>What is meant by a break point?
>
Perhaps not the best choice of terminology but what I meant is a point or intervention to interrupt the event.  If left unchecked it will continue and evolve into something larger.  The open feeding you mentioned doing was that 'break point' or maybe stop gap would be more appropriate.  Problem with that is it is a bit more of a bit of the same and does not necessarily help the weaker colonies as much as the strong ones.

>By this you mean swapping the location of a weak have and a >strong hive while the foragers are out?  

Yes.

>The idea being the weak hive will accept the foragers >returning from the field?  

Less that and more the foragers or robbers no longer have their strong hive to stimulate and propagate more robbing.

>I've done this during a strong flow to balance out >populations between new hives.  During a dearth, wouldn't the >bees be too defensive for this to work well? 

There is some risk of that.  It would be lessened with the open feeding as it is like a flow and everyone is in a better mood.

>Also, simply moving strong hives will lessen robbing? 

I would not go so far as to say 'simply' but the move is the stop gap or break point mentioned above.  Given the same opportunities once moved the robbing will start all over again.

>Is this also due to the
>redistribution of field bees into other weaker colonies?

Less that and more the disruption to stop the robbing.

>> have you tried robbing screens?
>
>These look quite useful.  I'll have to make some up and give them a try.
>
>Certainly, I prefer to feed each hive individually.

I have never used them either.  With nuc production through the season they look to have a place.  An individualized approach is useful and efficient to tweak the stragglers if time and numbers allow.

>This morning I used something closer to a 2:1 sugar:water >solution.  Apparently, it's more  difficult for bees to >actually get wet and drown with the thicker syrup.

And more appropriate to put weight on the hives as they have less water to evaporate off.  Keep an eye on them later on as this seems a bit early to be bulking them out for winter.  Make sure they do not eat it all up this fall. 

>Instead of the wooden floats I used for a couple days, I tried straw.

Medium sized sticks about 1 foot taller than the container set at angles work really well too.  They want to float but as the syrup is drawn down they rest on the edges and serve a ladder.

Bob Nelson 

 




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