Robbing!!!

**dabb** · 08-09-2008, 05:17 PM

Finally got in to the bee yard today-a lot of rain lately-wanted to check on a swarm I had in a nuc box-One hive I immediately noticed unusual behavior and opened the hive-As I supected there were dead bees that seemed to be dead from fighting-inside they were in a bit of a frenzy-checked everything quickly for evidece of a queen couldn't find her but there is capped brood and empty queen cells(I should note that this was a pkg in May)-the sm super was completely empty as was the 2nd deep super except for the brood no honey-ROBBING!

I quickly closed the hive-don't know the condition of the 1st lg super as far as honey goes.. Did I do everything possible? I immediately took off the sm super and duct tapped every opening other than the entrance which I put a reducer on. Is there anything else I can do? Never had this happen before-Although I wasn't not very happy with the queen I was planning to replace her but it seems that they've already done that themselves! Should the hive be moved? I'll obviously need to feed.
thanks for your help in advance,
Debbie

**Jeffzhear** · 08-09-2008, 07:01 PM

I would think if you had another yard that is fairly well isolated I might move them there. I think by closing them up like you have, you've done the right thing. Have you reduced the opening to the point that the hive can now defend itself?

I've got at least one NUC with an entrance for one bee only, to allow them to defend.

**Tom G. Laury** · 08-09-2008, 07:07 PM

When it gets to that point this time of year the main value is in the combs and feed. I just shake it and take to storage. Most of the "bees" are worthless robbers. If they are really bothering other colonies in the yard you can put a couple of empty boxes ( no frames ) with a lid in it's place and it will occupy and confound the robbers.

**Troy** · 08-10-2008, 11:38 AM

Tom,

.......this time of year the main value is in the combs and feed. ....

I agree with that, and I've seen this sort of thing in my hives too. If a colony is too far gone to save, and you want to rescue the comb. What do you do with any frames that have brood in them.

I've had colonies die off in the spring and they leave behind some live open brood and some capped brood too. If you catch it before the live brood dry out they'll wash right out of the comb with a garden hose - but what do you do about the capped brood?

I have time consumingly uncapped them and pulled them out with the capping's scratcher, but this is tedious and time consuming.

I've tried getting the fire ants to do it and they will, but they seem to replace each particle of meat they take out with a grain of sand or dirt. The combs end up filthy, so that approach has not worked so well. Fir eant are also kind of slow. They take days to empty one frame, so to get 4 or 5 frames cleaned is just forever.

Do you have any techniques?

**Tom G. Laury** · 08-10-2008, 11:55 AM

Hi Troy good to hear from you

usually my dinks & die outs have small amounts of scattered brood, which dry out and are easily cleaned out by the next colony to receive them. I would be reluctant to put large amounts of brood from a dead colony on a good live one. ( why did it die? ) Once in a while I've had full sheets of drone brood in my honey supers, and flies will lay eggs with all the moisture available. Here we have some kind of red meat eating ant that is useful for cleaning out waxmoth larvae and will also eat out brood. My best answer to your question would be to somehow dry it out. this will prevent it from becoming a mess, then later put on bees. Hope this helps a little. Tom

**Tom G. Laury** · 08-10-2008, 02:15 PM

Troy I just noticed your location; of course Fresno is quite arid compared with Orlando. I was wondering why you would be so concerned with the brood but now realize you are in SHB country deluxe. I had beetles show up in deadouts in my shop a few years ago ( the year H----- B--- sold alot of colonies to guys in the neighborhood ) but after Gardstar and SO2 fumigation they haven't returned. I am imagining this is why you're concerned. I don't have any techniques other than bees or ants. Here they just die and dry out with no big prob.

Tom

**dabb** · 08-10-2008, 05:37 PM

I don't know if they are too far gone. I reduced the entrance (metal reducer with 5 holes), hopefully enough that they can defend it. I wasn't really happy with this queen to begin with and was going to re-queen this fall. Couldn't get up there today to check but will go after work tomorrow and start to feed. I saw field bees bringing back pollen and brood in the upper and lower boxes-did not want to keep the hive open any longer than necesary so I'm hoping that there is a queen. I hope that they are just weak and I can treat them as if they were a nuc I'd winter over. I didn't see any evidence of robbing with my other hive (they are very strong) nor the swarm I got in July that is in a nuc box.
Thanks for all the input

Debbie

**seamuswildhoney** · 08-11-2008, 04:11 PM

does a worker that starts to rob stay at it for life?

**Troy** · 08-12-2008, 08:52 AM

Tom,

Yeah, they (dead brood) don't dry out here in FL. They rot. It is like taking two pounds of ground meat and having it rot in the combs. It smells to high heaven and pretty much ruins the combs.

And yeah, you are right - SHB is a huge problem here in the summer. In fact weak colonies often succumb to SHB and that is what leaves me with dead brood in the comb. I take the combs and freeze them to kill the SHB, but I don't have room to store them in deep freeze until next spring. I need to clean and dry them somehow and that has been very hard.

I need a freeze dryer. I could freeze them AND dry them at the same time.

Short of that, I wonder if I left them in the freezer for a month if they'd dry enough not to rot.

**BerkeyDavid** · 08-12-2008, 10:18 AM

Robbing behaviour can be stopped.

Best way is robber screens. You can make them yourself they are very effective. I would not move the hive. I would be sure to put screens on before starting to feed, feeding can really set them off robbing. Better to steal some of that honey back from another hive and stick a frame in there, hold off feeding for now IMO.

Good reason to check your hives every day this time of year. Seems like the flow shut down suddenly about 5 days ago. Mitch and I were just talking about it last night.

I found a nuc getting robbed through a bad spot in a screened bottom board 2 nights ago. Smoked them, fixed the bad spot, and added a robber screen.

Problem solved. Other nucs already had entrance reducers in place but I had just moved this one to a ten frame box on a new bottom.

Just be ready to add the robber screens on other hives and keep watching them.

If you have a laying queen and some worker population I would not give up on it. Still time to build up for winter with either fall forage or feeding, or if you ahve it some frames of honey.

**dabb** · 08-12-2008, 05:13 PM

I thinking about taking honey from the strong hive. I've had alot of time to think about this because I haven't been able to get back out in the bee yard with all the rain we have been having (They are several miles away & up on top of a hill in the middle of a field). We had severe flooding in our county just yesterday. Sunday is supposed to be nice. I'm going to have to wait until then, again due to more rain predictions every day this week.
Thank you for everyone's input. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be able to have so much useful advise on every front!
My best to all
---Debbie
I'll let you all know how the hive fares.