[Beezter]

New beekeeper this year in southern minnesota, and I've had some struggles along the way. But today is a newish one. I have a public feeder located some ways away from my hive, and I've had yellow jackets and bald faced hornets etc around it the whole time. However, today I've noticed the bald faced hornets getting extra aggressive and attacking the honey bees. They're grabbing them both at the feeder and mid flight. I've noticed quite a few bees on the ground unable to fly as their wings have been clipped by them.

Not sure what to do about this or if anyone else has experienced issues like that? Haven't been able to find much online so far but its quite alarming to me. I just have a single hive that was essentially demolished in July, but bought a new box immediately and was able to recover some bees, while ordering a new queen and replacing some of the comb. The last two weeks or so they've really been taking off again, and I had hopes that they'd rebuild enough to make it through winter.

So far my strategy has been to assault the bald faced hornets myself individually by means of sticks and fly swatters, but they're starting to decide they don't like me a whole lot.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and if you need anymore info let me know.

Thanks,
Brandon - MN, 1st year

 

[GregV]

New beekeeper this year in southern minnesota, and I've had some struggles along the way. But today is a newish one. I have a public feeder located some ways away from my hive, ........

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and if you need anymore info let me know.

Thanks,
Brandon - MN, 1st year

Stop public feeding and that be end of it.
Feed your bees inside the hive and make it your standard practice.

 

[Fivej]

What Greg said. J

 

[HeadofMeadow]

+1 for in hive feeder, especially with just a few hives. I also actively seek out yellow jacket and bald face hornet nests. I put out yellow jacket traps in May to catch queens and keep the population low.

 

[LAlldredge]

What Greg said plus buy the BeeSmart Robbing screen. (Ebay). Design confounds wasps and bald faced hornets.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Search hornet trap