It’s been a tough month at Golden Glow Gardens, but we’ve learned some valuable lessons. We had resolutely resisted taking honey from hives #1 and #3 to give the bees plenty of stores for the winter. Turns out we should have harvested the honey because both hives have absconded, taking their honey with them. Here is what we think happened to hive #1.

I had seen one yellow jacket buzzing around hive #1, which had never recovered to be as strong as before after we split it mid-summer. The yellow jacket eventually made its way in the entrance and I naively thought “well, he’s in trouble” thinking he would swiftly be dealt with by all the bees inside the hive.

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I probably made a fatal mistake with that assumption. We were gone for a few weeks and returned to find the dreaded quiet hive. Upon inspection, sure enough, all the bees – and brood – and honey – were gone from the hive.

At the same time, we discovered this ground yellow jacket nest, which we’ve since removed. But it hadn’t been there, at least looking as vibrant as it was when we found it, a few weeks before.

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Our conclusion is that the yellow jackets robbed the hive of its honey and drove the bees away (what I prefer to believe over thinking the bees were killed by the yellow jackets).

Here are yellow jackets attacking and robbing a honeybee hive

A nest of Yellow Jackets are not easy to drive away or kill! First I tried tea tree oil and cinnamon. This didn’t seem to diminish the yellow jackets numbers a bit. Next I went to Home Depot and got wasp killer and sprayed it – at night wearing full bee suit – on and into the nest. The nest was completely covered in foam.

The next day, I walked over near the nest to see if there were any yellow jackets. Yes, and they were mad. One must have gotten caught in my hair because after I was in the house I felt a sting on my upper ear.

I can sadly report that yellow jacket stings hurt much worse than honeybee stings and, at least in my case, can cause ferocious allergic reactions. This is my ear three days after the sting, which is visible as the small white bump on the inside of my upper ear. The inflammation and swelling went down to my neck on the side and under my chin. Tonight we are proceeding to use other poisons and I will report later on how they work.

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A contributing factor to the bees leaving may have been ants. The ants also could have come in after the hive was abandoned when there were no bees to protect the comb from being polished off by the ants. Ants will eat bee larva. Here’s a video (not from our hive) showing them doing that.

Although we had used Terro baits and tanglefoot on the legs of our hive stand, we think nearby tall plants may have been a way for ants to get onto the hive stand. However they got there, we discovered ants in the vacant hive. There were even a few dead hive beetles when we cleaned out the hive. Lesson to ourselves: don’t leave the hive unattended and uninspected for so many weeks in the vulnerable early fall timeframe.

Tanglefoot has been a life-saver for our hives to keep the ants from climbing up from the ground.

We also find putting dimataceous earth on the ground under the hive (and even brushing it lightly on the sides and top of the hive) works well to repel ants. Just don’t put it in front of the hive or in the bees flight path. For convenience, we sometimes order these products online, but they are usually easy to find at local garden supply stores or even walmart or home depot.

Normally the terro ant baits work really well for us (the ants take the poison back to their nests and it kills the colony and the ant queen).

The good thing is that the hive equipment is still in excellent condition. We are going to bag it up and store it until next spring when we’ll be on the lookout for a swarm of nice, mellow bees to give a home to. 2020 will be a better season!