[Skinny bee man]

Did a split yesterday as I found a few queen cells. Took 5 frames including eggs, brood, pollen, honey and the frame with queen cells from the busting hive and moved them to a new brood box about 30 feet away. I added part of a pollen patty to the new hive and then put the majority of the pollen patty back to the "donator" hive. Checked the hives a couple times yesterday and everything seemed fine.

Tonight there was quite a bit of activity around the new hive. Bees were coming and going and they seemed to be heading back to their old hive.

Have I made a big mistake by adding the pollen patty. I did have a entrance reducer on with the 4" side open. When I saw this, I reduced it down to 1".

Is there anything else I should do?

Thanks.

 

[bee hunter]

Either build a robbing screen or buy one. I'm only a 2nd year bee keeper but I have had to deal with robbing before with a cut out that I did. These robbing screens work. I seen them on brushy mtn bee supplies and built my own in less than 5 min. I used them on three nucs that I moved less than 4ft from the parent hives. All three nucs were visited by robbing bees but gave up within 2 days. The 3 nucs were being feed with an entrance feeder with robbing screen built to fit the rest of the entrance. I hope this helps. Good luck!!!

 

[drlonzo]

Sounds like what I would have done. Although if the robbers keep it up, you can move the hive to a diff location in your yard. Bees forget locations about 3 days after they find nothing there.

 

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrobbing.htm

Queenless hives often get robbed.