How Prepared are you for Bees Robbery?

Bees from a particular colony don’t ordinarily go out of their group if they have all they want to be independent. Bees possess the decorum to strive for their honey. However, hive raiding develops when bees are famished due to absence of food stream or due to ordinary adversity. They then start to invade weaker colonies to attack and rob. Most of the beekeepers are familiar with bees robbery. Here is what you can learn about bees robbery avoidance.

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Observe the movement and number of your native bees

It takes some expertise to get to understand the bees in your hive. It’s a hard particularly when you have to distinguish between native bees and unwelcome robbers. Nevertheless, with cautious surveillance, there are some sure indicators to look out for and avoid bees robbery.

Bees are livelier in the springtime, when they embark on collecting pollen and nectar. They manufacture their honey throughout this period and pile it inside their hives for future use. Sometimes, you may notice several lifeless bees around the beehive as the worker bees kill the drone bees to make sure there is sufficient food for the developing offspring.

If you end up sighting a lot of movement and even greater records at this period, you should be able to know that bees robbery is going on. Generally, raider bees rob other hives in the fall when their food stock is getting finished. It can also occur in the winter season when food is limited, and a number of bees may still be robust enough to attack other more plentiful beehives. At this stage, you can minimize the effects of bees robbery by protecting your beehives.

Reduce the size of the beehive entrance and all other routes that may allow trespassers

You can buy a hive reducer from any beekeeping equipment seller or online to aid decrease the size of the beehive entrance. These are usually blocks made of metal, wood, metal, or plastic, and are curve-shaped with a four-sided opening.

Alternative is to use a beehive screen, which provides even more security by allowing the whole hive entrance to be closed. The holes in the screen will permit your bees to respire, and this technique is quite worthy if bees robbery is becoming uncontrollable or you are shifting your beehive from one location to another.

You may also try to shield the entrance manually using a cluster of small poles.

A chemical obstruction can also be used to prevent bees robbery

Because bees produce chemical messages to link with fellows of their colony, it is anticipated that other robber bees will also intercept the communication. This information enables robbers to locate your bees thus serving as a sort of compass that facilitates bees robbery. Apart from the physical barrier, you also need chemical barriers to inhibit robbers from discovering your hive.

One easy method to form such a barrier is to dangle wet heavy clothing, like a bath towel over the entrance of the targeted beehive. This is perfect for screening the pheromones released by your bees hence obscuring the robber bees.

The alternative method is to mask the smells of bee pheromones by use of essential oils at the entry You should just apply a small amount onto the beehive or leave close to the entrance. This is another good technique to confuse the thieves and prevent bees’ robbery from occurring.