Honey Bees Getting Robbed, How to STOP that, and how to combine two weak colonies with news print. 

Absolutely mind blown by the amount of resource and info you're putting out there for everyone Fred. You're amazing. Thank you so much!

I expierenced a robbing of my hives recently. After I did quick inspection and determined they had been queenless for over a week I closed up the hive robbers and all for 2 days and fed sugar water. Then moved them to the other side of my property 1/4 mile and gave them a new queen. They bounced back extremely well!

It’s a bit like the Black Friday sales at Walmart 😳

This has to be THE single best photographed channel on bee keeping on the entirety of youtube. Your camera work is great and I really appreciate the extra effort you put into composing your shots to be balanced, well exposed and crisply focused. What makes it even better is the use of macro lenses to really get to see the bees up close. Excellent stuff, m8.

Ahhhh... gotta get some robbing screens! Yes - that awful sound of a hive being robbed... 'bee pandemonium'. A few years back I inadvertently and foolishly left my spun out frames too close to the original hive to get cleaned out. (Thinking like a human and that this would be a good thing for them to do... and also I thought that 100 feet or so would be far enough away....) Well, I invited a massive 'bee war' that followed the honey scent back to the hive (ok... anything and everything was flying around the whole area... wasps... bees... you name it...)... and not only did they rob the hive - I ended up with a heap of dead bees and no hive left. A very costly mistake.

I was robbed by bees once. They stung me $8.00 for a small jar of honey!

I don't know why this ended up in my recommendations but it's fascinating! I could listen to you talk all day long.

Just did this same thing two weeks ago. I had ordered two mated Weaver queens, but UPS delivery was delayed. One queen was not marked and under-mated with dead bees in the cage. I tried to direct release, but she flew off never to return. Five days later I combined the queenless bees with my lowest in numbers hive. Happy now with two Carniolan-queened hives and one Weaver hive. This whole re-queening Africanized hives has been quite an experience. I'm glad you recommended the Weaver queens, but with the awful delivery between Houston area to South New Mexico, I will not try that again. The Carniolans came from Lappe's bees of Iowa.

I have zero interest in bee keeping and yet I cannot look away, this is incredibly interesting, informative and your voice arration is National Geographic worthy. Very cool....

I am excited to see how they do with a mated queen! The video of the robbing was very interesting....especially when you slowed it down.

Between your exceptional informative videos and a local friend who is giving me hands on experience I've decided to start beekeeping! Thanks for your hard work! If increasing interest in bee keeping is a focus point for your efforts I'd say you are succeeding remarkably.

Thanks. Our flow just started Here in Minnesota

I'm sure you get this a lot, but you're like the Bob Ross of beekeeping. I just found you today, and I'm hooked!

Dear Frederick, Once again a most fascinating and absorbing episode of beekeeping. I would never have known there was such a phenomenon as robbing a colony. What was equally interesting was your analysis of the two colonies, how you combined them, and the addition of a new queen in a few days. I pray your reconstituted colony thrives and becomes a strong and productive colony. Sincerely, Larry, Canada.

You're helping the next generation of beekeepers! Thanks for such useful information!

Great video and thank you for spending so much of your time on these educational video's. I'm new to beekeeping having started this spring after years of consideration. Your videos truly help me along and have great visualizations. I have the same problem that you described in the video with one of my colonies and thinking about re queening it. I do have a really hard time to find a place to order a new queen. There is a lot on the internet but its hard to tell which one would be reliable. Not sure if you can answer this question as you mentioned before you don't advertise, but it would be great if you could give me some direction. Many Thanks Andreas

Good instruction. It is September 20th and I've been dealing with robbing for the last week, for 3 days, 1-2 days off and then more robbing. Wet towel, sprinkler and robbing board from Bee Smart. 2 hives, one exceptional. I've done what I-can they're in the Lords hands. Many bee keepers in this are of WNY. Just getting back into it after 15 yrs off.

I'd rather watch some random guy post bee OR FREDS 🐝 or farm 🚜🌄 construction Videos Been getting swamped by 13 yr old asain kids posting these 2hr Music bots recommendations 🥵 My hand is so sore from deleting the Bot videos week after week youtube algorithm is broken anyway bees r cool 😎 was givin a jar honey from a flowfree hive 2017 vic oz the best

Thank Fred for this really cool experience. Without this, i would not have noticed what robbing activity would look like.

As a "returning" bee keeper, I was a beekeeper late '70's to mid 90's in NJ then PA, I've had some catching up to do on newfangled equipment, new pests and techniques. I want to say THANKS! You are doing the hobby a great service in the highest degree (I don't even think that statement covers it). I find your video Q&A's extremely thorough and equally informative. With RU-vid I can watch during breakfast, pause, lunch and finish when I have the time. I love the index so I can skip some basic knowledge I remember well. After the first Q&A I watched I went back to day 1 and scrolled to "yellow jacket raid" and began my catch up on beekeeping. I "lost" my apiary (small hobbyist 6 hives) to bears in '95 and never started another hive. I've carted 2 1/2 complete hives of now vintage wood with me for 20+ years. It was put some of this wood together or sell it. A swarm landed in the tree of my home in Buffalo NY (nearly downtown) a few years ago... in the city?? I was blown away and also mad that I had no equipment put together to give them a home. In the past few years I researched new bee lines, especially the Russian bees and then the Sazkatraz line was available. 5 days ago I installed my first Saskatraz bees. The Queen died in her cage before she was released, another is on her way. As you know it never gets boring keeping bees. Thanks again Chuck T Buffalo NY Should you read this could you produce a coffee mug with a standard langstroth hive? Or perhaps the artwork from your hive bodies.

I am interested in the « why » they got to that point. Could you give us a few reasons...as to foresee something like that happening...a little prévention...sort of speak! Very interesting video. Thank you.

Totally great watching your video..I'm in Astoria Ore and do all the technics..you just used..in fact I teach them..but I've been building my own robber screens. Not just for honey bee robbing but yellow jackets too..but introducing a queen directly into laying workers?? I've had laying workers reject queens..any thoughts?

Amazing video, Fred has taught me more about beekeeping in the past few weeks than a decade of trial and error. Western New York can be tricky for a beekeeper.

Great clip 👍! As a fellow RU-vidr, I am on the lookout for creative ideas! Great Job!

Thank you for another amazing video. This is a queen action packed at work . She is incredibly accurate with her pattern of laying filling almost every cell. So it will return and fill uncapped cells later? Please let us know.

I'm so bummed one of my colonies has been getting robbed the last couple of days. I made a robbing screen but I'm afraid to even look in the hive.

I noticed robbing 1 week ago so i put the entrance reducer on the hives which stopped that cold my 2 cents cheers

That was really cool Fred.

I wouldn’t call it a robbery... More like a siege!

What happens to the bees being robbed? Are they killed? Hiding out somewhere close?

Newbies!! get it? (I crack myself up.)

My bees are flying right into the entrance as in this video and they are not being robbed. My bees will catch an intruder and ask them by force to leave. My hives are queen right and making brood and honey, but even when they where queen-less they done the same thing including showing intruders the door.

I look forward to seeing how they go with a new queen and hopefully they accept her quickly.

I learned the hard way to always keep a couple nuc's ready to go. Great pictures and info

Can we get a follow up video?

If i catch it i set a dummy box in the spot being robbed and take the hive being robbed and move it a good distance away with blocking the entrance. The bee doing the robbing after awhile learn there is nothing there and stop and the hive i moved is restored and more often saved

I had to like that today I thought it was warming then I thought Robin then all of them went in after about 20 minutes so I figured it was first flight

First of all thank you very much for this, I have stumbled across doing the right thing I guess :-) but just seeing someone do it as well helps me understand maybe potential better ways or things I was doing right thank you again At 26 minutes and 43 seconds I noticed in the background the Flowhive 2 with the Flowhive window box on the bottom. Are those the flow frames inside on the bottom? Is the queen excluder in and the queen located on the top or do you have at this time a queen excluder at all in the space? I was a original crowdfunding participant. I’ve got two original flow frames at my home which are doing gangbusters and always have. I have 12 flowframe 2’s on a campground. And just more curious about management. And I like the entrance cover you got protecting the entrance of the flow frame 2 from rain. I like the metal bottom board but at the same time I think it traps rain and I like what you’ve got there I might have to make 12 of them

Interesting how the robbers do some nasonov fanning right after landing to tell the others where to go for some good stuff.

In fast forward it wasn't like that but it was a bunch of bees flying in and out orientation flight I think is what it's called

This video was very informative. Thank you.

This is fascinating, thanks. I would like to find some land someday and do this.

Perfect timing for me to watch this video . I will be doing this tomorrow and this gave me a little help on what to do . Thanks for the video

Glad I've found this. I wasn't sure. Went out this a.m. About 9:15, approx. 52 degrees, at entrance saw mass of bees at entrance, never see bees this active, this early. At first, I thought orientation flight? Never this early before before sun has brightened up. Watched, waited, bees noisy, really fast entrance, fast exit, bees just hanging on hive, on legs, etc. trying the upper vent..... Covered with white sheet, now the bees are on outside of it. Inside feeder. Sept. 30th.

Great portrayal of landing board activity! I have a queenless hive that was full of drone brood and I chose not to fuse it with it with another hive so as not to load another hive full of drones useless, resource consuming drones. Eventually my other hives started a robbing frenzy like what is shown in this video. Given that the weak hive is now full of drones (about 50/50 population) I still don't want to dump them into another hive and am at a loss as how to deal with the situation.

Fred, another great learning video. Looks like it's time to sharpen that knife. But then again, at least you (we) are still caring one. I feel we're a dying breed though. :)

Wish I'd watched this 2 days ago.. Thanks dude.

Given that the lower colony appears to have a laying worker, I would have thought the new queen might be killed by the laying worker hive. What is the likelihood of her being attacked? Would inserting capped brood frames and shaking off some nurse bee from other hives have increased the success of acceptance of a new queen and stop the laying worker from continuing to lay?

Thank You ,FRED learned something new from you again Joe 2022

do you suspect robbers killed the queens, august 1st here, ive had some robbing, and weak hives,2 hives have no eggs,1 hive has a poor layer,may combine with better laying queens,...i like the top hive feeders does yours seem to have a entrance in the shimm?,thank you

Hi Fred, On the subject of trying not to use queen excluders on a flow hive. How much capped honey is enough in the "honey bridge" box to be confident enough not to use an excluder? How much brood should we tolerate? I have 2 hives of Saskatraz bees in 10 frame flow hives. At only 64 days in the hives they've filled 2 deeps wall to wall. I put the flow supers on just to give them room, but there's brood in the honey bridge deep 3/4 of the way up in a couple frames. Should I move those frames down? Thanks!

Hello Fred, I have a random ( maybe crazy question about bee's). Is this the platform to ask, if not where is the correct one?

Who is here at working with one airpod in your ear listening to this and getting knowledge about bees life

Very helpful, how long do you leave the entrance closed before re-opening, is it minutes or longer. It appeared to only be minutes to release the robbers. I did notice robbing started and they did kill my queen as I have an emergency queen being built in the center of one of my frames. Just wondering, I do have another strong hive that I pulled nurses and cover brood frame from the stronger box.

I too, have the plastic robbing screen on this video. If the copper mesh doesn't prevent the robbers from finding their way in, what about the robbing screen would be more successful than the copper mesh?

So, I missed the explanation of why did this colony fail. Could you explain? Great video.

I felt so badly for the bees when you opened up the box. They were still working their butts off, trying to do the best they could with what they had. If that’d been we humans, most of us would have fled a long time ago - the ‘every man for himself’ mentality. “Good luck, everybody (whom I’m leaving behind), I’m outta here.” Nice, informative video.

I have a question for the professionals. I have a small metal shed in the garden and noticed couple of Bees flying in and out of the shed. I thought they might have set up a hive so i went in to check. Found no hive, but i found those Bees filling up the drilling holes of my wood shelf with pollen. o.O Are those Bees that lost their colony, so they just keep flying around in autopilot mode collecting pollen and storing it somewhere?

Have a new hive, we haven't put a reducer, but have been keeping an eye on the hive. The hive gets direct sun all day so figured the larger entrance may help keep the hive cooler/maintainable. But how often should I be checking the hive to ensure they aren't getting robbed? Been going every 6 hours or so.

I started off watching a raccoon eating and now I’ve ended up here. This is the beauty of youtube, a great suggestion! I’m fascinated by bees and admit that I didn’t know this even happened. So, I’m here to learn! Thank you for your great work!

what is the optimum height to have a hive off the ground? I have disabilities and cannot be bent over for long periods. plus, I cannot lift heavy things too high. right shoulder and arm is less that awesome.

I found out from a bee research lab in Florida that you don't need to put newspaper down to separate the bees. Just put them together. They do just fine. The paper annoys them and makes a mess for hive beetles to hide in They don't like it and try to remove it.

What happened next? It's like not knowing the ending to a good book. Did both hives become buds? Did the queen get accepted or did they kick her out?

Curious how long you wait to open the hive being robbed? Guess common sense says wait till the frenzy bees leave.

Lol, I think we should re-name them "Looter Bees"

Fred that was put together very nice thank you

Just bought our Flow Hive 2+ and a couple regular langstroth! So excited to pick up the bees this week. We are all ready for splits when needed.

Thanks for the video, I have a question. What are the little white entrance restrictors that you use, that I see on your hive that you combined with the one that got robbed. Thank you

Mr Dunn has the most pleasant speaking style and is the best at giving worthwhile information in a very interesting manner. thank you.

Curious to know where the robbers came from? are they from your other colonies or do you suspect them being from a rogue colony? Sorry i just don't know anything about beekeeping etc.

what a brilliant video,fred your video work and information is epic,from a fan in the u.k

Felt like I was watching a professional movie. Excellent video and I learned a bunch. I don't have bee's but I'd like some I think

Very helpful information. Thank you!

Hello Fred. I just had a BIG robbing frenzy in my bee yard the day after a really great inspection. It was pretty strange. Bees fighting on the landing board and in front of the hives....but foragers still bringing in pollen during the event. Is that normal? Also had one hive bearding during the robbing. Temp was in the high 70's. Was a pretty wacky event. I think I got it under control with robbing screens. My question is how long do you leave the screens on after the robbing stops? Thanks as always!!

Is it a weak colony to begin with that attracts robber /lazy bees or is it robber bees that weaken a previously healthy colony?

22:53 :: A worker emerges and there is no queen :: could that worker's mother be a laying worker in whose ovaries that oocyte's meiosis (reduction-division, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis ) failed, resulting in a diploid unfertilized egg? If only that egg had been raised as a queen ....

Excellent tutorial !!!!!!

Thanks, great video. Very informative.

Wouldn't it be better to just close it off for the day intruders will move on. The hive bees will be there in the pm or morning to get it

Have you tried giving the bees that belong to the colony little ID badges and a security door to keep the robbers out?

That’s not a mite, looks like an aphid. Mites walks slow and steady and you can’t see their eyes, mites also have 8 legs

About six weeks ago I had a big colony and I split it. I left one queen cell in donors hive and put original queen with two broods in another, smaller hive. The queen cell failed. Now I see in the morning bees flying between those two hives free, and I do not know which one is robbed and which one is robbing. Smaller one has a queen, and bigger (donor) looks like queen-less. I Purchased and put the mated queen in that hive five days ago. Bees accepted her, but I can not see her any more. Bees still flying between those two hives. I'm confused. I will wait two more weeks to see are there any eggs or sign of a queen. If queen is not found I am thinking to turn back removed queen with all bees by joining them together. ...................... What is your suggestion, and what is the best to do in this case? I appreciate every good comment.

In one of your videos you made a comment on the shade covers over the top of your landing boards. Is there a video on them?

Is there a video of you requeening this hive? I’m in a similar situation with one of my hives, it went queenless because of a failed split (I had multiple queen cells in it but she didn’t make it back). Waited a few weeks after the queen cells hatched and no queen. Put in a frame of fresh eggs and they made a bunch of queen cells indicating they were queenless. They had been queenless for about a month at that point. I bought a new queen and introduced her in a cage. She was in cage for 3 days in the hive. I checked on her and they were almost done releasing her from the cage. I went ahead and released her, saw her walk down a frame and the bees didn’t jump her or anything (plus i assumed if they wanted to kill her they would have killed her in the cage). I expected to see eggs and/or her but no indication of eggs/larva or this new queen this past Sunday (that would have been 5 days from her release) :(. There was new brood that would have emerged the week she was in the hive. Im going to check again in a day or two but if I don’t see any evidence of her I’m assuming they killed her? Any thoughts on why they would do that if they were basically hopelessly queenless?

If you had violated one of your rules about not going into the hives often-do you think that you could have had a better chance at saving these two hives sooner?

Can the screen be put on preemptively before the robbing starts?

Over the last two days I've noticed a lot of bees at the entrance to one of my two hives just flying around from side to side then entering the hive. Checked your video on youtube and appears to be robber bees. I've ordered a couple of robber bee screens and in the meantime have reduced the entrance. Planning on adding some screen tomorrow to create more air flow until the robber screens are here. Also noticed the queen laying on the ground this evening. Apparently the robber bees killed her. The hive appears healthy with better than average resources, bees and stores. So I plan to have them create a queen and then order one to introduce next spring. Is this a solid plan or should I get a queen now if one is available? Mike E

Can you put a hive like that on a scale and record how much weight the colony is losing in resources?

This was a great Video. It’s all about the Queen sometimes.

Great job. We need to Index all of these. You are such an invaluable resource. Thank you.

Frederick, do you suppose that the colony that was robbed - lost it's queen first? or did the robbers kill her? I've heard it happens both ways and wondered if there was a way of telling after the event?

Would've like to have seen you introduce that queen in this video...

This is fascinating ... Is there a way to tell if an abandoned hive is being robbed or if a new colony maybe moving in? I had 2 abandoned hives. we lost the bees last year. I looked at them a month ago and not a single activity or live bee for that matter, but when I checked it this weekend, I saw a lot of bees flying in and out. They don't look as frantic as the video you show when the hive is getting robbed, but you do see clusters of bees that seem to be fighting here and there, but for the most part, the traffic looks steady. Its been going like this for the last couple of days. At what point can I check to see if maybe I got lucky with a new swarm or if it was just bees robbing the abandoned hive?

Hi Fred good video, i have a situation where the small colony was robbed as its winter in Australia at the moment, however the Queen is still there and hardly has any other honey bees, as most of them died when they tried to defend...I have them in a small box now to keep them managable, what steps would i need to take to ensure this colony survives? We have only started bee keeping this year, and although doing a few beginner courses, they didnt really go into deep in regards to robbing etc... thankyou

Another option is to put a light water-hose infront of the entrance and let it "rain". That stops the attack as well.

Here in NE PA that would be Bees plus Yellow Jackets. When you see this behavior the colony is usually gona already. A pile of those white specs all across the bottom below the frames. All the honey frames uncapped and robbed.

Do they also transfer food resources to one another while robbing?

Amazing. Thanks.

Thank you. I had no idea how to detect robbing. Now I know.

Still catching up on all your old videos. Need to do exactly what your video showed . Lost my queen . Combining my colonies . Thanks you for the video