[laketrout]

I picked up two nucs on Sunday one of them was just packed full of bee's the other a little light on bee's the beekeeper inspected every nuc he was selling and checked for queens and this is when he noticed the difference in bee population of the two nucs . He suggested letting them set 3 days in my bee yard and let them get used to there surroundings then swap location and let some foragers drift into the light hive to balance the hive population and I thinking Wes. would be good. Well this brings up something I have been seeing lately and I hope its not robbing . I'll go up to the yard and now on two occasions one hive out of the four will be real busy with bee's hovering outside the hive waiting to get in and this last time it was the one nuc that was lite on bee's , the other day it was the queenright hive of a split I had done about two weeks ago that was also light on bee's from the split and loosing foragers .Is it robbing and what should I look for to determine if it is robbing .

 

[Phoebee]

Some days both of my hives seem to hold Happy Hour from about 3-4 PM. A huge number of them come out and just fly around in front of the hive. The temperature was not excessive during Monday's party, and in fact I'd just opened the lower vents on the SBB, so they should have been running a little cooler than normal. Most of the flying seems to be orientation flights.

I did notice one carpenter bee investigating a hive. Maybe one of those rascals tried to enter and set off a defensive flurry? Who knows what goes on in the Hive Mind?

 

[crabbydad]

probably just orientation flights

 

[laketrout]

I'm glad to hear that its not robbing , what does robbing look like .

 

[Bees In Miami]

Robbing turns loud and ugly...fighting on the landing boards, bees falling to the ground half dead, etc. UGLY. Orientation flights are quiet...the bees usually walk a bit up the front of the hive, take off, make a few circles, land, and repeat...and repeat, with the circles getting a bit larger each time. Take note on your watch what time of day it is. It usually happens about the same time on each hive each day (though orientation time from hive to hive varies). Orientations usually last about 15 minutes...robbing lasts ALL day!

 

[laketrout]

There was a definite loud buzz going on and for the most part it looked like Alot of bee's in the air waiting to get in the hive .Now that I think about it this was the nuc that was very full of bee's .I'm going to check them out today sometime and see if there still over crowded and if so switch nuc location and try to even them out some .