Is it robbing or not?

[Irina]

Can you please check my video and let me know if it was robbing? It was nice sunny day.
This hive was more active than other hives and it is less strong than others.

Honeybees robbing

Thank you.

[caticind]

Not seeing any fighting.  I would say this is just a large orientation flight, unless you also witness fights or dead bees in front of the hive in larger than usual numbers.

[schawee]

this is not robbing ,looks like they are going to work in collecting pollen and nector.orientation flights would be much more bees than what was flying.the sound of the rooster in the background comfirm's this  :-D        .......schawee

[iddee]

I would immediately close off the top hive entrance and reduce the bottom, or add a robber screen. It looks like it could be the beginning of robbing. 

[Brian D. Bray]

You've evidently provided a 2nd entrance by proping up the unner cover.  The bees are re-orientating to that entrance.
This will leave the lower entrance open to robbing.

Robber bees begin by approaching the hive from the side, they will buzz around the entrance, then fly and land on the side of the hive out of line of sight of the bees at the entrance.  They will then peek arund the corner and make a mad dash of in a zigzag way probing for a lack of response by guard bees.  On the next faint it will attempt to enter the hive through any perceived weak point.  Success will bring more robber bees the next trip.  This well continue until the number of robber bees outnumber and overwhelm the bees in residence.  At somepoint during the robbing either the resident queen is killed or she absconds with the remaining resident workers leaving the hive to the robbers.

I did not see that type of activity in the video, but what activity I did see would indicate to me that a robber bee could readily join in on the flight to the upper entrance.  There were a good quantity of bees exiting the lower entrance but almost all of them were returning via the upper entrance. 

When creating entrances on a hive it is iimport that care be taken so that each entrance is controlled, the easier controlled the better.  Easy  guarding makes for hard robbing.  Why do something that reverses that logic?

[Irina]

Thank you all for your input,

Do you usually keep two entrances in the hive?

I was thought to have 2 entrances - 1st at the bottom & 2nd top of the hive at the inner cover for better ventilation.

[caticind]

Some have two entrances. Others not.  

My long hives have 3 one-inch diameter holes in each end as main entrances.  Then I also use migratory tops which have a ventilation notch at the top which can be opened by sliding the top backward.  My bees do not normally use these top holes as entrances because they are quite small.  But one hive in my outyard, where the packages were shaken onto small-cell foundation as an experiment, has smaller bees which often use the top entrance.  But my hives also have fully screened bottoms so there is no problem with not having enough ventilation, rather the opposite.

The take home message is that if you are worried about robbing, you should consider closing those second entrances first of all.  Reducing the entrance space which the bees have to guard is key to stopping robbing.  If there is a lot of bearding, then you will have to think about how to balance the risk of robbing with having enough ventilation.

Remember that the bees are adapted to live in hollow tree spaces with very small entrances and are good at controlling airflow.  In hives they need more ventilation because hive boxes are not well insulated compared to trees.  But still the bees can control airflow with great precision.

[backyard warrior]

Check the bottom board of the hive if you see alot of wax piled up on the bottom board and if you look at the frames of capped honey you will see that the wax looks shredded on the comb the bees actually rip the wax capping to get  to the honey.  Chris

[annette]

I have 2 entrances and the bees just love it. That video you are showing looks like a healthy hive out foraging and doing orientation flights. I always look to the bottom board to see if there is fighting going on. I don't see any in that video.

But I can understand your concern. Many times when I go up to visit my hives, I am checking for unusual behavior. When I see so many bees flying around, my concern is for robbing.

I keep robber screens around just in case.

Annette

[JP]

I agree that the bottom entrance needs to be reduced GREATLY or this hive could be a candidate for robbing. Something is definitely out of the ordinary according to their activity.

With a large entrance and yet another entrance the bees have to work equally hard to guard two entrances against robbing, particularly the large bottom entrance.


...JP

[T Beek]

You mentioned that this was a weak hive.  Weak hives are more susceptible to robbing, although I saw no such behavior in your video.  But..............doesn't mean it couldn't or wasn't going on.  Once you've seen robbing in action you won't forget it, it ain't pretty.

Definitely, close off or reduce the size of the bottom entrance.

The Rooster crowing was a very nice touch ;)

thomas