>> Most commercial beekeepers would NOT keep those hives of five
>> deep hive bodies. You want all hives in the apiary the same strength.
>
> The statement above is not just false but silly.

Actually, the first statement is true and wise, the second is false, and if
anything is silly, I leave it to the reader to decide.

Bob's reply was from a commercial perspective, based on decades of
experience across many state lines.  AR, where these bees apparently
were/are kept, is not far from his home.

It is very true that almost no commercial beekeeper would leave hives in
five bodies after the flows are past, and with winter coming.  Most would
take measures to keep them roughly equal in strength -- partly to avoid a
robbing scenario like this -- and also reduce entrances by November.  Some
would leave them in three standard bodies, most in two or less, and most
would feed, partly to have good wintering, and partly to avoid the type of
thing that happened here.

In fall, well-fed bees, housed in an appropriate -- slightly restrictive --
number of boxes, are calm bees, and they don't roam the neighbourhood
looking for food, or wear themselves out before winter arrives.

During a dearth, especially, in a cool fall which keeps them confined, a
strong colony of bees will empty the comb near their brood at an amazing
rate of a kg a week or more.  After a week or two of confinement, all that
empty comb stimulates the foraging instinct.  When things warm up, they will
go looking for food.

Bees always prefer to gather feed at a distance, and will ignore honey -- or
a feeder -- a foot or so away in their own hive to go to get what they can
in any neighbouring hive.

If a nearby colony is dormant -- perhaps having finished brood rearing and
therefore not consuming feed as fast, and thus not being hungry -- the
hungry bees will enter freely at first since the victim bees will be
clustered, and progressive robbing starts in the bottom of the victim hive,
where the cluster does not reach.  By the time the victim colony gets wise,
it is too late especially if the weather has turned warm and the entrances
are wide open.

These differing activity levels of nearby hives can be caused by many
factors, including differing genetics, disease, mites, predators, differing
amounts of shade and sun, hive colur, and amount of empty comb near the
brood.  Cluster size is a factor too, since the metabolic heat of a large
population will warm the interior of their hive earlier than a smaller
cluster, and thus a larger hive gets get flying at lower temperatures.
Clusters in the top of a tall hive also are in warmer air than those near
the ground.  Hives in a low spot or shade awake later than those up higher
or in the sun.

Maintaining hives in similar, slightly restrictive, configurations in fall
helps prevent the kind of disparity that will give one hive a jump on the
others or motive to initiate robbing, and also ensures that there are not
regions of stores within a hive that may not be well protected by the
cluster.  Reducers keep the hives warmer and more spread out, and also make
for a smaller opening to protect.

I don't know how carefully people read the original post, but the facts are,
as far as I can see:
There are only three hives involved, separated by distances of one hundred
and two hundred feet. The hives are in varying numbers of boxes. The hives
are in Possum Valley, AR.  The time was early November. The owner is a
rabbit farmer

I could not find Possum Valley on my map, so unless it is a trendy suburb of
some big city with a cool name, it is smaller than Swalwell (and that is
*small*). The hives are separated by more distance than normal for a yard of
bees, but seem to belong to one person, so I assume that the location is
rural.  Since they are not set close together, and since AR has a tradition
of casual gum keeping, and since a number of swarms happen each year, I
assume that the hives are not intensively managed, if they are a managed
much at all.  Just assumptions.

The actual state of disease and mites, etc. is not known other than what we
can gather from this:
"One has five hive-bodies and is filled to the brim with honey and pollen
and has a huge population of bees (this hive usually issues 4 to 6 swarms
every spring) and is from all indications healthy.  The second hive is
located about 100 feet from the 'super hive' and is three hive bodies deep
and again is filled nearly to capacity and healthy.  A third hive is the
same setup as the second hive and located a couple hundred feet from the
other two".

If we were to conjecture here, we could speculate that, maybe, the smaller
hives were small for a reason, and perhaps overcome with mites or disease,
and that this figured into the episode as well.  "From all indications
healthy" and "filled to the brim with honey and pollen" may or may not be
accurate descriptions.  Such descrpitions can be highly subjective. I've
often found my own observations to be at odds with reports like this when
visiting other beekeepers.

We'll likely never know exactly what happened here, but we do know that
competent commercial producers seldom encounter a robbing incident of this
sort, even when using open feeding methods, due to the things we commercials
do automatically, as a matter of course.  We reduce the hive volume in fall,
keep our hives at similar strengths, medicate and treat for mites as
required, feed well and early, eliminate or manage weak colonies, and reduce
entrances as indicated.

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/

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