Honeybees are opportunists.
The scout bees fly out of the hive each morning and use their sense of smell to locate nectar sources. They take a sample back and “dance” for other honeybees in order to recruit more foragers to their found source of carbohydrate. The dance communicates the resources’ proximity to the hive and the sugar concentration; closer, more, and better wins more recruits. This works well when there are lots of nectar sources – primarily flowers – and when every bee is busy collecting the nectar and storing it as honey to survive the winter.
However, when there are few flowers, honeybees experience a nectar dearth. Here in northeast Texas, that happens most years in late-June to end-August. The dearth is happening now. Honeybee scouts may find a closer, more, and better source of nectar than flowers, and that might be the nectar and stored honey inside another hive. If the tar-geted colony is weak, small, or only sparsely defended, bees from stronger colonies will attack the weaker colony. They kill the bees in the weaker colony and begin to loot all its carbohydrate resources. Beekeepers call this behavior “robbing,” and the weaker colony cannot win the battle unless a beekeeper quickly steps in.
