Honey bees under attack from native bees

[Kevcook]

G'day all

I've been playing around with bees for a couple of years and I am just starting to learn how to look after them properly.

I have been setting up a bee yard so that the hives (6) are all together which will make it easier to manage, two days ago there was a cloud of native bees around one of the hives and appeared to be using one of the lid ventilation holes to access the super, I changed the lid and noticed the old lid had big vent holes (about 3mm) which allowed the tiny bees to come and go as they pleased, I was hoping that changing the lid would fix the problem.

This morning I noticed a lot of native bees around the entrance of the hive, a closer look revealed they were attacking the honey bees on the landing board, literally landing on their backs or wing causing the honey bee to fall to the ground, all while other native bees were coming and going as they pleased.

After lighting the smoker and suiting up and with the help of my daughter we opened the hive, set aside the super and then proceeded to inspect the brood, there was a lot of capped brood, young larva and eggs however, some of the capped brood have had their caps eaten away by the native bees to reveal the young unhatched, white bee.

I am just wondering if this is common and if so why, I have a theory but I am only new to this, I have tried doing a search which lead me to this forum.

Any info or advise is welcome.

TIA

Kev

[divemaster1963]

welcome to the forum. add your location so that we can answer the question better. location is everything.

john

[Kevcook]

G'day John,

I am in central Queensland Australia, I have no idea how to put that up, tried clicking on my profile but it doesn't show location like yours does, if you can advise, I would appreciate it.

Cheers

Kev

PS all sorted 

[amun-ra]

try tim heard think he is in brisbane he will know

[Sniper338]

Your hive is getting robbed...  make sure there arent any access points except the entrance.  Put a entrance reducer on and a robbing screen.

Weak hives tend to get robbed for their storages...  the native bees are basically trying to kill your hive and steal all the supplies in the refigerator your bees got saved up..

You gotta seal off your hive and get it down to where your guard bees have less of a spot to guard so the can take care so the can protect the hive.  If the whole entrance is upen they have a lot more area to guard and or get overwhealmed..

The robber screen lets your bees out but the robbing bees cant find their way in near as easily...

[Kevcook]

Thanks Sniper338

I was thinking along these lines but wasn't sure, so I appreciate your input, this is what I did yesterday, I removed the super and pushed all the bees down into the brood box (single full size) and reduced the entrance to about 5'' (it was fully open)

About 2hrs later I noticed the native bees were still trying to gain access and the honey bees were actually forming a defense line and fighting back, last night I moved the hive 10k (4miles) up the road to give them a better chance and hopefully build up numbers and strength.

I'm doing a town trip tomorrow so I will have a look at them on the way past.

Thanks again and also thanks Amun-ra for your reply, if this doesn't work I will look up Tim Heard, cheers

Kev