[Pinchecharlie]

One hive cool and calm, the other a bit frenetic with a bit of WWE action going on!? Lots of bees hovering at the front door? But they where still carrying pollen in? I don't know? Just curious. I reduced the entrance and left feeling anxious!

 

[Bees In Miami]

Robbing is ugly...loud....and destructive. How old are the hives? How strong for both? Do you know what an orientation flight looks like?

 

[umchuck]

when robbing the robbing bees seem to be in hover mode with vertical distances from bottom board to telescopic cover, just saw my first about 2 wks ago, it stopped when I turned the entrance reducer to the smallest opening, may be you just had a good fly day and they were being busy, but if you watch them for 5 minutes and if there is robbing going on you will seem that a lot of the bees don't seem like they are very determined on landing and the colony bees coming back will just land, hope it helps

 

[Pinchecharlie]

Robbing is ugly...loud....and destructive. How old are the hives? How strong for both? Do you know what an orientation flight looks like?

Week nuc, potentially queen less. But after your description , I'd have to say not that bad. Just seemed like some tussling going on and and a loud humm? I talked a local beekeeper into an inspection on Monday.

 

[Mr.Beeman]

Robbing looks like an orientation flight with fighting on the porch.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Looks like this when they find the wet supers in the storage barn.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NbXBTkFwh8

 

[wild-b]

So what did you do Michael Palmer?

 

[mattheritage]

I'm curious why you wouldn't put the wet supers back onto the hives so the bees could consolidate the honey?

 

[Chemguy]

Robbing is more of a frenzy, whereas orienting is a bunch of bees hovering about like fireflies in fast motion. I've noticed that robbers also tend to dart almost right into the victim hive, whereas orienting bees will land and walk in slowly. If there are robbers and they're from your others of own hives, they will fly off in the direction of home when leaving the robbed hive.

Robbed or not, business goes on as usual; foragers return even while the hive is under siege.

 

[mpgreer]

something similar happened to me yesterday. i was inspecting my second hive. my first hive started getting more and more bees clouding around the front of the hive. no fighting that i saw. mostly just flying and getting thicker and thicker. no where near what michael palmer just showed. and on the hive i was inspecting, no activity at all.

i think it was just confused bees. hive #2 was broken down with boxes on the ground. so when their foragers returned, they didn't know where to go and flew around the hive that looked more like theirs. in the moment, i did get freaked out and reduced all the entrances. but once i got hive #2 reassembled, i reopened the entrances on hive #1 and they resumed normal activity in a few minutes.