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| An effective strategy against robbing bees |
In early autumn, as I observed the hive entrance, I noticed something was wrong as there appeared to be large bees at the hive entrance literally attacking my bees trying to gain access to the hive. I quickly established that these were robbing bees who were stealing honey from my hive.
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| Home made hive entrance reducer |
To deal with this problem, I started by reducing the hive entrance size using my home made entrance reducer produced simply from a piece of cardboard and some tape. This definitely helped, but it didn’t completely stop the robbing bees.
So I did some research into robbing bees and came across the most bizarre idea – using a wet towel!
Here’s how it worked… I simply soaked a small towel in water and rested one end on the hive roof so that it draped down the entrance leaving a small space between the towel and the hive front.
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At this time, with the abundance of fruit around the garden, I noticed there were wasps hovering around the hive. However, to my surprise, not a single wasp attempted to gain access to the hive via the new open sides (between the towel and hive front). I think this simple idea might be an effective strategy not only for robbing bees but also another tool in the battle against wasps.
Thanks for the tip! I’m going to pass it on to my swedish collegues!
Happy beekeeping 2017!🐝
Excellent idea and it definitely works. Done myself a couple of times.
Great idea. Wish I had seen this before, as I lost two colonies this year. Will certainly try next year.
I have a lot of wasps around where I live, learning everything that I can to protect my first bee hive from attack
Nice work here and appreciate your blog post!
Works like a bomb done it a couple of times myself!
Once you removed the towel, do they come back?
Not in my experience. I guess it depends on how long you keep the towel on. Needs to be long enough for the robbing bees to lose interest. If they did come back, then I would repeat the process.
The robbers loose interest within 30 minutes.
Hmmm.. I put the towel on yesterday and there are still bees fighting on the ground in front of the hive. Looks like there are fewer… but still there. I rewet the towel and put it back in place.
Hi! Do you know about how long it takes the hive resident bees to find their way around the towel? Its been 6 hours and mine are still confused and bearding all on the side of the hive (and it isn’t hot.)
Hi there, it’s usually fairly quick within a couple of hours. If it’s taking longer, make sure there is sufficient gap for the bees to find their way around the towel. Let us know how it goes!
Am a new bee farmer I am glad to hear and know this before but experience the robbing bees. My greatest challenge now are the black ants. A real menes
For arts sprinkle cinnamon around the legs of the stands snd s you’re else you see them. The ants don’t like cinnamon.
Here in Western Tennessee we deal with Red Wasps. I am installing my first hive. This will be a tool in my efforts to raise a healthy hive. Thanks for the information.
I have also read that adding a screen in the front of the entrance will stop robbing bees and small hive beetles (SHB). It is made from hardware cloth and extends about 6 inches above the entrance, the full width of the hive, with a gap for the bees to pass between the screen and hive opening. The bees place their hive identifying pheromones on the screen. When the SHB flys at the opening it hits the screen and falls to the ground.