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Yellowjackets walking straight into my hive at dusk — how narrow should the entrance be right now?

Third year in the North Carolina piedmont, four hives, and the yellowjackets have hit their stride. During the day the guards handle it fine — I watch them tackle a wasp and drag it off the board. But at dusk, once the field bees are in and the guards seem to thin out, I've stood there and watched yellowjackets walk straight through the four-inch reduced entrance like they own the place. Three went in, one came out carrying something. All four hives are on reducers already, the big opening. Do I go down to the small notch on everything, or only the weaker two? I've heard "one bee width" for robbing but I'm not sure whether that applies here when the colonies are strong and still flying hard in the afternoons. Don't want to bottleneck them during the last of the goldenrod.
#yellowjackets#entrance-reducer#robbing#fall-management
▲ 8 votes 💬 4 replies
4 replies
TexasBeeSam · Sep 9, 2026
Small notch on all four, tonight. A strong colony loses nothing on a 3/4 to 1 inch opening in September — the traffic jams you're picturing happen in June, not now. Two or three bee widths is plenty for a fall colony and it's a gap the guards can actually hold. Dusk is exactly when the wasps win, because yellowjackets keep flying in cooler air than your bees will fly in, and the guard line relaxes once the foragers are home. The four-inch opening is basically a door with no doorman after 7 pm.
AbejaMiguel · Sep 10, 2026
TexasBeeSam is right. In Jalisco I go to two bee widths as soon as I see the first wasp inside a hive, weak or strong. What also helped me: the entrance in the corner rather than in the middle, so a guard bee standing in the gap covers all of it. A wasp walking past a guard on an open board is the easy version for the wasp.
MayaBees · Sep 10, 2026
Robbing screen on the two weaker ones if you have them — it's the thing that finally stopped my Oregon yellowjackets going in at dusk, because the wasps go to the smell at the old entrance and can't find the real one. Otherwise, everything TexasBeeSam said. And don't worry about the goldenrod: bees will happily queue for a small gap.
SourwoodGrace · Sep 10, 2026
Did the small notch on all four last night and sat out there with a flashlight at dusk — two wasps came, both got tackled at the gap instead of walking in. The screens are on order for the weaker pair. Thanks, y'all.
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