Most of my robbing problems happen when I feed...
the one case of robbing that i had in 2012 was of a colony that wasn't being fed, but rather declined due to queenlessness, and had too much space to defend.
it was an overwintered four frame nuc that built up nicely in the spring, swarmed, and failed to get a mated queen after the swarm.
my novice mistake was to give it a frame of eggs from one of my best hives to make an emergency queen from, which they did successfully, and i had a beautiful laying queen one month later.
the problem was that the population had dwindled, and i didn't remove any boxes. when that first round of brood came on what few bees were left in the hive got too busy nursing the brood, and there were not enough bees to guard the stores.
the other hives in the yard had really grown by then, and we were also nearing the end of our spring flow. needless to say, the dwindled hive was an easy target.
luckily, i was home that day and saw the robbing just as it was getting started. i immediately closed them up, and moved them to my out yard that only had a few smaller hives in it.(
that didn't work, because when i got to the outyard the next day, the smaller hives there had already taken to robbing the dwindled one.
i move them to a third yard where there were no other hives. virtually all of the honey was gone. i removed and kept the two drawn mediums of comb for use with other hives, and i put a feeder on them.
luckily, the queen was not killed in the dwindled hive, and i sold it to a newbee with the understanding that it would have to be fed until the fall flow, which it was, and there was no further robbing.
this colony is in great shape now, and will likely be an outstanding honey producer this year.
as far as feeding goes, the only other colony that i had to give syrup to last year was a late swarm that needed a little help getting started. i made sure i didn't use anything scented in the syrup, added vitamin c, and it did fine in my main yard along with the other strong hives, and there was no robbing.
i am wondering michael, if it might be better to use plain unscented syrup for emergency feeding, as opposed to honey. the smell of open honey (assuming it's in a feeder and not capped in comb) might be enough to encourage robbing whereas plain unscented syrup might not.
any thoughts?