My weak hive has a ball of bees outside the entrance reducer.They just seem to having issues, but not fighting or anything like that. My strong hive they go in and out orderly even though there are 4 or 5 times the number of bees. In this ball of bees, are bees returning from foraging, going through the mass of bees w/ pollen loaded baskets. If the hive was being robbed, would bees be bringing in pollen?
I found something like this before and there was a queen in the middle of the ball. I put them in a nuc and came back later to find the queen dead and the bees gone. The hive it was on was also queenless after that and I had to give them a queen.
I still don't know what they were doing.
everytime i see the bees make a ball alarm bells ring because usually they are balling a queen. when that happens the queen almost always dies because it's very difficult to rescue her from being balled. why not try and check the ball and see if the queen is there?
this has been happening everyday it has gotten above 50f, which is about 8 of the last ten days or so.. The population seems to be growing, bees doing orientation flights etc. I hope its not queenless. Its too early to get queen, so I'll combine if it comes to that. I'll keep my eye out. thanx.
You can try a robber screen and see if that is the issue.