[Please forgive the cross posting to both Bee-L and [log in to unmask]]

I've had recurring problems with robbing from my one and only hive, 
and I still haven't been able to reliably prevent it. I'm a 
first-year beekeeper, which is why I only have one hive. My bees went 
into Fall with plenty of honey and pollen, but most of it was gone by 
early November, and I realized that the bee frenzies I'd seen around 
my hive at various times had been robber bees doing their thing. I 
hadn't reduced the entrance before that (oops) so I chalked it up to 
"live and learn" for next year, and I subsequently installed a 
homemade entrance reducer that only allows one bee at a time to pass 
through. The notch at the front of the inner cover is the only other 
entrance, and I leave that open for winter ventilation.

I've been advised that my hive must have been weak already for this 
original robbing to have happened, and I shouldn't expect it to 
survive the winter. But in the spirit of learning from this negative 
experience, I decided to feed them to see if they might make it 
through the winter after all, rather than let them starve, since this 
is my only hive until next year. So in mid-November I fed some 2:1 
sugar syrup during some cool weather, only to find that on the first 
warm day, the robbers were back, so I removed the syrup feed out of 
frustration, hoping they would lose interest.

I decided fondant would be the best way to feed the colony at this 
point, and I thought the robbers would be less likely to detect the 
presence of fondant than sugar syrup (not sure why), so I whipped up 
a batch of fondant using the recipe in the October Bee Culture. The 
weather's been cold here (highs in the 30s) for most of last week, so 
I had to wait until a couple days ago to put some fondant on the top 
bars of the hive. I placed a spacer over the fondant, then the inner 
cover with the notch/entrance on the bottom, then the top cover. This 
seemed to be the best arrangement for ventilation and my bees' access 
to the fondant. When I did so, it seemed that there were plenty of 
bees in the hive, but I am too new at this to accurately assess.

Well, today the weather is sunny and 50 degrees, and lo and behold I 
looked out at the hive just now and sure enough, more robbing. I 
don't feel I can close down the hive any more than I have without 
stopping the ventilation, but I am going out to close up the top 
entrance.

Is there a way to position the fondant and inner cover better to 
prevent robbing without negatively affecting hive ventilation? Will 
the bees be able to access the fondant in cold weather if I put it 
above the inner cover, or will it be out of reach when they are in 
their winter huddle?

I feel that no matter what I do, I'm just feeding someone else's 
colony and weakening my own. Do I need to remove the feed anytime the 
temp exceeds 50 degrees and bees are flying? Should I just quit 
feeding them until the weather gets consistently cold? Seems like the 
more I try to do to help them, the worse the problem gets...

Anne in southeastern PA
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Anne Brennan
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