Robbing At Any Time, Don't Fool Yourself!

[Jen]

Riverbee called it! My bees have been clustered up for a couple of weeks now. Maybe 10 or less now and then having a cleansing flight. Took the robbing screens off about a week ago, put on entrance excluders to 1 inch opening. Lucky I was home and raking leaves. Sure enough one of my hives was getting some serious attention with way too many bees and noise, it was firm aggression, not your orietation flight. I watched for a minute and determined it was robbing. Robbing screen went back on!

[lazy shooter]

I put on my one inch opening entrance guards yesterday.  It was late, as we have had some freezing nights.  I need to look at my bees on the next warm day that I am home.  That will probably be this weekend.  Oh, and I got one arthritis injection putting on the entrance guards.  My little finger slipped into the hive opening and one of the girls was offended.  I should know by now that one should not unexpectedly poke girls with your finger. 

[kebee]

 With the drought we are having around here I been leave the robbing screens on all the time for I have the robbinees bees in the world.

Ken

[brooksbeefarm]

Jen, was there fighting going on? by taking the robbing screen off and changing there entrance, it could confuse them for a while?? Jack

[ledifni]

Riverbee called it! My bees have been clustered up for a couple of weeks now. Maybe 10 or less now and then having a cleansing flight. Took the robbing screens off about a week ago, put on entrance excluders to 1 inch opening. Lucky I was home and raking leaves. Sure enough one of my hives was getting some serious attention with way too many bees and noise, it was firm aggression, not your orietation flight. I watched for a minute and determined it was robbing. Robbing screen went back on!

Yep exactly the same thing happened to me.  I have a robbing screen that has a slot at the base I can open up when I want to give the bees easy access, which I did last Saturday.  On Sunday, lo and behold -- bees rolling around in clumps fighting in front of the entrance.  Sorry ladies, you'll have to deal with the screen a bit longer

[Riverrat]

Actually this time of the year and any warm day during the winter is prime time for bees to rob.  I had a weaker hive that I knew didn't have much chance of making it through the winter.  I was out splitting wood yesterday and noticed it was getting robbed out. At that point I left it alone as that pretty much sealed the fate  and took the guess work out of whether it was going to make it through the winter

[Jen]

Jack- "Jen, was there fighting going on? by taking the robbing screen off and changing there entrance, it could confuse them for a while?? Jack

      Um, I don't think so, I'm still learning the fine points of robbing, but my screens have been off for a couple of weeks replaced with the entrance excluders. No fighting because 'I think' I caught it before there was fighting. I was in the yard most of the day near the hives.

I'm accustomed to orientation where the bees are gently roving back and forth and up and down, individually. This time there were maybe 30-50 bees hovering and staring straight at the entrance.