I suspect this is nothing to worry about but was wondering about the behavior. Yesterday after checking my 2 hives I noticed one bee in front of one of the entrances. I thought she was a guard because she touched every bee that landed near her. She never stopped any of the arriving bees. Today I noticed that both of my hives had at least 3 bees behaving the same way. Both of the hives are pretty busy with waves of bees arrivng with nectar..I am not seeing a lot with pollen currently. What little has been mentioned about guards in my reading it always appeared that they were just inside the hive entrance. Is this normal or could there be some robbing?
Also of note is that I did have ants yesterday and put out some of "special" grape jelly that they like so much :) The ant isssue is reduced but not eliminated from one hive
Guard bees.
When a honey flow is on or on days where there is a lot of activity (especially following a prolonged rain) it is not uncommon to see guard bees all the way out to the lip of the BB. The greater the activity the more guard bees you should see.
thanks, those were the answers I was hoping for