We are under attack! Advice sought

[Canary Honey]

Coming home at 8pm, dusk, and checked to see if the livestock was happy after a warm sunny day, as we usually do, and found that World War Two and a Half had broken out in the garden! Many deaths. Bees in the grass in front of both hives attaching another bee, entrances busier than usual for a sunny morning never mind almost dark. Bodies littering general area.
I can't say that I saw a wasp (four letter word there, beg my pard) are the two hives likely to be trying to rob each other or a third elsewhere trying to get some lazy nectar?


The smaller of the hives had a single entrance of about 2cm x 1.5 cm (now reduced) and the larger had two entrances of about 2cm x 1 cm (now reduced to one of similar size {three stings for my trouble, sharing their mood, as they weren't pleased to have the entrance block exchanged})

I will have a peek at them in the morning but any explanation would be great as would advice.

 

[Canary Honey]

http://youtu.be/tBP6R8TB4G8

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

It might not be robbing, but it looks like it and I have the same thing, so I am adding to the question rather than trying to answer it. You are already giving the advantage to the defenders with narrow entrances. There are other ideas like Vicks around the entrance but I can't see how that helps with the neighbours. The wet sheet that Google shows up might be promising, but other ideas welcomed. My victim is a nuc and I'm worried.

 

[Arfermo]

Argument about who has the best paint job?

 

[Canary Honey]

Argument about who has the best paint job?

Thanks Arfermo, you have been a great. .

Further devastation this morning.

 

[Canary Honey]

I do have agriculture within range of me, but there shouldn't be anything of interest there at the moment (rape long gone) and watching them exit the hives on recent days they have been largely heading for large gardens nearby. I am ruling out spraying.

Have I got a disease? Do they look like they are pulling out dead from in the hive? its hard to tell.

Unless there is a type of wasp that is very similar in appearance to a bee, then I haven't seen a wasp, I am not a biologist.

Attempted robbery through the night? There are more bodies now than when it was getting dark?

 

[thenovice]

Hi Canary,

I find it very hard to see much in the video but of 1 shot I thought I saw it was a drone you where filming. are they all drones? if so, they might just be cleaning up surplus useless males... bit early in the season though.

 

[Canary Honey]

Pretty confident that they are not drones. I haven't had this many drones.

I will also mention in case it is relevant, on last inspection (Monday) there was no sign of anything untoward to my inexperienced eye, except that I did notice a population decrease over the previous. I put this down to a number of factors, relatively bad weather a couple of weeks ago, major Buddleia flow is basically over, relying more on posh gardens, and finally the massive storm that hit Norwich on Sunday might have struck a number as these will go out flying in almost any weather!

 

[Edwardking]

Do you have solid or OMF floors? Your hive entrances are small so there may not be enough ventilation in this heat if you have solid floors.

 

[Canary Honey]

Mesh floors in both.

This morning http://youtu.be/I4fAYH1TyHQ

 

[Pete D]

Dead bees outside a couple of my hives yesterday in an apiary with 12 hives.
They were all drones, it looks a lot but a few hundred goes a long way on a slab or decking, harder to notice in the grass. They chuck them out early in the morning and late evening.

 

[drex]

The frantic activity just looks to me due to lots of traffic via a small entry. Of more import would be what the dead bees look like, and what the inside of the hive looks like. .?? Thinking along lines of chronic bee paralysis virus etc, or drones. In your earlier shots I could see no sign of robber like behaviour.

 

[Heather]

Poisoning? Seemed some distressed bees there. Any field spraying nearby.

 

[alldigging]

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?sectionid=33

http://www.-------------/help/spray_liaison
Anyone near you?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Yes I take back the robbing idea.

 

[enrico]

Desease of some description. We just need to identify what!
E

 

[Dishmop]

I find that when the bees are having a clear out that they carry the dead/dying/unwanted bees so far across my garden in a straight line and then drop them in approx the same place.
What looks odd here is that the dead/dying bees are all over the place.
Diseased or old weak bees that leave the hive seem to walk in a straight line away from their hive.


One thing you might consider.

Neighbours.....
We've had it before on here where somebody climbed over fence while beek was at work and sprayed something all over the hives.. He was just climbing out of the garden when she got home.

 

[oliver90owner]

There are not that many bees around to be poisoned, I would think. No robbing at that time.

Local gardener pesticide? Drones?

You need to check on the drones as you do mention reduction of forage...

Amount of stores in the hives may be depleting due to forage, but you should be noting that at inspections.

For robbing we need to see a video during the 'attack' times - serious robbing is fairly easy to recognise.

 

[Roola]

On one of my hives I realised varroa load was high and immediately started treatment on Sunday. I had a bad case of dwv it seems. As a result of this I had large numbers of bees walking around on the floor below the hives. Interestingly no e of the other hives have much of a drop at all. Just glad I checked and treated. Are the wings on your bees on the floor ok?

 

[YorkshireBees]

I do have agriculture within range of me, but there shouldn't be anything of interest there at the moment (rape long gone) and watching them exit the hives on recent days they have been largely heading for large gardens nearby. I am ruling out spraying.

There are not that many bees around to be poisoned, I would think. No robbing at that time.

Local gardener pesticide? Drones?

You need to check on the drones as you do mention reduction of forage...

Amount of stores in the hives may be depleting due to forage, but you should be noting that at inspections.

For robbing we need to see a video during the 'attack' times - serious robbing is fairly easy to recognise.

I would tend to go with RAB. It doesn't need to be farmers when in fact Gardeners can do as much harm using chemicals on plants in their garden that bees forage on!