bee-keeperRobbing is one of the fastest ways to lose a weak colony in a single day. When there's no flow, strong bees start plundering the stores of weaker hives — and once it gets going, it spreads across the apiary like a fire. The good news: robbing can almost always be prevented, and if you catch it in time, it can be stopped. The key is to know the signs and avoid the mistakes that invite it.
What robbing is and when it happens
Robbing is when bees from one (usually strong) colony enter another (usually weak) one and carry off its honey. It's not a game — defenders and attackers fight and die, and the robbed colony is often left without food, and sometimes without its queen.
It most often happens during a dearth, in late summer and early autumn, when there are many bees but little nectar — warm, dry days with nothing in bloom are a classic trigger. The beekeeper is often the culprit: spilled syrup, open feeding, a hive left open too long, or comb left smeared with honey — all of it sets robbing off.
How to recognize it
Active robbing looks different from the normal coming and going of bees. Watch for:
- Fighting at the entrance — bees lock into balls and wrestle on the bottom board, with dead bees in front of the hive
- Wax cappings on the bottom board and in front of the entrance — robbers tear open cells, so flakes of wax pile up below
- A nervous, “drunken” flight — bees wobble and zig-zag at the entrance, and those heavy with honey leave and drop sharply downward
- Bees probing cracks — attackers buzz along the lid, joints and back of the hive instead of going straight to the entrance
- Shiny, smooth bodies — robbers often look slicked because they've lost their hairs in the fighting
Robbing, orientation or wasps
It's easy to confuse robbing with harmless sights, so look twice before you react. Around midday on a fine day, young bees hover facing the hive in gentle arcs, learning the location — there's no fighting and no dead bees, it's normal and passes within an hour or two. Wasps and hornets come singly, hover at the entrance and grab individual bees; they have no fuzz and fly differently. Robbing is always your own bees in numbers, with fighting at the entrance.
How to stop robbing in progress
Act at once — the longer it lasts, the harder it is to break and the more other colonies it pulls in.
- Reduce the entrance of the robbed colony to a one- or two-bee gap, so the defenders can hold the line
- Fit a robbing screen over the entrance — the defenders learn the way out while the robbers get confused at the wrong opening
- Drape a wet sheet over the hive, or lay grass over the entrance — a damp obstacle scatters the robbers while the home bees work around it
- If robbing is fierce, close the hive completely for a few hours (with good ventilation, in the shade) so the attackers disperse
- As a last resort, move the robbed colony a few kilometres away for a couple of days so the robbers “unlearn” it
And always: remove every source of scent — close up feeders and pick up spilled syrup and exposed comb across the whole apiary.
How to prevent it
Prevention is ten times easier than putting it out. The rules are simple:
- Keep entrances small on weak colonies and nucs — a weak colony can't defend a wide entrance
- Never feed in the open; give syrup in the evening, in a closed feeder, with no spills
- Don't leave drawn comb, lids or tools smeared with honey out on the apiary, and during a dearth keep inspections short
- Equalize colony strength — unite or boost weak ones before they become easy prey, and make sure hives are tight with no cracks for robbers to slip through
If you keep track of which colonies are weak and when the dearth starts in your region, robbing more or less stops surprising you. In the app you flag a weak colony and log when the flow stopped — so you know exactly when to narrow entrances and raise your guard.