Late summer robbing

[AdamD]

Yesterday I was checking on some colonies and it's apparent - as it happens every year - that there is little food about and lots of bees so as I checked a few colonies, bees were following me around the apiary as I opened hives up.
There are some wasps about too.
I gave up in the end as the pandemonium where bees are looking for anything they can find, can result in them breaking and entering small colonies that cannot defend themselves which subsequently get destroyed.

I did check a couple of mini plus nucs first and their queen have started to lay - just - so they have been able to get out in between the rain, when the sun was shining and it was warm enough.

[MickBBKA]

Same here, once I have had 3 or 4 colonies open I just have to shut up shop and go home. The constant bad weather has made it a real pain as the hives are just rammed with bees rather than them out foraging. I think it has rained every day so far this month.

[NigelP]

The only ones I really open up and check this time of the year are the ones awaiting laying queens. It’s way past swarm time (well should be ) so unless I’m removing brood boxes they more or less get left alone now. Although I’ll open an odd one here and there just to check queen is still laying but usually only need to remove a couple of frames to check this before shutting up.

[JoJo36]

Mine were a bit mental too as I put clearing boards in to take off almost empty supers which caused them to be super swarmy and agitated, but tomorrow looks only decent day to remove them!!:(

[JoJo36]

Removed 9 cleaned out supers yesterday and the bees were really agitated with plenty of wasps around too hunting for food!!
Managed to scorch all 9 boxes and put them away for winter after tidying them up a bit!
3 hives left on double brood and 1 still possibly without a queen, although with the way they are all behaving at the moment, I'm not looking into the hive to check!!

[MickBBKA]

Today it was 23c the first time above 18c since the middle of June so I did a few inspections. It was amazing that there wasn't one sign of a robbing event as all the foraging bees must have been out working. It just goes to show what an impact the weather has on the bees behaviour. Also the bees were bringing in lots of different pollen from god knows where as everything is green for miles although there are still patches of Ragwort, RBWH and the Ivy has come into flower about 3 months early.

[AdamD]

I went to the Apiary on Wednesday and the bees were all over the place and a bit of a pain. The weather was not too bad at all and the bees were able to fly well enough. I happened to take a new beekeeper who wanted some experience - which he definitely got! We gave up. I went a day later when it was much warmer and they were as happy as Larry!