Yellowjacket Update

Hi Everyone,



I checked the YJ traps last Sunday and the three traps had caught approximately 120 YJ's total.



I emptied them and rebaited them and put them back.



Watching this week it looks like the YJ's are still there but they are generally just cleaning up the dead bees and not coming as close to the hive.

I think now that I have weathered the YJ attack, I can focus on wintering the bees.

My plan is to check them this weekend and then get ready to medicate for the winter.

Yellow Jacket Attack, Part 2 with Photos!

8/22/07



Hi Everyone,



Last night I went out to the hive and the yellow jackets were being pretty aggressive. For the first time I saw the YJ's landing on the side of the hive box and trying to sneak into the gap between boxes made by the frame holder. I managed to get a somewhat blurry shot of that:










Though you can't see it in the photo, I could also see bee heads on the other side pushing back to keep the YJ's out. This concerned me so I put duct tape across the seam.






The actual entrance to the hive looked pretty good still. The bees were guarding the entrance and the vent hole and I didn't see any YJ's even come close to entering the hive:







Here is a shot of the YJ's coming in to check out the hive, I just thought it was a cool shot:







This last shot is a shot of a bee being attacked and eaten by a pack of YJ's. I think those two little dots are the bees eyes:





I put out some more yellow jacket traps, and as I mentioned I duct-taped the seam made by the frame holder. So far I haven't seen a YJ even coming close to entering the hive so hopefully the hive is okay.

Yellow Jacket attack!

8/19/07

Hi Everyone,



Wow, what an interesting weekend. On the advice from several people I made home made yellow jacket traps and put those out on Saturday. Not a single yellow jacket had been caught so far, perhaps my home made trap is not very appealing to the yellow jackets for some reason.



On Sunday the weather was nice so I came out to watch my hive for a while and was amazed. I got to watch the yellow jackets and bees fighting in front of me. I would see things like yellow jackets coming kind of near the hive, then a bee would come out and attack it and they would fall on the ground rolling around as they fought. Sometimes I would see a second and even a third yellow jacket join the fight. I also saw the bees forming a semi-circle in front of the entrance to the hive as a way to protect it better. It was really kind of amazing, but also alarming to see the yellow jackets so aggressively attacking the bees.



I went out and bought one of those commercial yellow jacket traps and in an hour it had already caught 8 yellow jackets. I think I'll pick up a couple more and put them in place as well.

We'll see how that goes.

Robbing or reaping?

This morning I had a little time before I needed to go to work so I decided to walk out and take a peek at the hive and see how the bees were doing. I saw something that I thought was odd, but I'm not sure if I should be concerned.

First some background:
My hive is sitting on a palette which is sitting on cinderblocks which are on the ground.
What I noticed were:

1) Bees sort of walking around on the ground by the hive. I only saw three and they didn't seem to be hurt, they were just kind of walking around.

2) I saw a few yellowjackets zipping around the hive. I watched pretty closely and never saw a yellowjacket enter the hive (or even really come all that close).

3) I think I saw a yellow jacket take off carrying a dead bee that it had found on the ground. I say I think because as I'm sure many of you know, trying to follow an insect in flight with your eyes can be very difficult so I only got a glance.

At first I thought it could be robbing, but when I never saw a yellowjacket entering the hive I thought perhaps that the yellowjackets were just scavening dead bees for food.

I didn't have much time to observe before I needed to head to work so I decided to put on an entrance reducer and I quickly taped pieces of window screen over the vent holes in the boxes.

I posted to the bee board to see if anyone has seen anything like this, and to see if my conclusions sound reasonable.

I am eager to see what people say.

Third box empty?

8/13/07



I checked my hive yesterday and I was hoping to see a third box that was well drawn out with honeycomb. In fact I was hoping that there might have been one frame of honey that I could take and harvest but I was disappointed.


When I opened the hive and checked the top box I saw numerous bees walking around in there, but the frames in the top box looked totally untouched. If seemed like the bees had cleaned the frames up a little but I didn't see even the earliest signs of the foundation being drawn out.


The weather the last few weeks has been spotty and I live in a suburban neighborhood so perhaps there just hasn't been the resources available to draw out the top box.


I posted to the bee exchange board wondering if I should start feeding again. It doesn't really matter if I get a lot of honey this year, but it would be great if I could harvest at least a little to see what the honey in my hive tastest like.

According to the replies on the bee exchange board the empty third box is not unusual. Apparently in this area most of the major nectar flows are over so the bees don't really have the resources for stockpiling, thus the empty box.

One person suggested I remove the third box, so I'm thinking that the next time I check the bees I'll do that. Since I plan to move the hive in the winter anyway it would be much easier to move two boxes instead of three, so that at least is a plus.

I am disappointed that I might not get any honey this year, but I've read that isn't uncommon and hopefully good choices made this year will result in a really good harvest next year.

Oh, and so I don't forget one person recommended I medicate my bees with Fumigil in the fall. I haven't even thought of medications yet.

-Paul