Help! Robbing vs Normal Activity

[KyBee]

Okay I'm new. Two new packages installed on Sunday evening. Queens released from cages yesterday evening best I can tell.

Anyway, today there is activity. Some bees coming in with big loads of yellow pollen. But there are some MUCH larger bees coming and going in the hives. They aren't carrying anything in that I can see. Sometimes the guard bees jostle them around a bit, but I don't see any actual fighting. They emerge, fool around on the front porch a few seconds, then fly off toward the woods nearby. They also fool around on the concrete blocks and landing board when the arrive before they go into the hive. They are not squatty like I thought a drone would be--like the two or three drones that were stuck to the outside of the packages when we picked them up. But maybe I'm just too new to know. Do drones come and go a lot from the hive? I pictured the drones as the lazy guys who lay around the hive flipping through channels on the remote and waiting to be brought honey-flavored beer. These are just like the workers but BIGGER.

The entrance reducers are in place and there's just a tiny little slit to come and go through.

Help. Is this all normal or is it robbing from some outside hive or feral colony?

[Michael Bush]

Robbers get jostled by the gaurds. Robbers also hover a lot like they don't know where the entrance is. Drones do come and go some. The gaurds don't even notice them. Mostly they leave in the middle of the afternoon and return in the evening. But of course this is subject to the weather.

Drones have a very blunt abdomen where the workers are tapered nicely. Drones have huge eyes. Drones can be the same coloring as the workers or they can be different. They tend to be the same coloring as the queen for that hive, but then they drift a lot too. Workers make a high pitched hum compared to drones which have a much lower pitched buzz.

[KyBee]

Okay I went down there again and I notice that the big bees spend a few seconds wiping their mouths when they come out before they take off. The small worker bees do not do this. Don't know if this counts or not. The big bees are colored a little different--kinda splotchy about the black rings, where the smaller bees are fairly consistently pale yellow color. Of course, I don't know yet what color bees my queens will produce, and didn't get to see either of them much except that they were alive and kicking when I put them in.

Because this is a new package, is it possible that I would have lots of different size bees in there? I know they shake bees from the frames of different colonies when they're packaging them at the big apiaries.

The funny thing is, the longer I watch, the more big bees I see.

Michael, I saw on an earlier thread that you said a weak (I guess a new colony by nature is weak) colony gives off an unhappy sound when being robbed even if they've given up. Do you have any more to say about this? (Since I'm not very experienced in what a happy colony sounds like.)

Is it realistic to think these colonies could be victims two days after installation on new foundation?

I'm going back down there to listen to see if I can hear the individual bees to see if they are high pitched or low.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>These are just like the workers but BIGGER.


I get the feeling you are looking at drones.

[Michael Bush]

My guess is that you're seeing drones. But the sound of a happy colony is a harmonious sound. The sound of a hive being robbed is a disonant sound. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's like some of them are off key.

[Trevor Mansell]

if the bees are robbing you will see them trying to get into the hive around the lid. do you see any dead bees on the ground in front? are you feeding them? is the entrance reduced? is there a honey flow in youre area? If they are coming in empty they may be bringing in nectar. look at the big bees real close drones have much bigger eyes ,if you are still not sure just grab one if it stings you its not a drone.

[Terri]

I have noticed that a worker full of nectar is a little larger than a worker on her way out. Also, about half of the bees in my 2 new packages are HUGE! I don't know what the breeders did, but some of my new bees are really, really big.

[KyBee]

Okay I think I have either some very large workers like Terri has, or I am looking at drones. These bees just did not seem very "purposeful" about anything, though there were a good number of them and they came and went a lot. And they did have a deeper, more resonant buzz than the workers, as Michael said. And despite my newbie-ness, I think my colonies sound okay. I think I would somehow sense if it was not right. It would be louder or something because they would be upset. And all the normal activity--scent fanning and big pollen loads coming in--seems like that would stop if everybody were having to defend the house from intruders.

Tomorrow hopefully I will open the hive and see if there are any eggs and see how comb building is going. I have to get the queen cage out of there. It will be my first time pulling out frames since the bees were installed. Maybe I can get a sense of the different bees in the colony when I look at them on the frames while they're busy doing their thing.

Incidentally, I'm not smoking these girls at all when I open the hive top to feed. I was told not to smoke new bees and I understand why. So far so good. But when does the "new" wear off and the necessity of having the smoker lit begin? When they have comb and honey to engorge themselves with in response to the smoke?

Also, Terri, where did your bees come from? Mine came from Wilbanks in Georgia.

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>But when does the "new" wear off and the necessity of having the smoker lit begin?

I don't use a smoker unless I am doing a cut-out, but, you may want to use one when thier numbers get high and they start getting defensive.

[BeeBear]

>> But when does the "new" wear off and the necessity of having the smoker lit begin?

In the spirit of "if you ask 10 beekeepers, you'll get 12 answers", my advice would be to crank up the smoker when you open the colony the first time after hiving them. You don't have to use much smoke, but better that you have the smoker there, lit, ready, if you feel that you need it. It will give you more confidence, which is probably more important than the actual smoke. And it will teach you how to light and maintain the smoker, so you'll have this skill in the future when you really do want smoke available.

[Jim Fischer]

A hot day today 82+ - knocked off early, as it
will be cooler tomorrow, and I thought I could
hear the milkshake mixer calling my name.

An unlit smoker it just like an unloaded pistol -
a useless hunk of metal with no time to make it
useful if it turns out you need it.

My smoker is lit from the moment I walk into any
yard with the intention of opening any hives.
Has been for decades.

This was on the advice of "Justin Case", my most
helpful and productive staff member.

[KyBee]

Well, this is interesting. It WAS the first time I'd observed the "ask ten beekeepers" rule to fail. Without dissent, every experienced beekeeper in both of my local associations, the state association, the state apiarist, two ph.D.s and Rob Mountain have all said to me "don't smoke new bees." I've been in there every day since hiving except for one day. No gloves and no smoke thus far, and haven't needed either.

However, the beesource forum has proven the "ask ten beekeepers" rule to be true. So I'm not disappointed after all.

I had one of my beekeeper mentors over here today and showed him my "robbers" and he said they are in fact drones as everyone suspected. They don't look a thing like the drone pictures.

I think it's probably time to start lighting the smoker because when I was in there today trying to get the queen cages out and put in the last frame it was just so hard to get the piles of bees to move over and down into the frames so I wouldn't squish them. And besides, there is comb, pollen, nectar and eggs in each of the two hives, so they have purpose and probably aren't planning to just fly away any time soon. I hope.

Thank you to everyone for the help and reassurance with my new beekeeper anxiety. And Michael, they seem to be taking to the new small cell foundation just fine, like you suggested they would. They are building beautiful white comb on it. (The comb smells really funky though. Not nice and sweet at all. I wonder if it's whatever flowers they are working?)

[BeeBear]

>> I've been in there every day since hiving except for one day.

Do you mean that you've opened the new hives every day?

[KyBee]

Yes, unfortunately, except for one day. Not because I'd planned it that way though.

I installed, and on the advice of one of my bee mentors I did not remove the cork from the queen cage. She'd been in there only about 12 hours or so (he drove down to Georgia and picked up the packages for our bee association and took them from the apiary about 30 minutes after they'd all been shaken into the package). He was concerned about acceptance if they ate through the candy too quickly and wanted me to give them more time. So that was Sunday evening. I opened only the top cover--not the whole hive-- on Monday afternoon to put in more syrup. Then Tuesday he said to open the hive and pull the cork on the queen cage, so I did that. Didn't open on Wednesday but they were bringing in big pollen loads so I figured they had accepted and believed in their queens if they were planning to raise and feed brood.

Today I fed them again, removed the empty queen cages, replaced the missing frame and checked to see if queens were laying. Both were laying, though one much heavier than the other. Shouldn't have to open for anything but feeding for a while now, which is a big relief for me and them too I'm certain. I was worried about opening too much, but it seems they've tolerated my bumbling and are doing okay.