hives on open mesh floors and keep them on permanently reduced entrances, that helps. I did that last summer, and had very few wasps round the hives. It remains to be seen whether it was a one-off or a permanent change, but I had real problems the year before.
I have used all kind of bottles no modifaction. Works the same - good. Last fall I had one hive that was attracting ants. I put my bottles to trap yellow jackets put regular sugar syrop about 1/2 bottel. The next day found 1/2 bottle full of dead ants. Ants problem was solved, good side effect.
Andrey.
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