Bee Wars!

[Gerald Boggs]

Bee wars!

I've been gone most of the summer and so my hives (I have two) have been left alone, but all was well upon my return in late August.  However we had a very weak spring and a dry summer, so there hasn't been a lot out there for the bees to harvest.  About a week after I returned, it rained pretty good.  The next day, the wars started.  My neighbor has twenty hives, most are in the valley, but three are kept up behind his house.  Mine are on my porch.  Anyway, it was intense for about three days.  Hundreds of bees swirling around, fighting to get into the hives, with mine fighting to keep them out.  Because of raiding problems in the past, I keep my entrances reduced, no more then three inches of opening.  After the first day, I taped over all the small holes in the supers, but didn't think to plug the inner cover (I should have)  In the end, I had lost a lot of honey, and the front area of the hives were littered with the dead :-(  Realizing I would need to feed them a lot! and having already learned how poorly the front feeders are, I ordered top feeders for Brushy Mountains.  Got them and installed them last week.  With the smell of sugar water in the air, the raiding started right back up.  In less then two days, using the inner cover entrance, the raiders managed to steal 1 1/2 gallons of sugar water.  Got smart and plugged the inner covers and now things are back to normal.  Both of my hives survived, but one of my neighbors didn't.  That was a really strong hive.  Most of his have four to six supers, plus the two brood boxes.  Any advice on how to stop raiding. I tried moving the hives but that didn't work.  My neighbor doesn't believe in feeding.  Normally this isn't a problem, as he leaves them a lot of honey.  Just this year has been hard on the bees.

[Gerald Boggs]

Never mind,  looked a bit back and found the Robbing Bee post by Big John.  Got my question answered.