Sat down late this afternoon to watch the bees, and I noticed that as the minutes passed, there were more, and more, and MORE of them hovering around the hive. The usual ten or twenty turned into fifty, than a hundred, and then finally enough to scoot my out of my chair!
My first thought was that the hive was being robbed.
All kinds of bees were hovering around, all facing the hive. I was positive it wasn't a swarm, since I just checked the hive yesterday and saw no queen cells, but I didn't have much else of a clue what was going on. As I got to watching though, I didn't notice any fighting at the entrance; just a lot of congestion. I finally decided it was an orientation flight and hoped for the best. After I got over freaking out, it was awesome to watch. After about a half hour, everybody was back in the hive, and I was back to the normal amount of bees at the entrance.
As a beek for all of three weeks, this was pretty cool!
My first thought was that the hive was being robbed.
As a beek for all of three weeks, this was pretty cool!