Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Nock on June 16, 2019, 12:46:48 AM

Title: What?s going on?
Post by: Nock on June 16, 2019, 12:46:48 AM
https://youtu.be/8WN-E256uWo
Went down like every afternoon to look at my hives. Today there was a lot of bees working both hives. I?ve never seen this many on either hives so far. My first thought when walking up was robbing or swarming. But didn?t seem to be either. Video is clear on my phone but when I upload to YouTube it?s not as clear hopefully good enough. Everything look normal? 
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: Ben Framed on June 16, 2019, 01:19:04 AM
Looks like and orientation flight to me Nock. No worries there. Did they settle down after a while?
Phillip
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: TheHoneyPump on June 16, 2019, 03:08:32 AM
Quote from: Ben Framed on June 16, 2019, 01:19:04 AM
Looks like and orientation flight to me Nock. No worries there. Did they settle down after a while?
Phillip


Nailed it.   :wink:
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: BeeMaster2 on June 16, 2019, 07:43:03 AM
The only problem that I see is that front entrance feeder. That could end up causing robbing.
Jim Altmiller
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: Nock on June 16, 2019, 11:21:25 AM
Just really caught me off guard I guess. Because I?d never seen that amount of bees. I wondered if it was orientation flights. Jim it?s just water. Thanks.
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: Ben Framed on June 16, 2019, 11:58:20 AM
Nock, you just taught me a new trick. I did not think of using the boardman for a water source.  I did  use the boardman feeders when starting off my hives last year, my first season, in support of food after each cutout. I was not and did not intend to consume any honey last year, which was my first season. When I did late season splits last fall,  I also used the boardman feeders for their support and build up for these Nucs in preparation for winter, which worked well. As well as this spring
for early spring build up. The reason I used the boardman is I could easily monitor when it was time for more food for each individual hive simply at a glance. However, I never feed one hive that I did not feed all. I did not want to start robbing which never happened.  Either I was lucky or I did it right? In fact, I was so impressed with the boardman for this application, I made up about 30 more, using 1x4 and drilling with a special fast cutting hole saw bit from Lowes which fits the jar lids perfectly. The real trick is making the proper size holes in your jar lid tops. This is imperative. I experimented finding the right size bit by finding a bit that would fit into the original holes of the  boardman feeders that I had purchased. I did these above mentioned by an assembly line method, both for the boardman and tops, that I came up with making it fun quick and easy. Keep in mind these were all nuc colonies. Now  these nucs are 10 frame complete hives. So the boardman will be obsolete? I will need to find another method for fall build up if I choose to feed.
Phillip
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: Nock on June 16, 2019, 01:39:46 PM
I was using them to feed then stopped. Afraid I would promote robbing.
Title: Re: What?s going on?
Post by: saltybluegrass on June 16, 2019, 01:49:36 PM
I posted this last week Nick
We both received the same answer.
You and I are 1 month apart in starting bees this year.
I also thought swarming was happening
Be on the lookout because 2 weeks after I noticed this, I extracted 6 quarts of honey