PerthshireBees · Perthshire, UK · Pests & Disease · Aug 17, 2026

Wasp pressure peaking here — watching a strong colony vs a weak one handle it very differently

Wasps have gone from background noise to constant siege at my Perthshire apiary this week. Fascinating and grim to watch the difference between colonies. My two strong doubles have formed a proper defensive line — a carpet of guards across the reduced entrance, and every wasp that lands gets mobbed instantly. They're losing the odd bee but the wasps are getting nowhere. Meanwhile the July nuc was very nearly overrun in a single afternoon. Wasps were walking straight in past two or three half-hearted guards. I've cut its entrance down to a single bee width with foam and moved it to the far end of the stand, and that seems to have turned it around — one wasp at a time is a fight the guards can win. Seven seasons in and I still underestimate how fast a weak colony's defense collapses once wasps find it. Anyone else at peak wasp right now?

#wasps#robbing#entrance-reducer#nucs

▲ 9 votes 💬 3 replies

3 replies

SkaneBees · Aug 17, 2026

Same week here in Skåne, like a switch flipped. Agree completely on the single-bee-width entrance for anything weak — defense is about geometry, guards can hold a doorway but not a gate. The other thing I do is stop all syrup feeding on weak colonies during daylight, only fill feeders at dusk. One drip of syrup smell and the wasps triple.

DevonBees_Em · Aug 17, 2026

Peak wasp in Devon too. One thing that helped me: traps (jam jar with a hole, bit of jam and water, drop of washing-up liquid) placed 10m or so AWAY from the hives, never next to them — next to the hive you're just advertising. They won't dent the population much but they pull the scouts off the weak hive while it recovers.

GalwayBees · Aug 18, 2026

2nd year here — would an underfloor entrance or one of those wasp-excluding tunnel entrances be worth putting on a nuc permanently this time of year? Or is foam-to-one-bee-width enough? Watching wasps case my nuc in Galway and getting nervous reading this.

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