Every time I start to think I've got them figured out ...

[pistolpete]

I'm stumped again.   I made up a couple of Nucs today to house 2 queens that I purchased yesterday.   My main objective was to bank the queens, so I did not make these nucs very strong.  Each got 1 very strong brood frame with lots of capped brood and 2 frames of mixed honey/pollen.  Also shook in extra bees.

What I can't figure our is if one of these Nucs is getting robbed out or not.   There is lots of traffic at the entrance.  About what you'd expect for a really strong Nuc.  There is no fighting and about 1 in 5 bees is returning with pollen.    The other Nuc has almost no bees coming and going.  A third Nuc nearby seems to be on high alert, with lots of guard bees at the entrance.

A couple of thoughts on the situation:  The Nuc that has no traffic was only moved about 60 feet from the parent hive, so likely all the foragers went home and only nurse bees remain.  The Nuc with lots of traffic came from a couple of miles away and could possibly be forager heavy. 

Would a new Nuc defend against robbers?   What do I look for?  What do I do?  I've reduced the entrance to about 2 bees wide.

[LazyBkpr]

Are you feeding the nucs?   Flow or dearth in your area?
    Put something in front of the entrance if you dont have a robber screen. Even a cinder block stood up in front of the entrance will make a difference if its close. You want the bees to be able to come and go, but you want to stop robbers from "ZOOMING" into the hive past the guards.
   It has been my experience that it takes from two to five days for a nuc to set up a good guard on their entrance... but a weak nuc will also have trouble replacing those guards if they are lost.
 

[apisbees]

Pete should be enough out in your neck of the woods that robbing should not be a problem. You hit the mark when attributing it to the 60 ft move verses 3 miles the population demographic of the population will be different. Keep the entrance small so the bees can guard the nuc until the population expands.

[pistolpete]

I think I figured out my mistake.   I went back into that Nuc last night to see what the mood was like.   One of the frames that I put in the Nuc was solid capped honey from last fall.  I have found in the past that bees will sometimes refuse to open up capped honey this time of year, so I scratched  off the cappings on one side of that frame.   The reduced entrance happened to line up with that frame.   The other bees in the yard could not resist that sweet smell and lack of organised defence.    I moved the entrance to the end furthest from the honey frame and things were much calmer today.

Apisbees:  We are in what I call the spring doldrums.   It's a two week period between the end of the dandelions/fruit trees  and the start of the alfa alfa.  It's not exactly a dearth, there is lots of stuff blooming, but there are no easy fields of forage. 

[apisbees]

The vetch and tall yellow flowered plant that is rwlated to the mustered is out along with.the wild roses.

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[Jen]

Vetch honey is .... heavenly