A General Hive Question

[Terri Yaki]

This morning, I have some yellow jackets trying to get into my nuc hive and only my nuc hive. I watched for a while, swatted a few and chased some off. I also reduce their entrance to the smallest one I have. They seem to be keeping them out...for now. I do not have any robbing screens but it looks like I best come up with some. How big a threat are yellow jackets and what is the best way to handle them?

[NigelP]

Tunnel entrances make excellent defences against wasps.
These are commercial ones, called hive gate, but you should  get the principal a long tunnel where the in hive entrance and exit is underneath the middle of the brood nest. Bees are able to defend these very well against robbing yellowjackets and are my go to method. I've yet to see them fail. If your nuc entrance is round, a piece of tubing will do the trick, rather than long and flat.

[NigelP]

Similar to the inside tunnel entrances are these outside tunnel entrances, where the entrances are at the ends of the conduit with entrance into hive in the middle.

[Kathyp]

I do not have any robbing screens but it looks like I best come up with some. How big a threat are yellow jackets and what is the best way to handle them?

I like NigelPs idea.  I had not seen those before.

It depends on how many there are and how strong your hive is.  I have had them take down strong hives, but there were 1000s of them attacking.  My down the way neighbor has one of his construction business outyards full of stuff, and I suspect that's a great breeding ground for them.
I finally figured out how they do it.  not only are they after the stores, but they are also after the larvae.  The big destruction comes when they weaken the hive and kill the queen. 

The best I have ever done is to reduce the entrance to the smallest size and make sure there are no secondary gaps or holes that they can attack. 

I would love to see  NigelPs tunnel in action!

[Terri Yaki]

Problem found and resolved...my mentor convinced me to add more holes to my feeder lids and I had a leaker. Hive disassembled, hosed off and reassembled. That white plastic piece is interesting. I have some similar plastic that I kept (since I am a keeper of things) when I replaced the vinyl fence around my pool. I'll try making one and see if my stock is sufficient. Thanks for that.

[BeeMaster2]

I have 3 Dyna Traps around my house and barn. I leave them on all year round. I haven?t had any problems with LJs since. The traps catch a lot of LJs most of the year. I think this keeps their numbers down so that the nests never get very large.
Jim Altmiller

[NigelP]

In many ways it depends on the density of YJ populations in your particular area. I have one apiary, my main one that can suffer badly from them in a bad year. Fortunately this year was bad year of the YJs. So no problems.
My other 2 sites are relatively unaffected any year.
Yet friend of mine loses hives to them every year. Obviously in a YJ "hotspot"....will he try these tunnel entrances....no he won't. He believes reduced entrances are the answer, despite him losing hives to them every year. You can lead horses to water...

[beesnweeds]

In the northeast yellow jackets aren't much of a threat.  Yellow jackets are like vultures, the prey on weak dying hives sometimes after they have been taken out by honeybees' number one enemy.  The number one enemy of weak colonies here is strong colonies, yellow jackets don't even come close to what honeybees can do to each other.

[The15thMember]

My experiences are much the same.  I don't appear to be in a "hotspot", Nigel termed it, so weak hives will be a target for yellow jackets, along with robber bees, bald-faced hornets, etc.  Strong hives with appropriately sized entrances don't have trouble keeping any of these intruders at bay.  Your hive is a weak one though, Terri, so it may be a good idea to give them some additional entrance protection.   

[NigelP]

Think you both summed it up neatly. Strong hives have no problems, it's the weak ones that need additional protection....and often from fellow bees.

[Terri Yaki]

I cleaned up the syrup spill, reduced the entrance and all is good...for now. I am keeping a close eye on them for now. There are a couple of lingering YJs and I swat what I see when I'm out there. They're surprisingly not hard to take out, their situational awareness is worse than mine is.

Next question...the only hive that's running normal is my swarm hive. They're bringing in pollen hot and heavy and running orientation flights every few days. Should they still be doing orientation flights this late in the season?

[beesnweeds]

Should they still be doing orientation flights this late in the season?

Yes.  They ensure the survival of the colony.  Workers that become foragers only live 5 to 6 weeks.  The bees that are doing orientation flights may already be about 20 days old or more depending on the needs of the hive and will replace dead ones to keep resources coming in until they have enough for winter. It seems like water foragers are the last ones to  give up in my area then they are clustered for the rest of the year.

[The15thMember]

I had a colony that was orienting so heavily the other day, that I went up to the apiary to check and see if something was wrong.  But nothing was amiss.  I was happy to see they still had so many new bees. 

[Kathyp]

Strong hives have no problems, it's the weak ones that need additional protection....and often from fellow bees.

Most of the time 

YJs in the numbers I had for a couple of years can take down strong hives too.  Our newest challenge seems be bald-faced hornets, but they have not bothered hives yet.  Just people.

[Terri Yaki]

I killed about 15 YJ queens last spring and I'm confident that that didn't hurt my apiary one bit. I have had bald faced hornets in the past but haven't seen a one this year.

[The15thMember]

I had a bald-faced hornet flying around me trying to catch a bee out of the air while I was working my small but angry colony yesterday.  She was welcome to a bee from that colony, although I don't think she managed to catch one. 

[Kathyp]

I killed about 15 YJ queens last spring and I'm confident that that didn't hurt my apiary one bit.

That would easily be handled by your hive.  I had many 100s attacking relentlessly day after day.  I think my neighbor might have cleaned up some of those nests after his workers were stung, but it was a couple of years of them being so thick they were all over the ground, the hives, everywhere. 

[Terri Yaki]

Have you ever been stung by a bald faced hornet?

[Kathyp]

I have not.  Had a lady call me the other day about removing some.  I took a pass.  She'd been stung but considering what she'd been doing they didn't seem as aggressive as the YJs.  I ran the tractor over a Yellowjacket nest once and they about killed me.  If I had not been mostly covered, I don't know that I'd have made it without a hospital stay.

[The15thMember]

Me neither.  I've actually never been stung by a yellow jacket either though.  Other than honey bees, I've been stung by a paper wasp, a bumble bee, one of those little blue solitary wasps, and sweat bees.  One time I was stung right in the center of my back by something when I sat in a chair outside, and it hurt like crazy, but I never saw the insect, so I don't know what that was.  If we're not only talking hymenopterans, I have also been stung by a saddleback caterpillar.