Hive constantly under attack

[Newbee]

Sorry I've been MIA for a while... finished up construction of our new home, and since we're out in the sticks, I'm giving "slowmodem" a run for the rights to his screen-name... Funny how you don't miss broadband until you can't have it! With the leaves out on the tree's now I don't even get cell-phone reception! 

I'm fairly new to the hobby, but I think I'm convinced that my hive is under near constant attack from neighboring bee's.

This is my 3rd year trying things. 2 years ago I got a hive and pkg. of Carni's from the local Beek's club. Did fine all year, in the fall there was a cloud of bee's outside the hive for 3 days, and then... poof! Silence. Inspection showed a ton of dead bee's and bee parts, about 30-40 nurse bee's, and a queen. No honey, no pollen... hive was a loss. Last year I bought a package of Russian bee's, did fine all year, and in the fall I installed a robber-screen! Almost every day for about a month or two at the end of the season, cloud of angry-sounding bee's... BUT the Ruskie's held on. Overwintered fine, this Spring they seemed to be doing OK. Occasionally throughout the spring, I will encounter a cloud of angry-looking bee's outside the hive! Maybe 4 days out of the week? Weather dependent it seems....

... Today was a prototypical example: Checked on the hive around 8:30 AM, no signs of activity (was still cold and damp), tap on the side of the hive a few times, I get a re-assuring buzz. Checked on the hive around Noon, maybe a dozen bee's seen coming and going, a few more on the landing zone. Seems a bit light for this late in the season, but OK, normal looking activity! 2 PM, go outside to give the hive some food and it's first inspection of the year (finally getting warm here in East TN), and there's that dang cloud of angry sounding bee's again... at least 100 of them! I put on my veil and gloves, fire up the smoker, and try to get in there... bee's don't seem to really care - they are crowding the entrance (on smallest opening), and will disperse if I hit them directly with the smoke, but are back seconds later. It was all I could do to put the robber-screen back on (smooshed a few in the process).

I was trying to get a closer look at them to see if I can ID anything, but they're moving so fast, and my nerves go to "TILT" when I'm around swarm of buzzing bee's, so I couldn't get a really good look. There was one that I noticed looked very different - almost like a queen? Had an elongated tail relative to the rest, and it was darker/blacker, but fatter, not long and skinny back there like most of the queen-pics I've seen. Fairly certain it's not mine, the one that came in the package was marked, this one was not. Could have been superseded, however, so not 100% sure. But oddly it was flying outside, and trying to get in? I was wondering if it was a swarm, but I see this cloud outside the hive at least half of the days of the week, weather permitting, this was just the first time I put on my veil and fired up the smoker for a closer look.

Tried looking on websites and video's for details about what constitutes an attack vs. just an aggressive hive. I sometimes see fighting bee's, dead bee's and bee parts outside the entrance... and you can just tell, they're ornery. I'm 95% certain this hive is constantly being attacked by something in the vacinity. That being said, it's only my 3rd year, I'm a rookie, so, take that with a grain of salt.

I do have a 2nd hive, and a spot nearby picked out. I'm going to try to get it setup and see if the attacking bee's take residence? I can bait it with some lemongrass? Should I try moving my existing hive, how far would be safe? How can I track the attacking bee's as they're leaving (trying to find their hive, and then decide what to do about it)?

Thanks for the suggestions and advice.

- Kevin

[Bakersdozen]

Colonies that are under attack from another hive will tend to be nasty.  Can you blame them?  When you take the lid off the hive, they are really exposed!  Strong colonies will rob out weaker colonies every chance they get. So...

Keep inspections short.  5 minutes or so.  Go in with a purpose.  Use an entrance reducer.  Reduce the entrance to an area they can defend.  When you do an inspection perhaps a gunny sack or similar object laid over any exposed frames that you aren't working on would help.  That would help keep robber bees away.
I like to do inspections between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on a sunny day.  The foragers are out then and you are left with mostly nurse bees.
I would think a strong nectar flow would occupy the robber bees so that they would leave your colony alone.

Perhaps someone can tell you about bee lining to trace a bee back to it's hive.
As for baiting a hive to catch mean bees, I think I would pass.  They won't move in there unless they are swarming.  You don't want those genetics.

If there is another beekeeper in the area, get to know them and ask if you can tag along when they do inspections.  That should help build your confidence.

[Newbee]

Thanks Baker,

It's getting weirder... they're all bearding on the front of the hive this evening.... (trying to slingshot some pics around to post, terrible internet out here in the hinterboonies).

If they're bearding on the front of the thing, that tells me (in my inexperienced way of thinking...), that their queen is inside (or under one of the beards hanging off the front!)... Could there be 2 queens in there (not for long!)? Or is it possible these are actually all my bee's, and the colony is doing much better than I expected? I haven't had the chance to do an inspection yet this year, but appreciate the suggestions! I do have an entrance reducer on the front, been on the smallest hole since... forever? I see lots of bee's coming back with pollen now, tree's are blooming all over, but don't know about nectar. That was actually one of my goals when I decided to do an inspection today, was to put the hive-top feeder on!
Interestingly, this 'attack' behavior seems to follow a pattern when the weather is nice(r). In the early morning the hive has NO activity, until about 11-ish, when you get a dozen or so flyers. Then around 2-3 PM, 'the cloud' appears, and it goes until close to sun-down. I haven't actually sat out there and watched the thing to see where the bee's come/go, I suppose it's possible they're emerging from my hive after brunch? 
Sigh.. sorry for so many questions, I hate being confused, LOL! That's the worst part of this experience w/ the bee's... I don't know what's happening, so don't know what I should be doing, if anything, to aid? Would hate to lose another hive.
Thanks again for the info and conversation!

- K

[Newbee]

Here is a pic of what the front of the hive looks like. Have never seen the bee's do this before. When the 'cloud' is outside, there might be 20-40 hanging around on the front, but never 'bearding' like this. Interestingly, while watching them tonight, I saw a couple bee's doing the wiggle-dance! No idea what they were saying to each other, it's too late to indicate food I would think (around 6:30-7:00 PM).




Here is a good shot of the bee's around the entrance. You can see one of those 'fat bottomed bees' I mentioned interacting with another one right by the screw in the middle. I thought they were fighting, but couldn't be sure, there was so much activity and I was getting dive-bombed (and didn't have any protection on but my jeans and a T-shirt!) But you can clearly see it's much larger, has a darker abdomen, larger wings, and it looks to me like a different kind of bee (maybe a drone?)




And finally, I saw one of the fat-bottomed girls trying to fly away from the hive, was having trouble, kept landing in the grass, and I was able to get a close-up!




Thanks everyone!

- K

[Wandering Man]

The Wide Bodied bees are Drones.  If food is scarce, the girls will kick them out, beer koozies, TV remotes and all.

The bees bearding on your hive are yours.  They may be outside to help manage the inside temperature.  Or they could be thinking about leaving since they are under daily attack.

I've got some questions about the attacking bees.  Does it happen every afternoon?  Are the bees flying in circles or loops?  Do the circles and loops get bigger and then smaller?  If so, you may just be having bees doing orientation flights.

You've got the robber screen on, which is good.  When I want to deter robbing, I close both of the bottom entrances and just leave to top entrance open.  With the bottom open, robbers just follow the scent and dart in past the guards.  With the top open, they have difficulty figuring out how to get in.  You'll see the invaders zig-zagging, rather than doing loops.  You'll also see bees searching the back of he hive and around the corners for entrances.

If you change the configuration of the robber screen, it is best to do so in the evening after all of the foragers have returned.  The robbing screen will stump your foragers, just as it stumped the invaders.

[Newbee]

Thanks Wandering man!
I normally just have the top-opening open on the robber-screen. I had opened the one in the pic just a little being worried that they were my bee's....
Doubt it's temp. related, just not that hot here yet? Had a frost last night, but 60's during the day (it's the frost that made me open the lower door - they'll be dead if they don't get inside?)
... I've been looking for those widening loops, can't say I've seen it (but it could still be so). Do seem to think there is a more 'darting' activity. Very frenetic, too, not what I recall from watching normal, healthy, active hives. I do generally notice it occurring at specific times - roughly after 2 PM?
Another local Beek suggested several times that more hives starve this time of year than over the winter due to lack of food, so it could be they are kicking the drones out. But this has been going on since... Last fall? Honestly, I would love nothing more to know that they're fine and just hungry, so I hope you're right!
Thanks again!

- K

[Bakersdozen]

The bee in the grass is a drone. 
What are your day time temperatures?
In general, what is blooming in your area?  Are the fruit trees starting to bloom?  Do you have dandelions, henbit, or redbuds blooming?  Beekeeping and botany go hand in hand.
Pollen being brought in is good.  That is food for larvae.  But it is not nectar.  An easy way to tell if there are any food stores inside the colony is to lift the entire hive, from the back of the hive.  Reach down with both hands and lift from the bottom board.  Is it heavy, super light, or a little heavy?  That will give you an idea how much food stores are in there.  It should be on the light side this time of year.

I would close off that bottom entrance of your robber screen and leave the opening at the top of the robbing screen open.  If you have an upper entrance on that hive, close it off as well.  It seems that the number of bees gets overwhelming about 2 pm.  Do all this about noon.

I feel like we are missing a piece of the puzzle here.  You have some catching up to do on your honey bee education.
In the mean time start doing some reading.  The local library may have some beginner books. Join a local bee club, if there is one nearby.  Make a friend of another beekeeper.  There is some great reading online.  You found one source, here. But this can be hard to learn from when talking about what a healthy hive should look like. 
Start by reading anything the Honey Bee Health Coalition has posted.  www.honeybeehealthcoalition.org.

[tecumseh]

first thing I would ask is does the hive feel heavy?  I am a proponent of tipping or hefting hives (from the back) to gain some idea of weight.  A side benefit is after a bit of experience you also get the feel for when a hive is top heavy.... which basically means the bottom is essentially empty.

The basic point to be made here is (much like human) hungry bees and those very short on supplies are also angry and hostile to anyone that moves with a circle of the hive.  In warmer weather (say 55+) you may clearly witness scout bees flying in circles around the hive and bumping or stinging anything that comes within any distance of the hive.

A bit of even minor inspection will often create what your picture suggest... ie lots of bees at the entry to discourage robbers..

Final note... those black skinny bees may actually be from your hive in that they commonly are simply old bees that have lost their 'fuzzy' (ie hair) and consequently any color you might perceive in younger bees.  They are fairly common this time of year due to the winter and little replacement by younger bees.  In a robbing situation they are also the bees most likely to be robbers.

[Newbee]

Thanks everyone for the great info and suggestions! Sorry for the delay in response, work, kids, life, and a lack of internet conspired against me, but man what a couple days!

Bee's were all MIA Thurs. morning when I went to work (at 2:30!), so I figured they flew away or back into the hive. Big cloud and bearding again on Thurs. afternoon... Friday when I got home from work (~11 AM), there was a swarm hanging out in the top of a tree about 25 feet away. Yeah, even in my ignorance I knew those were mine.     

They were still there Saturday, so after morning chores my 12-year old suited up in his suit, and me in my 'getup' (old jacket, sweats, veil, gloves and muck-boots!) and we tried to get them into the new hive box. Half the cluster was up high, half was down where we could almost reach it. We tried knocking them into a tarp, but had the best luck with an old bucket. We would knock the cluster down and carry it to the empty hive, and try dumping them in (of course most just flew away!) After every try, we would see a cluster re-forming in the tree branch again, wait a few minutes, then try again. After 25+ tries, the cluster stopped forming, and there were a couple thousand bee's in the new hive, seemingly wanting to stick around. Never saw the queen (if it was my 'old' queen, she should have been marked w/ a blue spot of paint), but I'm hoping she's in there. Will know more in the next couple days.

While we were suited up and had the smoker going, I took the top off my old hive. Pulled 3 random frames from the upper hive body (over-wintered w/ 2 deeps). I saw a lot of pollen, very little honey, and no capped brood/larvae. There were 4-5 queen cups on the bottom of one of the frames, one of the cups was capped/closed. I'm going to assume the hive decided to supersede and the old queen got wind of it and took off?

With luck, I've got the old queen in a new hive (10 feet away from the 'old' hive). I'll have to deal with a 'virgin' queen however.... Will a queen mate with a drone from the same parent? Will she fly off and mate w/ a local drone? I thought about trying to mail-order a bred queen, but don't think I could go through the entire hive and kill/destroy any queens/queen-cups I encounter. I know it will likely mean my pure-bred russian genetics will become mutts, but I'm not looking to breed exclusively russian bee's anyways, I just wanted to try some different genetics (the Carni's I had previously I did not have success with).

Both hives have feeders on top now. I was surprised by how 'full' the older hive was, those frames were entirely drawn out, albeit fairly empty. I'll be trying to add a queen excluder and super in the very near future. The "New" hive has some new empty frames, and some with comb, so will take a little time to fill out.

B13: Tree's are flowering locally, plants just starting. Redbuds and cherry's are finishing up, dandelions and azalea's just starting, there are some weedy-looking things in the turf with little flowers that are very popular with the bee's. I'm in a heavily forested area, with some pasture mixed in, though there are a lot of flowering shrubs on the property thanks to the previous owner! Daytime temps usually in the 50-60's, Saturday we hit 73! Nights will get into the 40's, occasional frost warning for another couple weeks. Thanks for the tipping suggestion, will have to give that a try!

Tecumseh: Thanks for the 'tip'!  I'll start giving that a try... can probably do it quickly in the morning before they emerge without even having to suit up or anything, just lift it a few centimeters to gauge the weight?

Thanks again to everyone for their help, suggestions, and comments. I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond. It's so frustrating not knowing what's happening, nor what to do to try to help. Having a group of experienced people to ask questions and receive suggestions really helps to set my mind at ease as I learn more about this 'hobby'.

- K

[Bakersdozen]

Perhaps that is why they were cranky.  Overcrowded?  But you said they were cranky last year too.
A virgin queen will fly 200 +/- yards to 1 mile to make her mating flight.  That reduces the chance of mating with her own offspring.
That leads me to this question.  Do you want the same cranky genetics from the swarm colony that you had before?  Now would be a good time to cut out those queen cells and put a purchased queen in there.  Or, if those eggs are on different frames, you could do some more splits with frames that have a queen egg.  I think you had two colonies.  Pull some frames from both of your colonies and make a split!

[Newbee]

Thanks B13!
I was able to get in touch with someone from the county beek's association over the weekend. They have a meeting tonight I am going to try to attend, and she said her and/or her husband should be able to come over tomorrow sometime to help take a look through the hive(s).
As of yesterday they were still bearding, even in heavy rain, there were 50+ sitting outside soaked.... I did check on the 'swarm' that I captured, appears to be in the 2nd hive still, they are using the hive-top feeder, though very little coming and going. Haven't inspected hive yet (aka taken frames out), but hope to with the helpers from the county club.
Thanks again.

- K

[Bakersdozen]

I sincerely hope that you get to attend that meeting and attend on an ongoing basis.  The more you know, the more comfortable you will be when you check your colonies.  That is very generous of someone to take the time to check out your hive.  This is a busy time of year and you might be pulling them away from checking their own hives.

[Newbee]

I was finally able to get into the hive again and got some help from the local county beekeepers club. Boy, what a help they were!
I've got some pics and a video of a queen emerging from her cell I'd like to post, but... the internet Gods conspire against me for choosing to live out in the hinterboonies. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a connection.
ANYWAYS... I now have 3 hives, probably all virgin queens. We observed 6-7 hatched queen cells. 7-8 capped queen cells. Countless 'cups' under construction. No queens were actually found, except one we watched come out! My friends from the county club put the cell in a queen-cage, and she hatched inside there. They took her home (which was fortuitous, as they needed a queen for one of their hives!) Based on the balling and the bee's activity, I've got at least 3 of them in boxes....

The swarm I caught with my Son last weekend appears to be doing well. They are happy in their box, and staying put. Normal activity observed outside the hive last couple days.

Original hive appears to be doing better. We pinched off all but 3 of the capped queen cells because we were unable to find a queen in the hive. It did not act like it was queenless, but we did not find her, so we left 3 of them intact, and figure the bee's will figure out what to do. Based on the timeline of things, she could have been off mating.

We had a swarm that had formed in a bucket near the hives. Based on activity of the bee's, it appeared there was a queen in there, though she was never spotted. Took the bucket and dumped it into a Nuc, and it is acting like a normal looking hive today. Assuming we did capture the queen (virgin), as the bee's are acting happy. Hopefully she'll mate soon and start laying.

We tried capturing another swarm up in a tree. No luck, flew off today.

It appears my original hive threw off many swarms. No telling when the original queen took off. She was never spotted, though it's possible I still have her, I'm assuming she left weeks ago when things started acting wonky. Original hive still has a large amount of bee's... maybe ~10k? You'll be able to see in the pics/vids if I ever get them posted. I'm very optimistic after this episode. I was hoping to be able to split the original hive, but never expected this!

Thanks again for all the help here, and from the local beeks that came out to help. Can't tell you how helpful it is for a newbie to have a resource to 'dump' your situation on and get some input!

- K

[Newbee]

Here is just ONE of the frames with a collection of hatched and capped queen cells. Had 3 frames like this!



Here she is poking out. Kept opening and closing, little antenna poking out, attendant bee's kept coming over to inspect. We peeled it off and put it in a queen-clip....



... which moments later, had a new queen inside it! All of about 60-seconds old....



Man, what a fascinating hobby!?

- K

[Newbee]

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/e97cf2481e95d3dc95cc95ffac5b3c3620190412002556/992914c42e3f619ee540c06ca6e9b9a720190412002556/230484

Don't know if this will work... file was 100 MB's. Link only good for 7-days.
(It's not terribly exciting... just the queen poking in and out of the capped cell a few times).

- K

[Newbee]

Got into the hive last week to have a looksee...
Eggs, larvae at various stages, and capped brood were observed in both hives. Never did see the queen, but someone's in there laying eggs! Activity on the outside of the hive agree's, they are definitely ramping up. Hope to get in there again soon to see how she's laying....

- K

[Bakersdozen]

Keep us posted, Newbee.