First, let me apologize for not having pictures. I went back to the house to get my camera, but when I returned, what I thought was an attack of robbing was either done, or may not have been that in the first place:scratch:.
Sunday afternoon, I placed a larger feeder of syrup inside the hive, using a styrofoam container ($1 at Dollar store), cut in half, with the cover inverted so it "closed" the feeder -- the entrance was cut into the side, about 1" x 3". I think it holds close to 3/4 gallon altogether (there's both some floating honeycomb and wire mesh on all sides so bees have a way of getting in and out). I was a little leery of putting the larger container in b/c I was afraid it would be too attractive to all the other critters (which is why I didn't do an outside feeder). I even had a wasp check out the action while I was there -- I batted it away, and decided to put a 1/2 piece of cork in the round hole to make the entrance easier to defend if the wasp returned. When I went back to check yesterday evening, all was good.
I just went out about an hour ago (5:15 EST) to take a look, and saw one side of the hive crawling with what I thought were huge black ants. When I got closer, I saw they were bees, a few rows of them, seemingly marching in or out, and they looked darker than "my" bees. Outside the hive was a much bigger cloud of bees flying around than I'd seen before. The cloud seemed frantic, but honestly, I don't have the experience to know a frantic bee unless it were actively trying to sting me. Okay, I thought -- this was robbing -- there looked to be unknown bees combined with an angry horde. I deided the feeder had to come out. I went back to the house, donned battle armor, grabbed my camera and smoker, and marched back to the hive (at the other end of our 5 acres). When I arrived...nothing. All seemed normal. There were bees entering and exiting from the various spots. I puffed a bit of smoke at one entrance and I heard the normal heightened buzz, but nothing unusual. I opened the observation window and inside the hive, I saw lots of activity around the feeder, but nothing that looked like fighting. No wrestling, no aerodynamic displays of apis mellifera duking it out. Definitely could hear the hum, but since the new brood had hatched and there were just more bees, that shouldn't be so odd. So, I sat and watched the different entrances for the next 20 minutes. I saw bees leave and return. Bees packed with pollen (which seems to get spilled on the ground a lot -- what's up with that?), bees just going in and out, no apparent emergency.
So, what did I see? The mass of bees on the outside didn't look like bearding (and the high today was only in the low 80s, and not much humidity). Could it have been a huge (from my n00b perspective on a very young colony) orientation flight? Why did the bees look so dark? (Okay, that was probably a silly question: the new brood is just emerging, so I don't really know what "my" bees are going to look like). I know not having pictures makes this a difficult question to answer! If you have any musings, I'd appreciate your thoughts!
Sunday afternoon, I placed a larger feeder of syrup inside the hive, using a styrofoam container ($1 at Dollar store), cut in half, with the cover inverted so it "closed" the feeder -- the entrance was cut into the side, about 1" x 3". I think it holds close to 3/4 gallon altogether (there's both some floating honeycomb and wire mesh on all sides so bees have a way of getting in and out). I was a little leery of putting the larger container in b/c I was afraid it would be too attractive to all the other critters (which is why I didn't do an outside feeder). I even had a wasp check out the action while I was there -- I batted it away, and decided to put a 1/2 piece of cork in the round hole to make the entrance easier to defend if the wasp returned. When I went back to check yesterday evening, all was good.
I just went out about an hour ago (5:15 EST) to take a look, and saw one side of the hive crawling with what I thought were huge black ants. When I got closer, I saw they were bees, a few rows of them, seemingly marching in or out, and they looked darker than "my" bees. Outside the hive was a much bigger cloud of bees flying around than I'd seen before. The cloud seemed frantic, but honestly, I don't have the experience to know a frantic bee unless it were actively trying to sting me. Okay, I thought -- this was robbing -- there looked to be unknown bees combined with an angry horde. I deided the feeder had to come out. I went back to the house, donned battle armor, grabbed my camera and smoker, and marched back to the hive (at the other end of our 5 acres). When I arrived...nothing. All seemed normal. There were bees entering and exiting from the various spots. I puffed a bit of smoke at one entrance and I heard the normal heightened buzz, but nothing unusual. I opened the observation window and inside the hive, I saw lots of activity around the feeder, but nothing that looked like fighting. No wrestling, no aerodynamic displays of apis mellifera duking it out. Definitely could hear the hum, but since the new brood had hatched and there were just more bees, that shouldn't be so odd. So, I sat and watched the different entrances for the next 20 minutes. I saw bees leave and return. Bees packed with pollen (which seems to get spilled on the ground a lot -- what's up with that?), bees just going in and out, no apparent emergency.
So, what did I see? The mass of bees on the outside didn't look like bearding (and the high today was only in the low 80s, and not much humidity). Could it have been a huge (from my n00b perspective on a very young colony) orientation flight? Why did the bees look so dark? (Okay, that was probably a silly question: the new brood is just emerging, so I don't really know what "my" bees are going to look like). I know not having pictures makes this a difficult question to answer! If you have any musings, I'd appreciate your thoughts!
