Bees and Robbers

Who likes honey and will risk a few bee stings to steal it?

• Badgers
• Bees
• Green woodpeckers
• Hornets
• Wasps
• Winnie the Pooh

At this time of year bee hives attract the unwanted attention of wasps and hornets on the look out for a ready source of food for their own brood and even lazy bees who are looking for an easy source of stores for the Winter.   Having heard distressing tales of hives that have been robbed and colonies of bees exterminated by predators, we were concerned to see wasps lurking around our own hives, clearly looking for entry points.  Lately, during inspections, we have spotted wasps among the frames (and we go to great lengths to evict them before reassembling the hive).

The Experts say that it takes seven bees to see off one wasp, so you can imagine that in a small colony such as Queen B's, they would struggle to defend themselves if we didn't do as much as possible to help them.  I have to say that the G Bees appear capable of putting up a good defence but there seem to be limitless wasps.  So what to do?

We have reduced the size of the entrances to each hive.  If only one bee can get in at a time, the same applies to marauding wasps and the guard bees defending the hive can be lying in wait in just one place, or a reduced number of places.   For the novice beekeeper judging the exact amount of entry space to leave is difficult and we have no idea whether we have got it right.  Time will tell, I suppose.

Dealing with whole nests seems to be the best way to deal with wasps in large numbers.   We spotted one wasp nest in a hole in the ground earlier in the summer.  It was close to where we sit outside and that was flooded.  Let's hope the torrential rain deals with any other nests in the ground that we haven't found.  

Glass wasp traps are surprisingly effective.  This is where you can help.   You mustn't put honey or sugar in them because that would attract bees. A suitable recipe for a 12cm diameter glass wasp trap is:

1 tsp jam
1 tsp alcohol (the dregs from last year's Christmas sherry would be perfect)
A little boiling water for mixing
Enough cold water to make up to a 1/4 pint

Make sure the cork bung is securely in the neck of the wasp trap.  Invert the trap and sit it in a container to hold it steady.  Pour the liquid into it through the hole at the bottom, then carefully turn it upright taking care not to lose too much of the liquid.  Hang the trap at about head height.


I wasn't sure that our bees would not be trapped so I tested the recipe with one trap and carefully observed the inmates.  There were no obvious bees but as some inmates were still alive I dunked the whole trap in a bucket of water so that any remaining live creatures drowned quickly.   When I emptied the contents into the bucket, we had trapped lots of wasps, one hornet, lots of big black flies and some little shiny chafers.  I didn't see a single honey bee or bumble bee.


We don't get badgers in the garden - they are prone to knock over hives to break in to them with brute force and their pelts are thick enough that they can ignore stings.  Our hives are protected to an extent in that they are surrounded by a hedge.

We do have green woodpeckers nesting in the garden so we know that a job for the Autumn is to construct some kind of wire mesh covered frame to fit over the hives to stop the woodpeckers from pecking holes through the sides of the hives.

It is more of a challenge to defend the hives from Winnie the Pooh.  Our current plan is to distract him with a game of Pooh Sticks on the bridge.