Monday afternoon I installed a new package in a hive with plenty of drawn comb and a few frames of honey.
This morning (Thurs) I checked to make sure the queen had been released from her cage. She had.
Now this afternoon there's a large clump of bees hanging from the outside of the top cover.
It's not ordinary bearding. They're in the back, away from the entrance. It's sunny but not particularly warm here today.
Any ideas what they might be doing?
With about 3000 bees in a 3lb. package what is a large clump? If they are nurse bees (and they should be) they might be temporary lost without their assigned sector of brood to take care of. This behavior should stop after the queen lays a few thousand eggs for them to care for.
When I mentor new beeks I suggest that the new newbie does not go back into the hive (after the queen is released) for 7-10 days and feed, feed, feed. -Mike
Thanks, mikecva. That sounds reasonable.
My concern was that maybe the queen had failed right away, and when I removed the empty cage, that left them without the pheromones to orient themselves.
But now the sun's going to go down, it's going to get a bit chilly, and they're still outside. So I'm not done worrying.
Update: With the sun going down and temperature dropping, and maybe 1/4 of the colony still outside, I popped the top and gently scooted them all back inside. They were starting to draw comb on the outside! I'm confused.
"I'm confused." The problem is - so are they. Even natural swarms will do goofy things sometimes, I had part of a swarm that wouldn't abandon a few stray drones that ended up on the outside of the hive once, they didn't settle until every last drone was tucked in the hive body, and yes, the queen was inside already. I think you did the right thing by gently escorting them back inside. As long as the behaviour stops or continues to dwindle, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
JC