Thank you all for the advice. I believe that the wasps are robbing the hive
and not nesting. I can't find the nest, as the hives are in a small
woodland and the closest building is about 200 meters away.
We have now blocked the entrance of the dead hive and have reduced the
entrance of the live hive. We have put some wasp traps and will just wait
to see what happens.
Once again, many thanks to everyone who responded so quickly and helpfully.
With kind regards, Alla
On Mon, 6 Aug 2018, 13:40 Will H, <whanrott@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If you only wanted to stop the robbing then an easier solution that moving
would be to block the hive entrance. Do this at night when it's properly
dark. I've seen wasps trying to rob at dawn recently (ie 5am).
The other advice from Jack and Paul still stands -- narrow the entrances
to your active hive; move the robbed hive if you want it cleaned out; look
hard if you want to find the wasp nests.
Will
On 06/08/18 12:38, Jack Pritchard wrote:
Hi Alla,
Are the wasps nesting inside the hive, or just foraging the honey? If
they're nesting inside it might be possible to move or exterminate them. If
they're only foraging, you'd need to find the nest to exterminate them -
just killing the foragers won't make much difference.
Probably best to keep the wasps away from the live hive if you can. Once
they've cleaned out the dead hive they are likely to try the live one.
If you do move or destroy the old comb, it's worth narrowing the entrances
of any active hives for a few days - the wasps will be looking for a food
source, and a smaller entrance will be much easier for bees to defend.
And depending on why the hive died, you might be able to store the frames
to feed a weaker hive through the winter?
Jack
On Mon, 6 Aug 2018, 12:20 Alla Cordery, <alla.cordery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello everyone,
One of my colonies died earlier this summer. I am not sure quite why, but
my guess is that they swarmed and did not leave a queen.
So we left the hive alone even though it had supers full of honey, but
this honey looked very hard and unusable. What we have noticed now is that
lots of wasps go in and out of the hive. Our second hive is only 2 meters
away and is still doing well, but we are very uneasy about the proximity of
wasps.
How do we resolve the problem?
My initial thought was to remove the wasp infested hive ASAP, so it is
not next to our active beehive. Then I thought that we should try to
exterminate the wasps, but I don't know how.
Any advice?
With kind regards,
Alla
