Festooning, too many pollen laden bees to all get in at once

Cindi · April 18, 2008, 10:13:13 AM

Yesterday was a day of beauty. It was very warm, slightly overcast, the sun shining through intermittent cloudy skies. What a beauty!!! I was looking at my colonies, they were all having the time of their lives too. One colony in particular was having that hay day. It is the strongest colony, it was before the 3rd strongest colony, but now it is number one, not a question of a doubt. It is the Carniolan colony that I overwintered from the winter of last before last, that be 2007. It was the only colony that had survived the devastation (of 8 colonies) of mites. I had given this colony a terrarium heater to help keep it warm in that winter. It built up last year, swarmed and that story goes on.

This colony has built up way faster than the other Italian colonies. Carniolan, fast spring build up, propensity for swarming, yep, I can see that for surely. I will have to work hard with it to keep it from doing that swarmy thing.

Right, where was I with the story.

Hmmm....Yes.....I was looking at this colony, camera in hand, and I could see many, many bees coming in, laden heavily with pollen. I was watching and saw something rather odd. It looked like the bees were balling a queen or something, upon a closer look, I saw that what was happening was there was so many bees trying to get in the top entrance (that slot in the innner cover) that they had to festoon because they just couldn't all get into the colony. There were way too many to even begin to think about all going in.

I watched this event going on for a few minutes, took intermittent pictures and in about 10 minutes time, they had all sorted it out and had all entered the hive. As my Nephew was walking by, I told him to come over and have a look. These kids surprise me. The amount of bees flyin' around in the skies would have scared many a soul off. But nope, he came over with intense interest. Knowing that I would not have called him to come and have a look unless something really cool was going on. This is my 18-year-old, cool dude.

His comment to me made me laugh, only a kid would say something like this. What he said to me after looking for a few minutes at what they were doing was: "it would suck to be the guy on top". Oh, yes, even thinking about the look on his face and that funnnneeee comment, brings that secret smile to my soul. Have the most beautiful day, we all be lovin' our lives we live. We are all kin. Cindi

Bennettoid · April 18, 2008, 11:03:35 AM

Thats neat Cindi,and a funny story.

DennisB · April 18, 2008, 11:14:57 AM

Super pictures Cindi. Your weather must be wonderful to be able to get that so early in the season. Good luck with all of your hives this year.

DennisB

JP · April 19, 2008, 10:40:33 AM

Awe come on Cindi, enlarge the opening a little, they want in! :-D

...JP

Brian D. Bray · April 20, 2008, 10:36:29 AM

Quote from: JP on April 19, 2008, 10:40:33 AM
Awe come on Cindi, enlarge the opening a little, they want in! :-D

...JP

That is more than just a hint, they're hanging out begging for a bigger doorway.

Cindi · April 20, 2008, 10:40:32 AM

:? This festooning only took place for about 10 minutes, they sorted it out pretty quickly. It is far too cold to give a larger opening of any sort. I think there was just an extreme sudden entrancing of a lot of bees. What would a suggestion be? They prefer the top to the bottom entrance, they could go in the bottom if they really needed to. Explain a little deeper, if you will. Beautiful day in this great life. Cindi

Jerrymac · April 20, 2008, 10:50:51 AM

Why did you post the last picture twice?

Cindi · April 20, 2008, 10:53:26 AM

Jerry, many thanks, that was a mistake and I appreciate it and stand corrected. I have edited the post, no point in looking at a picture two times now is there? I always appreciate it when someone corrects me, love that in people, thanks.

BEautiful day in this great life, Cindi

reinbeau · April 21, 2008, 09:16:49 AM

Cindi, I've been trying to load your pictures now for over 90 minutes. I went for my walk, came back, and they still haven't loaded. I hate Imageshack! :-x

Cindi · April 21, 2008, 09:49:02 AM

Ann, OK I think there is something strange about Imageshack. I was looking at the post to see if maybe the images had not been resized correctly. I don't see them at all, nor the links to them.

When Jerry asked why I posted one of the pictures twice I went into the post and deleted one picture, saved the post and now I am thinking that that was an impossibility within the imageshack government, hee, hee. I bet that the links to the other pictures has gone by the wayside.

By the way, I see the green loading bar still going on when I am typing this post, so I think something funky in imageshack has happened. That is not nice. Have a wonderful and awesome day, Cindi

Cindi · April 21, 2008, 09:51:11 AM

Ann, OK going back to that talk. I am thinking that sometimes I can't see pictures when people have posted in Imageshack. When I posted my last post it posted and then when I went to look to see if the pictures were there, they were there immediately.

I am thinking that sometimes when pictures take long to load that one has to close that post they were trying to look at and going back into that post again to see the pictures. Try that and see if it works. There has to be some kind of weird gliche with it. Bummer. Beautiful day, beautiful life. Cindi

JP · April 21, 2008, 10:10:06 AM

Good suggestion Cindi, I've had to do this very thing several time this morning. Imageshack must be delayed today, big time.

...JP

Cindi · April 21, 2008, 10:13:58 AM

JP, more clearly define what you are saying or am I missing something. Did it work when you closed out that topic/forum and went back to it, that you could see the pictures in peoples' posts more quickly the next time? I am so curious out so many things. Cindi

reinbeau · April 21, 2008, 09:53:52 PM

Cindi, I clicked on this post tonight and everything loaded immediately. It's definitely Imageshack. That's why I use my own hosting site to post pictures, I just can't stand dealing with the others. As for opening and closing the thread I did it to no avail this morning.

Neat pictures, by the way! They were busy, weren't they? Traffic jam in Cindi's Apiary! :lol:

buzzbee · April 24, 2008, 07:49:28 AM

Image shack loads a lot of ads with the photos and if the adserver is slow,it slows imageshack it seems ,too!

Cindi · April 24, 2008, 09:08:07 AM

Ken, I use Firefox and the ads are blocked, not that they don't try and load, but I get the picture into imageshack, copied and pasted before the ads fully load, so I think that it makes it a little faster for me. Never let imageshack have the time to load the ads. I don't know if that makes sense, but it works. Beautiful and wonderful day, lovin' life. Cindi