I can't imagine how one would do this. How do you trap them, in a vacant hive baited with honey? How do you get them to stay? The hive they were combined with would have to be some distance from their home hive, and obviously would also have to be some distance from the hive they were robbing.
Interesting idea. I look forward to seeing the response to this.
Instead of figuring out a way to trap robber bees, the beekeeping community would rather you spend your time coming up with a way to eliminate varroa mites. Now that would be productive. John
Well, that's exactly the thought that I had this summer, except instead of honey or syrup to attract them, what I was doing is using my heat gun on cappings in my wax melter when the sun was gone. After about 20 seconds of running the gun and perfuming the air with the smell of melting wax/cacoons/honey I had around 200 bees homing in on me. Bee espace would have worked beautifully, but I never tried it. I guess the issues are that you are getting half-life bees, that might be deseased.
I have a variation of the question....
I had a situation that resulted in an attempt at a late season split, well two....
The original hive has found the two week splits and are ravaging them.
The one split is out of stores now. I was angry when I came home and found they had found the second split and were robbing from it. I blocked them in.... I'm hoping that the robbers become loyal to this new little colony.....
What are the odds they will just kill off the Queen and try to get home?
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