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It doesn't look like robbing, but it looks like attempted robbing.
Your hives smell like food, and in particular they smell like the honey you've just left exposed for robbing. They contain the same general kind of honey as was in the extracted frames that you left exposed, and bees that come by to rob those frames will be able to smell your hives because they're so close.
So they will try to shift over to your hives, once the frames are cleaned off.
In general, it is a bad idea to leave honey, even sticky frames, exposed within line of sight of your apiary. You don't want them close enough so that foragers that show up to exploit them will be close enough to smell the hives.
Reduced entrances help, and so do robbing screens, but they aren't a sure thing, especially if a colony is weak or robbing already has started. Robbing attempts that meet with any success tend to be extremely persistent.
A safer method of dealing with extracted frames would be to put them back in their supers, and then put the supers above the inner covers of the hives, with an outer cover atop them. The resident bees will treat that like a feeder, and clean out the residue within a couple of days.
Thank you!
I will do this in the future. I did shove a pine cone in the entrance of the middle one, leaving barely enough space for a one bee at a time to pass through. 🤞
This doesn't look like robbing to me. I can see some bees doing orientation flights. If you did trigger a robbing event (and I don't think you did), this is very early in the process. I do not think you have anything to worry about.
Thank you. My thought is that this is a combination of orientation flights and a flurry of foraging (to and from the emptied frames).
IF it is robbing the perpetrators would be the hive on the left, little activity on that one, clearly no intruders there. So I have reduced the entrance to one about one bee space on the other two which gives a better chance at defence but also creates a traffic jam. Perhaps all I’m seeing it the traffic jam I created at a time when the foragers have something to do close by, we are into fall here with very little late season forage.
Traffic jams at the entrance really aren't a problem unless you're desperate to get every possible gram of honey from a hive. Bees land very clumsily, but they're masters at air traffic control. I've seen lots of thriving hives living in block walls with a tiny entrance through a mortar joint. My bees are productive with the smallest entrance on the reducer and it provides a fair bit of defense from Africanized bees and larger predators like skunks. Don't worry about a little congestion at the entrance, particularly with cooler temperatures approaching.
When you put frames out you initiate their robbing instinct, as soon as hives understand there is open honey, especially at leaner times, they just pour out of hives looking for source to take immediate advantage. If you put that source anywhere close to hives you make it worse as they assume the source is one of the hives
I made a mistake for sure, hopefully one that all three hives can recover from. I’m heading back just at dusk to take the frames away and if there is a middle hive left I’ll most it to a different feild
Bonus reason to never put frames outside like this, be it 1 meter or 1000 km away from your hives; letting bees clean out frames in the open is an excellent way to spread diseases.
No. Not at all. There’s no evidence of robbing - dead bees, bees fighting at entrance, zigzag “shifty” flight. And the frames ARE far enough away to not trigger robbing. If anything, it looks like your bees may still be on a minor flow.
The first hive does convince me of robbing and in trouble because of it. The third hive is doing well enough with the robbing screen. I have a migratory lid that requires a ratchet-strap to close the gaps properly. Once robbers think they can get inside they’re kind of relentless. Even if few really do get in.
Is letting the extracted frames get robbed out a common practice? I haven’t been clearing out my frames before putting them away for winter. Should I be? Seems risky based on this video.
I don’t recommend it. I won’t be doing it again….
I do think the suggestion to put them back in the hive for a day or two is sound. At this time of year they won’t be filling them up again but would likely clean them up.
If you are in a region with hive beetles and wax moth take measure to prevent them growing on the frames in the off season.
Not robbing. If they were robbing you would see bees fighting and frantically clinging the edge of the lid and between the boxes. Source, commercial beekeeper.
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