[CessnaGirl]

Inspections on my Spring swarm hives today. All is good with happy girls (2 deeps, all with 1-2 supers, 1 super ready for harvest) but did run across two things I had not seen/heard before. One hive has red propolis. It looks like clotted blood, like the girls are members of the Walking Dead. Weird. One of the other hives has a bit of it mixed in with the usual sandy colored south Florida propolis. The other hives are sandy or dark brown. Really strange. And the other weird thing is one of the hives was loudly crackling, like tiny bubble wrap popping or they were frying bacon. My hubby looked at me and said, " You hear that?" What the heck? Ideas anyone? I'm stumped, but then with bees, not that unusual for me. Wish they would read the books....

 

[VodoBaas1]

I notice the crackling sound when they are making comb.

 

[waynesgarden]

I see the blood-red propolis pretty regularly, though I have no idea where the hives are getting that particular resin.

Wayne

 

[Beekeeper23]

For a while I noticed red propolis too, now it's mostly orange to burnt yellow. That crackling noise? I wondered if it were the "sanitary workers" cleaning (chewing) out the comb from births....but wax dabbling makes sense too. Such an incredible noise!

 

[BeeTech]

Had that cracking sound in one of my hives too. They were drawing comb.

 

[WBVC]

I heard that distinct crackling noise coming from one of my nucs the other day. Would be nice to know what is generating it.

 

[BeeTech]

I heard the crackling when I had pulled one of the frames out. It was a new frame about halfway drawn out. That was all that was going on. They weren't storing anything or apparently doing anything else.

 

[FlowerPlanter]

Your bee must be Italian.

The crackling noises are tiny machine guns and the red propolis is blood splattered from the Mob hit. :lpf:

 

[Harley Craig]

don't they mix trees resin with wax/nectar to produce propolis? Any of you guys seeing the blood red propolis have humming bird feeders around the area?