Protecting a hive from wasps starts with making it easier for the bees to defend and removing exposed food. The National Bee Unit recommends entrance management, robbing screens, careful feeding and strong healthy colonies. Blanket trapping can catch beneficial insects and is not a substitute for those measures.
Recognise wasp pressure and robbing
Watch the entrance for a short period before intervening. Repeated attempts to enter, fighting, bees being attacked and a colony unable to defend its doorway need attention. Robbing by other honey bees can occur alongside wasp pressure. A few wasps nearby do not prove a colony is collapsing. Record the hive affected, activity and stores, and look for an underlying weakness such as poor queen performance or disease rather than treating every insect as the whole problem.
Reduce the entrance to a defendable opening
Fit an entrance block when pressure develops, choosing an opening the colony can defend while maintaining safe passage and ventilation. Under severe robbing the NBU describes reducing to a single bee space, but inspect the actual traffic and floor design. Do not seal a colony in, block the opening with dead bees or apply the same restriction without review in hot conditions. A small nuc may need protection earlier than a strong colony with many guards.
Fit a robbing screen and check bee access
A properly fitted robbing screen redirects the bees to a new route while intruders tend to focus on the original entrance. Fit a design suitable for the hive and verify that resident bees can enter and leave. Check small colonies as well as full-sized hives. Observe the response after fitting: a screen that dislodges or traps bees has not solved the problem. Underfloor or tube entrances can help, but no entrance system compensates for an unhealthy, poorly populated colony.
Feed cleanly and remove attractants
Feed within the hive using a sound, correctly fitted feeder and avoid open feeding. Prepare the refill before opening, wipe up syrup and remove exposed honey, comb and sticky equipment. Where syrup is needed, evening feeding can reduce exposure to flying robbers. Fondant can be appropriate under some circumstances, but reports that it reduces robbing do not make it a universal substitute for assessing stores, weather and uptake. Keep inspections purposeful and brief during an attack.
Strengthen the management plan, not the trap count
Assess why the colony is vulnerable. Healthy small colonies may sometimes be united under an appropriate plan, but do not combine colonies with suspicious disease or uncertain health. Obtain practical help with queen allocation and uniting if needed. Avoid leaving an empty hive with old comb as a decoy: the NBU identifies this as ineffective and a disease-spread risk. Native wasps have useful ecological roles. Do not destroy nests or use broad spring trapping simply because wasps exist near the apiary.
When to seek help or report a hornet
If attacks continue despite a defendable entrance and clean feeding, ask an experienced beekeeper to assess colony strength, queen status and food promptly. Do not disturb a wasp or hornet nest yourself. Learn to distinguish native European hornets from yellow-legged hornets; use current BeeBase identification and reporting guidance for a suspected non-native sighting. Jurassic Bees has an older trapping video, but its captions could not be verified for this guide; this written advice follows the documented NBU approach.
Related Jurassic Bees guides
Sources and further guidance
This guide brings together Jurassic Bees’ teaching and knowledge-bank material with the following external guidance. External recommendations are not presented as our own apiary observations.
Reviewed 30 October 2026. For hive-specific help, use our contact form or your local association mentor. Product and medicine instructions take precedence for the equipment and treatment concerned.