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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Bob Harrison <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:12:38 -0500
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Hello All,
Once a robber bee has gained entrance and returned to her hive then the
number of robbers steadily increase.
The only way to stop the robbing is to stop the robber  gals from bringing
the honey back to the hive.
They do seem to remember the last place they robbed honey for awhile.

If a plant starts producing nectar the robbing will stop. At least while the
flow is on.

I have got bees trying to rob around the honey processing area always when a
flow is not on. I think they smell the honey as they can not gain entrance
to the extracting area or maybe the gals are waiting for a truck load of
supers to arrive. The supers are fair game for about fifteen minutes until
the pallets are  moved into the processing area.

Look inside and see what's left of the your hive. Maybe already robbed out?
I
would have looked inside a week ago.

Putting out feed/honey around 200 feet in another direction might ease the
robbing. What I did today when I had the roll up door open cleaning up.

Robbing is normal for bees. Some races are worse about robbing than others.
in large yards we see weak hives robbed on a regular basis. Reduced entrance
or not. I cull boxes with holes other than on the front . Bees love to rob
through holes & cracks.

 My answer is to combine weak hives and not keep "dinks" around .

Keep a close watch for and eliminate hives with problems. Combine or shake
the bees out and toss the equipment on the truck.

I tolerate "dink" hives in survivor test yards but never in production
yards.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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