Pests, Predators and Robbing
The most dangerous few weeks of the year are not the coldest ones. They are the summer dearth, when nothing is flowering, wasps are at their strongest, and a weak colony smells like an open shop. A robbing frenzy can strip a small hive of its stores in a day, and the beekeeper very often starts it by spilling syrup or leaving a hive open too long.
- The dangerous weeks
- What a dearth looks like from the hive
- How robbing starts
- The beekeeper rings the bell
- Recognising it
- The entrance reducer
- The robbing screen
- When it is already bad
- Wasps through the year
- Strong colonies repel, weak ones fall
- The trap that works is the spring one
- Mice in October
- Bears
- Leaving them alone