I’ve taken on the battle…

I will win this war…

I will…

…..but whenever I feed sugar-syrup to my hives, I’ve discovered that they are almost immediately under attack from other, wild honey bees (no doubt subsequent generations from my past, absconded hive residents).

However if left unchecked, an organized robber bee horde can clean out any residential bee hive very, very quickly.

…….and everybody gets into a very, very bad mood…….

I had a planned game strategy this week prior to filling up their feeders.

To begin with, I only feed my hives from inside their tippy-top brood box…….

…..the only way for any bee to reach the sugar-syrup is through the hive’s front door…….

…..which I have limited to about 3/4″ by using hive entrance reducers…….(so that there is a smaller space for the hive occupants to defend…against rude robbers).

…..then just prior to putting in the filled feeders, I checked for additional holes or access points…….

…..because my brood boxes are old, there were a couple/dry-rotted spaces that the bees were using as side-entrances…

…..I twisted up some pieces of paper towel, plugged them into the spaces and then sprayed them with a water bottle to make them expand in place.

…..and Voila!…..instant cork…

I had waited until close to sunset to add the filled, sugar-syrup feeders…….that way the potential scouting robbers would be on their way home to their own hives for the night and that would give my guys ample time to eat over night…

I checked on them in the morning…….

…..and everything was all a buzz—(HA!)-(A BUZZ!—it never gets old)…

…..the robbers were up and at it…….

…..the bastards…..

…..I retrieved a couple of old sheets from the garage…….dunked them in the water tank…….and then covered the hives with each saturated, drippy sheet…….

…..I was literally throwing a wet rag on the problem……

I resorted to YouTube for my favorite, shirt-less bubba’s to see if they had any other suggestions…….

*****Bubba Dealing With Robber Bees*****

(my bubba’s have never steered me wrong)…

Well, as of this morning…….things appear to be better/calmer…….but I’m keeping an eye on things…….

…..plus, Patrice & I are going to be constructing and nailing up “Robber Bee Screens”…….(yet another invaluable, bee-keeping-what-not)…..

*****One Of My Bubba Friends With Helpful Instructions On How To Make Simple Robber Bee Screens*****

*****Why Don’t Any Of These People Ever Wear Gloves?*****

And Uncle Bob was nowhere in sight to help…….

…….he’s obviously afraid…….

…….(Uncle Bob’s a weenie)…….