Bee police?

[greenbtree]

Observed some interesting behavior yesterday.  I caught a small swarm two days ago.  Installed in hive around noon.  At midnight remembered that I had not checked horses water that day and went out to check.  A bunch of the bees were outside clustered on the top corner of the hive.  Suited up, went out, and pushed top cover back and used a piece of cardboard to herd bees back in hive. (Yes, the poor horses did get their water after - although the pony chewed me out about it.) Yesterday I noticed a small group of bees back in the same spot.  Only about 30, certainly not enough to disturb the hive over.

Here is where it gets interesting.  Half were drones, the other half workers. (No queen among them, I checked real closely.)  Occasionally a worker would land and begin fussing at one of the workers.  That is the only way I can describe it.  It wasn't an attack, there was nothing of the wrestling and trying to sting that you see during a robbing event for example.  The worker would repeatably head butt or ram or crawl over the other worker.  They ignored the drones.  At one point a worker grabbed the other by a leg and started DRAGGING IT ACROSS THE LID TO THE FRONT OF THE HIVE!  The grabbee broke loose and flew back to the drone group.

Anyone ever observe anything like this?

JC

[luvin honey]

Very strange. I was thinking robbing, until you said they were dragging them back INTO the hive. Maybe some young kids doing some major summertime slacking? (or maybe my own life is making me think this way  :-D)