5 Frame Medium Nuc-Robbing

Post by **Jacobs** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:25 pm

I made a 5 frame nuc from Wally's bee tree bees on July 12th. It consisted of a frame of eggs, 2 frames of capped brood, 1 frame of honey and 1 frame of pollen. I put an entrance reducer on at the 1 inch opening. Robbing began immediately. There were few defenders and it did not take long for the honey to be removed. The nurse bees did not fight and as of July 18th, there were still plenty of nurse bees and some capped queen cells. I made a robber screen based on the Brushy Mountain screen and it took about 1 hour for the robbers to figure it out.

Yesterday, July 19th, I completely sealed the openings (screen is open on front but does not let bees enter or leave). I took a nuc deep and put it over the medium with a jar of sugar water and a jar of water. My plan is to open top this evening and remove the sugar water. Then I will open the robber screen entrance and let the bees come and go until dark and then replace the sugar water and close it back up. I plan on doing this for a few days until more of the nurse bees age a little or the robbers (perhaps) get discouraged. I hope to have things manageable for when the queen cells hatch and a mating flight is due. I cannot move the nuc anymore than 40 or 50 feet from its current location.

Does anyone have any suggestions about what I am doing. Am I missing a simpler way to deal with the problem? Have I overlooked something that is going to produce disaster?

ski · Post by **ski** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:46 pm

I have a suggestion but it may make it worse instead of better.
Suggestion:
Close up the nuc as you planned and then put an open feeder as far from the nuc as you can locate it, with the nuc closed and food available maybe the robbers will only utilize the open feeder. After a few days open the nuc with robber screen in place.
The flip side may be that it attracts more robbers and things get worse. Just a thought.
Ski

Kurt Bower · Post by **Kurt Bower** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:13 am

Once the robbing starts you will not be able to stop it. They will kill the nuc unless you take drastic measures.
Drastic measures = move the nuc to another location where there are no hives around. I have done this many times with great sucess.

Kurt

Post by **Jacobs** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:31 am

I was afraid of that. I don't have a place to move them and the reason I was making the nuc was to try and get a daughter queen from the bee tree hive Wally gave me. I may try and keep it going long enough to add it to other frames and make a split from the original hive this weekend.

Does anyone have experience with spraying vinegar on bees vs. sugar water and vanilla extract to stop potential fighting when combining different bees?

Kurt Bower · Post by **Kurt Bower** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:58 am

There is a theory that if you take off all the covers of the all the hives that they will all stop robbing.
I have tried and did not think to highly of the idea.
You may want to research a little more before trying.

Post by **Jacobs** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:35 am

This morning I put an end to an almost noble experiment. Kurt was right and I was never able to stop the robbing. For the last week or so I would close up the entrance at night and put the sugar water feeder in the empty deep above the medium frames and gave the bees a small amount of pollen patty. I took the feeder out in the morning and waited an hour before opening the entrance to the nuc to 1 inch. Each morning the robbing would start within a few minutes. This weekend I examined the frames and found torn down queen cells but no evidence of a queen, eggs or larvae. There were absolutely no stores in the nuc. (Nicely cleaned drawn comb to use another day.)

I never did see the newly emerged brood or any other bees develop any defensive behavior toward the robbers. I wonder if they just gave up or whether they became so used to the scent of those bees that they did not recognize them as "foreigners." There are still a decent number of bees on the 5 medium frames, so this morning I started a newspaper combination of the nuc into another hive (not the source hive) that can use some additional population.

If the original hive overwinters successfully I may try a nuc next Spring when the flow is on and drones are out so that I can get a new queen from the bee tree hive.

Post by **Jacobs** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:31 pm

It looks like the combination was a disaster. Apparently the hive bees made it through the slits of the newspaper quickly and found the nuc bees to be unwelcome and dispatched them. I don't know if the results would have been different if I had put a feeder in above the nuc. Probably the hive would have come up, robbed out the sugar water and then dispatched the nuc.

Sometimes the bees have to pay a price for my education.

Post by **Wally** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:26 pm

Don Hopkins does it, along with many others, but I never slit the newspaper. I let the bees do it themselves. I don't know if it would have made a difference, but that's just my way of doing it.

SmithN · Post by **SmithN** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 10:59 pm

Jacobs,
I'm sorry I haven't been to the forum lately.
So sad to hear about your nuc!
Don't give up on nucs.

I know it's no help now, but just for future reference I have used pure vinegar in a spray bottle to neutralize the different scents when combining bees from different hives. It worked for me.(The vinegar tip is from a 40+yrs beekeeper.) A friend made up a nuc for me last year, he took frames from 3 different hives. When we arrived at my house with the nuc they were fighting. I sprayed them with vinegar as directed, I waited a short time, checked them and they were fine acted as if they came from one hive. I added a caged queen the next day, they had her out in two days. The "3 hive" nuc grew into a very strong hive.