Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
syrup in a feeder, or honey found in another hive. Small, weak colonies with few
guards are unable to defend themselves from an onslaught of foragers from other
hives, but they will try. Guards will fight to the death to keep strangers from steal-
ing their hard-won stores, but if they are overwhelmed, the colony will be robbed
of all of its honey, and in the process, many of the bees will be killed.
Beekeepers can inadvertently expose a weak colony to robbing by opening it
during a dearth, or at any time foragers from other colonies are having difficulty
finding food. Opening the colony sends an aromatic message—food!
There are several signs that a colony is being robbed, and it pays to recognize
them before the colony is destroyed. There will be many bees at the entrance fight-
ing, with workers balling up together with five, six, or maybe ten in a ball. There
will be individuals rolling on the landing board and falling off, and all the time
more and more bees arriving at the colony. Bees from one, two, maybe all the rest
of the colonies in your yard can become involved.
Because of the mayhem and fighting, alarm phero mone fills the air. You may
even smell the banana-like odor. Guards rush out of their colonies searching for
the source of the alarm pheromone but will be unable to locate a typical intruder.
When this happens, they can become defensive in a hurry, stinging everything and
anything for several yards in all directions. A robbing situation can become fatal
for the robbed colony and dangerous for people and pets in the area. If you sus-
pect the colony you are working, or perhaps one you just finished, is being robbed,
you have a responsibility to protect that colony before it succumbs. Immediately
reduce entrances to all colonies in your yard using entrance reducers or even hand-
fuls of grass. Apply smoke to every colony to disorient the inhabitants and disrupt
their rush to rob. Close up the colony that is being robbed, making sure that upper
entrances are closed. Seal off the front door with a reducer and grass. This stops
outside bees from entering and allows the colony being robbed to reassemble its
forces.
 
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