Hi all - on a trip to feed my hive last weekend, I opened it to find dead bees on the top board and few dead bees at the entrance. No honey stores, though I've been feeding for a while now. Absolutely gone and dry. As I'm a suburban beek with just one hive now, I've not noticed any other bees trying to rob, but have noticed some yellow jacket activity on the ground around the hive entrance over the last few visits. Could those dastardly little creeps have done this?
Also, what's your advice for feeding - keep giving them all they'll take of 1:1? (I'm in Atlanta and weather guys are calling for a warmer and dryer winter than average).
Thanks!
I think they were hurting before the goldenrod kicked in a couple of weeks ago. Robbing by other honey bees couldn't have helped, but the yellow jackets were just a small part of the problem. Are there much brood in the hive and what do the bee numbers look like? Reduce the hive entrance to keep robbing at bay. If the bee numbers are good, switch to 1 to 2 on syrup.
moved
this time of year around here -it works like this-yellow jacket kills the queen-lose of queen sent trigers robbing -
weak colonies with no queen are prime targets-some colonies just come up queenless in oct-every year-its the yellow jackets
they show no mercy-RDY-B