Judy's Native Stingless Bee Hives garden

Tom removed the pvc cap on the beehive entrance today and found that the bees had built their own entrance structure. Looks like they have organised themselves sufficiently to manage things themselves again.

Two days after Tom reinforced the hive that was under invasion, all appears well. The inhabitant bees have unplugged the tiny 3mm entrance and have installed a guard. During the time I was watching the hive just now (approx 30 minutes) I saw several external bees fly near to the entrance, hover, and then fly away.

To avert the carnage that was occurring due to the invader bees successfully creating an opening in the hive entrance, Tom taped it up with metal tape. This didn’t stop the invaders – they just moved around to the side of the hive and commenced removing the tacky tape from the joins.

Prior to taping the entrance, Tom observed the invaders still trying to get in, and he was able to deduce how the bees drowned earlier in the tray of water. The hive is now suspended from the ceiling and therefore no longer sits in a moat of water. Overnight the invader bees had managed to create a tiny bee-width hole in the entrance. As an invader bee attempted to go inside, it was “wrestled” out by an inhabitant bee. They cannot fly as they are locked together in fight, so they fall to the ground, where they continue fighting, presumably until one is killed. Sadly, whilst the hive was in the water, both would have drowned. This explains why the dead bees were only below the entrance.

Due to the persistence of the invader bees, severe reinforcements were brought in, in the form of metal tape around all the tacky tape joins and a screw-on pvc cap for the hive entrance. Prior to screwing on the cap, Tom cleared all the resin and tacky tape from the hive entrance. He then made a bee-width hole in the cap, and filled this with the material from an earlier entrance that these bees had made. The plan is to leave the cap on for a few days to give the inhabitant bees a chance to better establish themselves, whilst hopefully the invader bees will go elsewhere.

The next morning the invading bees were still hard at work attempting to get into the hive. The invader bees are removing material from the entrance and then depositing it on the side of the entrance. The close-up photos show the bees pulling on the yellow tacky tape.

This is a photo of the hive that is being invaded. The yellow tacky tape visible between the joins is what the bees inside are using to plug up the entrance whilst the invaders are removing it from the outside.

The invading bees were still hard at work in the dark at 11pm. The number of deposits on the side of the entrance gives an indication of how much they have removed from the front.