This afternoon, about 5:30, I went to check on the bees. I walked into a seeming cloud! there must have been 10,000 bees flying all around. I thought, "oh well, they're swarming", and looked for a cluster somewhere, but didn't see one. I hung around for a bit and by 6pm I noticed that most of the bees had headed back to the hive and were bearded around the entrance. there were quite a few of them, butt up fanning like crazy. By 6:10 almost all the bees were back in the hive with just a few fanning at the entrance. Most having moved inside.
Now, what to do next? Should I get up early tomorrow and split the hive, hoping to stave off a swarm? Are they even gearing up to swarm? And if so, why didn't they leave today. I have 2 bait hives set up, but would really rather not take the chance that they ignore them and just leave. Whatever they were doing, it was a pretty awesome sight.
Mine do that every afternoon also, some hives at different times of the afternoon, just new bee orientation or cleansing flights.
when you have a 100 in front of the hive I call it orientation flight, but this time of year when a bunch fly at one time it could be a cleansing flight, I have seen this many time when there was enough bee's to swarm but when I looked at my shirt I seen what it was, just a loaded hive relieving itself!!!
Bees normally do not "scent" the hive doing orientation flights. I think we all seen massive orientation flights and thought about swarms. I know I have many times.
What you probably had was a false swarm. It is when the bees say "Let's Roll" but the queen is a little less reluctant to leave. In some cases, a swarm even with the queen outside, just goes back in after the queen, not knowing what to do in the confusion, goes back to the hive.
Chances are, you have a good number of swarm cells, and will be losing some of your bees tomorrow. I'd go in and take out the old queen as well as some frames of bees. This will simulate a swarm and might keep any further loss from happening.
I'm going to have to vote with Bjorn on this one. Do you happen to have a clipped queen? If so, she may be in a pile of bees on the ground tomorrow. Either way, I think a swarm was interrupted and will emerge again if left to nature. Check for queen cells, torn out cells, and newly emerged cells. If either are found, make the split immediately.
eww didn't see you was in Florida, sorry my fault, yup like said above probably swarm,,, sorry again, I should have looked at you location!!!
...butt up fanning like crazy. By 6:10 almost all the bees were back in the hive with just a few fanning at the entrance.
So, is the queen clipped? I would also vote that they tried to swarm but queenie could not or for some reason would not.
I have seen hives that I boxed from swarms try to move out but had to come back because the queen was caged. I've seen them try a second time as well. Its a very cool sight to see, especially if you know they will come back.
They will always reorient by fanning as you saw firsthand. Yep, you need to go in bright and early and create an artificial swarm by moving the queen with bees, brood and some honey in another set up or you will lose the majority of this hive, unless queenie is clipped, then enjoy the show again but look for a ball of bees around her in the grass as was mentioned.
Oh, and you will need to make some other splits as well utilizing some of the swarm cells that you more than likely have all up in that hive.
Best wishes.
...JP
Queen is not clipped. Will bust them up tomorrow morning. Man I hope this goes well.
Good luck crowhammer :) please take pic's.
Okay, here's what I did. I had almost no time thursday to mess w/ the bees. I couldn't take time off work, because I was already taking friday off to go to Bee College and was leaving for there directly after work. So, I got up early and ran to my bee yard. I brought another top and bottom. I didn't have time to go through the hive, so I just broke it into two. Turned them sideways, back to back so to speak, and put a medium super on each hive. I just got back from Marineland late last night. Will be going out today to see what havoc I have wrought. I really wish I would have had the time to find the queen and move her w/ a few frames before I left. Oh, well. I'll just deal with the consequences.
Okay, here's my plan. One, see if the queen has swarmed. If she has, reduce the colony by combining frames into less boxes. Do I need to combine using newspaper first?
If she hasn't swarmed, I will go with the original plan. Find the queen and move her with a few frames of brood and bees into a nuc. Recombine as above.
How does that sound?