The last couple of blogs have been 'political' but it was was supposed to be about the humdrum daily toiling of a humble bee keeper, so its back to the bees.
Wasps are a problem for bees and unusual in that that are a natural threat rather than one thought up by human beings.
Unlike honey bees they are aggressive and their sting is much more painful, so nobody likes them leading people to wonder what the point of them is.
It is a little known fact that that Edwin's Starr's 1970 Tamla Classic 'War' was in fact originally titled 'Wasps'. Norman Whitfield, who wrote the song, was stung by a wasp and was so angry about their apparent uselessness [is there such a word?], he wrote a song about them.
However Tamla Motown pointed out that very few songs about Vespula vulgaris have been successful in the charts and persuaded him to re-write the lyrics.
Some people think the new version of the song is about a bit of a tiff America was having with a country in South East Asia at the time.
The first verse in particular shows its origins:-
War [wasps], huh yeah
What [are they]
Absolutely nothing, oh hoh, oh
War [wasps] huh yeah
What [are they]
Absolutely nothing, say it again y'all
War [wasps], huh good God
What [are they]
Absolutely nothing, listen to me.
In fact Edwin Starr secretly recorded an up to now never released version with the original lyrics here
A couple of years ago I noticed a few more wasps than normal around a particular hive. Stupidly I didn't do anything about it until it was obvious there was a problem and by then it was too late.
I tried the usual remedies, closing the gap to allow the guard bees to defend the entrance more easily, wasp traps [which are not only good for catching wasps, they also attract them], and even putting a piece of glass in front of the hive entrance that is supposed to confuse them but not the honey bees.
Nothing worked and eventually the wasps killed the hive off.
Recently I acquired two new colonies, one of which was quite small. A day or so after they were put in the Ravensden apiary the first wasps come around. They ignored the stronger hive and started to attack the smaller hive that didn't have enough bees to defend itself.
Determined to stop them I moved them into a nuc, [a smaller hive] and closed up the entrance so only one bee at a time could get in. They still got in and I then tried putting a cardboard tube into the entrance as supposedly wasps can't figure out how to get in but bees can.
Nothing put them off and the colony looked to be doomed.
I mentioned this to the bee keeper I got the bees from who suggested moving the weak colony to another place in the apiary and replacing it with another stronger colony. The idea being the foraging bees from the strong colony, which also act as guard bees, return to their old home location and go into the weak hive and fend off the wasps. The strong colony should be able to look after itself in its new location.
One of my colonies certainly meets the 'strong' requirement and they are known as 'The Nutters'. They have absolutely no sense of humour at all, have threatening tattoos and carry tiny baseball bats. I try to not make eye contact with any of their five eyes,
Sop evening I switched the two hives around.
The following morning flying Nutters were coming and going from the weak hive and any wasp brave/stupid enough to try and get in had their ovipositor well and truly kicked.
In time as the Nutters die off and new bees replace them I will finish up with a gentle non Nutter colony.
In its new location the Nutter hive was a bit quiet as a lot of its foragers were going into the weak hive. One or two wasps still tried to get in so I closed up the entrance to make it easier to guard while the colony builds up its flying bees and the guard bees seemed to be able to cope and occasionally a wasp was dragged from the hive by several Nutters and dumped.
Three days later and hardly a wasp to be seen and the small colony seems to be getting on with its Nutter visitors.
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