What have you done today bee-related?

[Murox]

Small tip.....
In spring early summer ...if you give bees a choice of what they can draw...it will be a,lot of drone brood. They want to reproduce and need drones. They will also "force" drone sized cells on worker foundation.
Do the same late August/September.....worker only.

This has not been my experience at all. The bees have built a huge amount of worker cell, in fact they are only just beginning to make drone comb.

[NigelP]

Perhaps because your Islay bees have not started raising drones yet?
You have bees in quite extreme circumstances. I wouldn't expect them to conform to the "norm" ...variable as it might be.

[Japey Edge]

Had a little walk around the garden to check for activity when I got back from work. Mini mating hive leaving more crumbs - suspect they've collapsed another sheet of foundation

My nuc with the queen (the only queen in 3 boxes...) was sticky - apparently I spilled some sugar syrup on it yesterday. I saw a wasp having a sniff, as well as a curious bee that was warded off by a guard. So I got some warm water with a tiny bit of washing up liquid and scrubbed the outside of the nuc, then rinsed with water from the water butt.

Didn't fancy my only Q+ colony falling victim to robbing.

[Patrick]

You will be very unlikely to suffer any wasp robbing issues if you maintain all colonies on restricted entrances- but it is very important that is started or maintained well before there is any risk of wasp robbing, for which there is a simple and annual natural trigger every year.

Maintain small entrances all year round and strong colonies should be safe. This also goes for robbing from other bees. Leave full entrances and you will sooner or later have entirely avoidable problems.

IMHO traditional wasp traps are ineffective, unnecessary, barbaric and have no place in modern ecologically responsible beekeeping.

Apart from that I obviously don’t have a view

[Japey Edge]

I had reduced entrances on my main hive and the micro swarm from Nigel (on separate occasions) and noticed a lot of queuing. My mentor saw it on the small one and said it was making them work harder and get less done.

I suppose as in all things there's a balance to entrance size. At the moment my main hive is on full size entrance. The nuc with the queen is a maisies nuc and the disc is rotated to full sized opening - although that's a lot smaller than what the same size colony has in my Abelo poly hive.

[Murox]

Perhaps because your Islay bees have not started raising drones yet?
You have bees in quite extreme circumstances. I wouldn't expect them to conform to the "norm" ...variable as it might be.

I do understand your comment. What are Islay bees ? I don't live there and nor do the bees I have come from there.
Obviously my bees have only just begun raising drones, I virtually said that.
Why would you even expect my bees to act in exactly the same way as yours ? they are in different micro climates, experience different husbandry, and I imagine are of a different strain/race.
Please explain "the variable norm" regarding the building of drone comb and the experience I stated.

[Patrick]

Of course you are right Jazz, It is a judgement call between possible extremes. I have entrances around two inches wide and maybe half an inch high on most colonies (including double brood) all year. Under wasp attack the conventional wisdom is to reduce to a single pencil diameter to allow the (probably much reduced) guard bees a chance to defend. At the other end, a national “normal” entrance without a block in is a gap well over a foot wide and up to an inch high, which for most of the season is way over necessary provision and gives guard bees an impossible job to monitor and defend. Common sense for me is a reduced entrance all year round much closer to what bees choose for themselves. Personally, I don’t have a problem with some temporary congestion around the entrance at peak times of the day at the height of the season. It is usually only for a limited period and indicates for the rest of the time they are well in control of access. Congestion around the entrance at such times is what you usually see with feral colonies as well.

In spring it may indeed not matter but in August / September around me a fully open entrance would cause havoc, we are in orchard country, wasps are very common and bee neighbours will rob out any neighbours they think worth a go.

Indescriminate and punitive wasp traps are simply not the answer to over provision of hive entrances.

When I started beekeeping I did what the old guys did and put out jars of jammy water and watched as they filled up with dying insects including wasps but also many other blameless species as a by-catch. And I still suffered colony losses by wasps.

It just felt badly wrong. Hence looking for a way to prevent the issue arising in the the first place. Which is thankfully incredibly easy to do for most full sized healthy colonies.

[Japey Edge]

I probably won't be using wasp traps. If I put an entrance reducer on the Abelo hive it won't be the one I bought from Abelo. Even without the slider it's too small. I have plenty of perspex I could cut down to size.

For now I think I'll leave them as they are. Everyone seems to be getting on with each other fine for the moment
As you say location plays a big part. I don't see many wasps near me, thankfully.

Cheers for the pointers Patrick

[NigelP]

nt. What are Islay bees ? I don't live there and nor do the bees I have come from there.

Apologies, there is a guy with the same moniker as yours (Murox) on another forum who does come from Islay/Cambletown or somewhere around there and keeps bees.
Regardless of time course relating to wherever you live... if you have strong colonies of bees they will try to draw some drone early season (when ever that is for you ) and later in the season they will not draw drone sized brood cells. The only exceptions to this are weak small colonies or nucs which can't afford to spend/squander their resources making drones.
If you are feeding up for winter and stick A couple of undrawn sheets in your brood chamber they will be drawn as 100% worker sized.

[NigelP]

I probably won't be using wasp traps. If I put an entrance reducer on the Abelo hive it won't be the one I bought from Abelo. Even without the slider it's too small.

Wasp attacks are much later season Jazz...late August Sept. If you have (and you should have by then ) strong colonies wasps are rarely an issue. It's weaker small nucs or weak hives that are attacked and robbed.
Tunnel entrances help...that old nuc I gave you has one.... about 2 inches long from front to back.