The Circle of Life

We lost the battle officially this week. In early September I was worried my hive was getting overrun by a stronger colony when I took honey from the hive. The day I got in there I noticed an unusually large number of bees flying around the hive. In fact, I got a lot less honey than I was expecting. I blamed robbing.

Since that day I have noted on several occasions bee activity around the hive that suggested bees were trying to find any way into the hive they could -- there would be bees clustered around the seam of where one deep rested on the other. Bees that live in a hive know where the entrance is; they don't try to find other ways in. Last week I checked my hive and it looked like there was still a reasonable size population in there, but there was almost nothing in the way of honey stores in the upper deep (that's what a brood chamber box is called). I was relieved, actually, because I knew Carniolan bees are known for going into winter with a small nest population. I made some heavy syrup to feed them in a Boardman feeder, which is an inverted quart jar that sits in a little plastic holder and slips into the front entrance of the hive. The bee and wasp activity at the hive skyrocketed, so I tried stuffing fistfuls of grass in the entrance to reduce it. I couldn't use my regular entrance reducer because it only works if the Boardman feeder isn't there.

I lifted the lid of the hive yesterday to have a peek because it looked like there were still quite a few wasps making their way inside. Wasps were all I saw in the uppermost deep.

Today, wearing my bee jacket and veil, I opened things up. Not a single bee of my colony left, but plenty of wasps crawling around inside. Bronwyn put her jacket and veil on to help me pull the hive apart, smash wasps, and clean things up enough to put the boxes away in the garage for the winter. It's important to not leave the hive open for other insects or vermin to move into during the cold months.

Darn. I thought I was doing what I could to help the girls along. If I had it to do all over, I probably should have used ziplock bags of syrup placed inside the hive directly on the frames to feed the bees and then put the entrance reducer on ... maybe even close the hive entirely for several days. Perhaps putting the entrance feeder on caused the robbing. When I took the quart jar off the feeder entrance was crammed full of dead bees and a couple of wasps. So sad.

It's evaluation time now. I've been thinking about moving my apiary location. I've wondered if the current location is too shaded. And perhaps I should go back to raising Italians instead of Carniolans. I don't know. I have a few months to think about that, though.