Guilfordbeekeepers.org

This happens every year about this time or sooner. The hives are all built up to their max population but the nectar flow is all over for the season. Now the hives are packed full of bees with nothing to do but eat and the queen is still laying to make more hungry bees. I have some honey to take from some hives but there is less there now than there was a month ago and my nucs are dangerously light of stores. I quit feeding my nucs and splits because robbing was getting too bad.

Is there any solution to this problem? Sometimes I wonder if we should just kill the queens in May so there wouldn't be so many idle bees now.

A friend told me about a solution Michael Bush suggested. Feed the heck out of your strongest hives. Let them put up sugar water honey and then take those frames out and give them to your light hives. This is less likely to trigger robbing than direct feeding. I have not tried it yet, but have been feeding package bees and nucs and they may be making a surplus for the freezer/feeding purposes. I did notice for the first time yesterday that one of my hives appeared to be attempting to rob the other hives with feeders. I had ventillation on the top which provided greater access to the top feeders. When I shut the tops off, my robbing hive did not attempt a frontal assault on any of the entrances, at least as of this a.m.

Many commercial beeks move their hives at the end of a flow, during the warmest part of the day. That way, they only move the house bees and leave the older, forager bees there to die.It reduces the population, thus reducing consumption of stored honey.