Yellow Jackets are in my hive

[A37]

I went in my hive today to put winter patties on and there are yellow jackets crawling throughout my hive. Last week I had honey bees robbing my hive for about 5 days even with the entrance reduced. The guard bees were fighting the other bees but the strange thing is the yellow jackets watching on the landing board were left alone. My hive is two deeps the top deep is still full of honey, I didn't go into the bottom. If you had yellow jackets in your hive before what was the outcome?

Thanks

- It's my first year beekeeping

[bwallace23350]

bump for information

[Beeboy01]

They are looking for brood as well as honey. In the fall their usual prey, caterpillars and grubs are no longer available so they will raid bee hives for food. Use entrance reducers on your hive, the yellow jackets will die off after a hard freeze. 

[GSF]

Robbing and yellow jackets? It can't be good. The fighting on your landing board may be robbers fighting one another. Use a flashlight or something and look inside on the bottom to see if there's a lot of dead bees. If so I'd go in not long before dark just to have a peek. Are we talking about one or two yj or 20 or 30?

[jalentour]

A37,
Yellow jackets are on my hives by the hundreds right now.  I don't see them going inside because the entrances are well protected (no robbing).
Take care to keep your hives free of spills if you are feeding.
I have reduced my entrances and use home made funnel traps.  Google yellow jacket funnel traps, easy to make.  I use Mountain Dew.

[Rurification]

I second the use of funnel traps.  I use 1/3 apple cider vinegar, 2/3 water and a few drops of dish soap.   Catches them by the hundreds.

[bwallace23350]

I have not seen any yellow jackets in my hives as of yet but who knows how long that will last.

[little john]

Where are you guys placing your traps ?  Not by the hives I hope !
LJ

[FlexMedia.tv]

I have robbing. My bees are fighting the other bees but they seem to leave the yellow jackets alone

[A37]

I'm almost positive I lost my entire colony. I watched the hive for 20 min. today and it was nothing but yellow jackets flying in and out. I looked in the entrance with a flashlight and the entire bottom board has dead bees on it. I think my biggest first year mistakes are not taking mites or robbing seriously. By the time I noticed I had a mite problem I think my hive was seriously weakened and it was around the same time they were kicking drones out. I'm not sure what to do from here. Wait for freezing weather and bring the hive in? Can I reuse all the frames next year or should I buy new ones? Thanks

[GSF]

The next thing you need to do is save the drawn comb. If there's no bees or anything take them out and freeze them. Next thing you know it'll be a competition between the small hive beetles and the wax moths on who can destroy it the worse. Having drawn comb ready for a new batch of bees excels them forward pretty good.

[tjc1]

I would note that you don't have to keep the frames frozen. I freeze frames for 24 hours in 3-4 at a time plastic trash bags (I only have my small upper freezer in the fridge) to kill beetles and moth eggs , then take them out and store them in lots of 10 in compactor trash bags (very heavy plastic so they don't tear), in a cool place where animals won't get to them (my basement). Even full frames of honey kept perfectly well until I could put them back into use with a new hive.

[Bellavista2]

I've had this problem also, my method for killing them  is rather time consuming but I have made a dent in the population. I put up 2 of the Y traps but initially it did not seem very effective so I put a extracted frame of honey some distance away from my hives put a 3/4 plastic tube taped to the nozzle of my shop vac I could target the yellowjackets wit very little collateral damage. I sucked up 100,s of them. The traps started working better after a couple of days and I have seen very few today so I think I'm making progress. Now on to the next problem.

[CrazyTalk]

The next thing you need to do is save the drawn comb. If there's no bees or anything take them out and freeze them. Next thing you know it'll be a competition between the small hive beetles and the wax moths on who can destroy it the worse. Having drawn comb ready for a new batch of bees excels them forward pretty good.

Yup - queen and small group of bees (package, whatever) will build up way faster when she has open cells to lay in on day 1.