Wasps - have I missed something?

I have been wiped out. My beehive is a wasp hive. I was trying to split it this year and was feeding the new hive. Both hives were both quite strong then suddenly wasps appeared in thousands. I put up traps but it was too late. Bees driven out. One (new) empty hive and the original (main) is packed with thousands of wasps. There is a layer of dead wasps on the floor but no bees.
This happened to me 3 years ago on my first attempt although it was a weak hive. And there were dead bees on the floor that time. I wasn't expecting it this time.
I live 100m above sea level - the place swarms with bumble bees (and wasps) but there is never a honey bee other than what I have brought to it - before the wasps.
Did I miss something that you experienced beeks could suggest. I need to learn from this but I am a bit lost.

Sorry to hear that you have been wiped out. It must be quite a shock

The things I know of are:
- reduce entrance down to 1 or 2 bee spaces
- use wasp traps e.g. wasp bane
- try to find the wasp nest and remove/destroy
- use a waspinator (imitation wasp nest) near hives
- don't spill nectar or sugar syrup, check for leaking feeders

Better luck next time, hope you find a way to keep bees and defeat the wasps

iveseenthings said:

Sorry to hear that you have been wiped out. It must be quite a shock

The things I know of are:
- reduce entrance down to 1 or 2 bee spaces
- use wasp traps e.g. wasp bane
- try to find the wasp nest and remove/destroy
- use a waspinator (imitation wasp nest) near hives
- don't spill nectar or sugar syrup, check for leaking feeders

Better luck next time, hope you find a way to keep bees and defeat the wasps

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This is a difficult topic for me to help with because invariably I'm chastised for breaching the commercial rules of the forum if I offer any advice on the subject. However, it does pain me to listen to beeks lose their colonies so I'm going to risk being thrown off the forum if you collectively judge my intentions to be against the spirit of the forum.

Wasps display two characteristics when sweet feeding. The first is that they send out scouts to find food which they then report back to their nests. This results in swarm feeding behaviour where wasps from the same colony help each other to fend off wasps from other competing colonies. The second characteristic is that wasps are programmed to feed at the same food source until that food source has been fully consumed. Both of these traights have to be exploited in order to control wasps. This means catching and killing scouts before they ever get a chance to return to the nest after finding food or alternatively preventing them finding food in the first place.

Reducing the entrance to bee hives effectively prevents wasps finding food in the first place and therefore helps to suppress scouting behaviour insofar as the wasps don't return to their nests to report a food source.

Once wasps do enter a hive and confirm the location of any food and escape they will go back to their nests to report the location of the hive which results in swarming. (This always assumes that the bees themselves are not the food source - if that's the case then the problem is entirely different). Once swarming starts then drastic action is required. Above all, the feeding swarm must be destroyed otherwise it will simply be displaced to another hive. To do this requires moving the hive (and that can be a relatively short distance) and then putting down high efficiency wasp traps in the extact same location such that the entrance to the trap exactly matches the position of where the entrance to the hive was before the hive was moved. High efficiency traps are traps that don't allow any of the wasps caught to escape. Home made traps are not from experience high efficiency traps and neither are dome traps, oak stump traps, beehive traps, glass traps etc. Use of such traps will just make the problem worse because they promote and exacerbate swarm feeding (the scouts enter, feed and then escape). If high efficiency traps are not used, the wasps will continue to return to the space that the hive was until they realise that the food source is no longer there. Thereafter they will seek out an alternative food source which may well be the same hive in its new position. So moving a hive on its own is not enough. The swarm has to be dealt with at the same time.

Eradicating wasp nests is unlikely to be successful simply because there can be as many as 1000 wasp nests per square mile and wasps can fly up to two miles to find food. If you happen to come across a nest then by all means have it destroyed but be wary that in treating a nest the vast majority of workers will not be killed if the nest is treated at the wrong time of day.

Artificial nests don't work. I could bore you with the details but ask any pestie and they will tell you that they remove multiple nests from the same attic spaces!

Preventing spills is always a good bet. If you do have a spill then make sure to wash it off thoroughly.

There is a caveat to this info. The first is that what we are talking about is vespine wasps (Vespula, Dolichovespula and Vespa) species and not polistes wasps (which do not I believe swarm as confirmed by Chris) and the second that the wasps are coming after the sweet food in the hive.

Best of luck for the next time.

Karol said:

This is a difficult topic for me to help with because invariably I'm chastised for breaching the commercial rules of the forum if I offer any advice on the subject. However, it does pain me to listen to beeks lose their colonies so I'm going to risk being thrown off the forum if you collectively judge my intentions to be against the spirit of the forum.
.

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why would any member be thrown off the forum for giving such helpful info?

and yes, you do get multiple nests in attics, Im a pestie

This worries me quite a bit. I moved my hive to the heather in mid August and since that time there has been an explosion in wasp numbers at my original hive site. Currently there are wasps absolutely everywhere, I even have to use my bee suit to empty the waste bin outside our premises as there can be 20-30 wasps at a time buzzing around.

If I don't take my bees to the heather next year, I don't fancy their chances..!

Rob55 said:

This worries me quite a bit. I moved my hive to the heather in mid August and since that time there has been an explosion in wasp numbers at my original hive site. Currently there are wasps absolutely everywhere, I even have to use my bee suit to empty the waste bin outside our premises as there can be 20-30 wasps at a time buzzing around.

If I don't take my bees to the heather next year, I don't fancy their chances..!

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I wouldn't worry unduly - yet! The correlation between wasp numbers from one year to the next is tempered by the weather. I think the pinch point this year will come if ivy stops flowering and November remains mild.

From experience I know we don't give bees and wasps enough credit. The strange swarming behaviour of bees this year may be a prelude to an anticipated 'higher than normal challenge' from wasps later in the year. This is anticipated because wasp nests are maturing (i.e. when wasps start sweet feeding) much later than they should and after a lot of the stone fruit have gone. Coupled to low fruit yields, there isn't the same volume of naturally competing food sources available for wasps so the prediction is that bees will get a tough time of it. Bees may be sensitive to this which may explain why there's been more swarming than usual - a natural compensatory defense mechanism on a population wide scale? A liitle bit like orchids flowering when they are starved?

Anyway, there are means and ways to deal with your problem but that requires an understanding of Integrated Wasp Management and its techniques.

I would say that there was already something wrong with the bee colony.

A healthy strong honey bee colony will always defend itself successfully against wasp and hornets of the European varieties.

Chris

To the OP.

Making late splits can be a disaster waiting to happen. Weak hives, once accessed by wasps is soon a loss. Once they have devoured the stores from that colony they will move to the next if possible.

Your understanding of a strong colony is perhaps, even very likely, much different than mine. I suspect your stronger colony was not as strong as it could have been.

Encouraging wasps is another folly (putting out wasp multiple 'juice' traps within the apiary). I don't know the time-scale of your wasp traps, so no further comment as I don't know whether your actions added to your problem, precipitated it or had little bearing.

It is one reason (of several) I have not bothered with any splits this year - far too late and the bees have had a hard enough time of it as it is.

Strong colonies, reduced entrances and maybe a few other tricks I've come across on te forum these past three years will help. But there will always be some losses - it's the natural thing out there.

So far I've not lost a colony to wasps in at least five years by following the above. That may change at any time, particularly this year....

RAB

jimsbees,
sorry to read of your losses.

Did you have reduced entrances with your hives? How weak/strong were they?

What could have worked was to close both hives up for 3 days as soon as you realised they were being robbed. This would have given the guard bees a chance to regroup (and more to mature) and possibly would have let the wasps know there was no more food at that site.

Karol. Any views on this suggestion?

Hebeegeebee said:

jimsbees,
sorry to read of your losses.

Did you have reduced entrances with your hives? How weak/strong were they?

What could have worked was to close both hives up for 3 days as soon as you realised they were being robbed. This would have given the guard bees a chance to regroup (and more to mature) and possibly would have let the wasps know there was no more food at that site.

Karol. Any views on this suggestion?

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To deal with swarm feeding wasps there are two things that need to be done. First is to interrupt the programmed feeding behaviour. The only way to do that is to deny the wasps access to that food source, i.e. by effectively taking it away and there are several ways in which that can be achieved. Closing up the hive for three days would be one so yes, in that respect, the suggestion ticks one of the boxes.

Swarm feeding wasps will keep returning back to the same place they originally found the food literally to within millimeters. Once they discover that the food is gone they will simply move on to the next food source which potentially will be the next hive (especially if other food sources are scarce as they are this season). If these returning wasps are not caught out and killed they will merely be moved on and continue to be a problem elsewhere. The only way to prevent that happening is to use a high efficiency trap to trap out the swarm and get rid once and for all. The use of low efficiency traps (i.e. traps that allow wasps to escape) will merely serve to act as an alternative food source in the vicinity of the hive. Once the trap dries out or access is denied because they are full, the wasps will again turn their attention to the hive(s).

It really is a combined two step process. Once wasps are programme swarm feeding neither step on its own will work . Deploying a high efficiency trap without interrupting programmed swarm feeding won't work because by definition the wasps are programmed at that point to feed elsewhere and will ignore the trap.

Chris Luck said:

I would say that there was already something wrong with the bee colony.

A healthy strong honey bee colony will always defend itself successfully against wasp and hornets of the European varieties.

Chris

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In the main I concur. The exception IMHO is during periods of ecological stress such as we have seen this year where natural events have conspired to create conditions of famine for wasps. Even a healthy strong colony may eventually succumb (however unlikely) to a sustained simultaneous attack by hundreds of wasp colonies.

Hundreds of wasp colonies in any given locality seems like an incredibly unlikely scenario anywhere, even here at my places where I positively encourage them. Even more unlikely in a year like this that has apparently created a greatly reduced number of colonies from the norm, plus the forage range for wasps and hornets isn't that great either.

Anyway I can be quite sure that what I wrote is correct, strong healthy honey bee colonies are never at risk from European wasps and hornets. If the wasps probing really get persistent the bees will line up in numbers in the entrance. Even the Asian Hornet isn't a problem until they can weaken the colony sufficiently and they are a specialist bee killer.

Chris

Chris Luck said:

Hundreds of wasp colonies in any given locality seems like an incredibly unlikely scenario anywhere, even here at my places where I positively encourage them. Even more unlikely in a year like this that has apparently created a greatly reduced number of colonies from the norm, plus the forage range for wasps and hornets isn't that great either.

Anyway I can be quite sure that what I wrote is correct, strong healthy honey bee colonies are never at risk from European wasps and hornets. If the wasps probing really get persistent the bees will line up in numbers in the entrance. Even the Asian Hornet isn't a problem until they can weaken the colony sufficiently and they are a specialist bee killer.

Chris

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I'm happy to concede the point because in reality it is a very rare event for a healthy and strong hive to succumb. As to the number of wasp colonies then it's estimated that in an average year there can be as many as 1000 wasp nests per square mile and research has shown wasps travelling up to 2 miles to find food. So even in a moribund year there are likely to be hundreds of nests that can contribute wasps to a nuisance wasp problem.

I will stress that my comments are specific to vespine wasps and not polistes wasps which is what I believe populate your neck of the woods. Germanica and Vulgaris behave similarily to Velutina and are expert bee killers in their own right.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Yes I had reduced entrances. On the "new" hive it was one bee space. It was a bit more (about 3 inches) on the old hive as they were pretty active. They both looked ok initially. If the split didn't work I intended to recombine them. I did do it fairly early but this is the wettest summer on record in this part of the world. Our fruit supply here is one of the worst I have seen ie there hardly is any. Last year was a bumper harvest and the wasps didn't seem to feature. But they really moved in this time. They appeared to have pushed the top frame slightly askew to gain an entrance - although this was the latter stages of the attack. I am not sure if this is possible but I can offer no other explanation for the gap I witnessed.
I also wondered - if there are no dead bees where might they have gone?

I also wondered - if there are no dead bees where might they have gone?

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I would have thought they died little by little and I'm inclined to agree with RAB re the strength of it, in fact I suspect your colony was already finished all bar the shouting.

I will stress that my comments are specific to vespine wasps and not polistes wasps which is what I believe populate your neck of the woods. Germanica and Vulgaris behave similarily to Velutina and are expert bee killers in their own right.

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This region - most are common.

The common wasp, Vespula vulgaris
The German wasp, Vespula germanica
The red wasp Vespula rufa
The media wasp or French wasp Dolichovespula media
The tree wasp Dolichovespula sylvestris
The European hornet. Vespa Crabo
Paper wasp Polistes gallicus
Asian Hornet Vespa velutina

I stress, no problems for strong healthy honey bee colonies.

Chris

This was my own view initially, Chris. I was taken by surprise at first by the drop in numbers but the onslaught of the wasps was so quick and overpowering I could do very little. The numbers were very large - certainly more than I have ever witnessed. Having said this Karol's excellent advice has made me wiser now. I did put home-made traps up and have trapped loads of wasps but they still "own" the original hive and will no doubt until they finish out the remaining honey.
I was perhaps too eager to do that split. I wanted an insurance policy against this sort of thing and possibly made it happen.

This region - most are common.

The common wasp, Vespula vulgaris
The German wasp, Vespula germanica
The red wasp Vespula rufa
The media wasp or French wasp Dolichovespula media
The tree wasp Dolichovespula sylvestris
The European hornet. Vespa Crabo
Paper wasp Polistes gallicus
Asian Hornet Vespa velutina

I stress, no problems for strong healthy honey bee colonies.

Chris

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OK - I was under the impression from a previous posting of yours that you predominantly had paper wasps. gallicus and rufa are (practically) non existent in the UK and media and crabro are relatively thin on the ground leaving vulgaris and germanica to make up the bulk of the distribution followed by sylvestris (mixed in with its Norwegian and Saxon relatives).

If as you say all the varieties are common then one would expect to see typical swarm feeding behaviour.

OK - I was under the impression from a previous posting of yours that you predominantly had paper wasps.

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No, but we do have thousands of them BUT these as I think I said before more or less co exist with the honey bees and often make their nests in the hive lids with open vents....

....as do many other species such as potter wasps.


Chris

Karol said:

The strange swarming behaviour of bees this year may be a prelude to an anticipated 'higher than normal challenge' from wasps later in the year...... so the prediction is that bees will get a tough time of it.

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I haven't seen a single flying wasp since March!
I have one of Karol's traps already set up ( seemed to produce good protection last year) but having moved house it's still hanging over the gatepost at the house rather than the apiary with a number of dead flies, a moth and a single wasp in it.

Perhaps I should move it tomorrow

Karol said:

As to the number of wasp colonies then it's estimated that in an average year there can be as many as 1000 wasp nests per square mile

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If my maths are correct then that is one every 55 yards.