battle of the bees?

[Rex]

I may have seen an incident of robbing at one of my hives, but since I'm new to 'keeping I'm not sure.

I went out to my hives this afternoon and saw that one of them was VERY active.  As I watched them, bees seemed to be flying all around the hive entrance in circular motions and at first I thought I was witnessing the beginning of a swarm or they were absconding.  Again, I'm not sure what the signs are for that.  And since I've only had the hive for a month, it seemed unlikely.

I put on my veil and gloves and went to take a closer look.  I saw at least one dead bee just inside the entrance, and upon closer look, there seemed to be bees struggling and colliding together at the landing board.

Up until 2 days ago, I had been giving the hives sugar syrup in Boardman feeders but they had slowed to taking only a quart or so a week.  I changed the syrup to clear water so they'd have a close water supply and my neighbors with swimming pools might not be so annoyed.  This made me think that perhaps robbers had been taking the sugar solution but now that it was gone, they (if indeed they were robbers) were going for the honey inside.

The cloud of bees infront of the hive was getting bigger, and there was an angry buzz coming from the hive. 

I don't have an entrance limiter so I crushed up some grass and blocked all but about 3-4 inches of the entrance.  Then I watched for about 10 minutes as what I thought to be my heroic defenders blocked and resisted a flood of incoming flyers at the front.  The angry buzz escalated at first but after some time dropped to almost nothing and slowly the cloud of bees at the entrance changed to an occaisional burst of activity as what I take to be the bad bees were deflected from the opening. 

Now, approximately 30 minutes later, things have gotten back to what I've come to think of as "normal" traffic in and out.

So I'm wondering if this was this an incident of robbing that I witnessed and helped my bees defend against?  What do you all think?

[tillie]

It was in the afternoon - often bees do "orientation" in the afternoon.  The new foragers fly out of the hive and up to look back at the hive.  They do this over and over and it can look quite frenetic.  They have to learn their bearings in order to leave the hive to forage.  It happens with regularity in most hives in the afternoon around 3 - 4:30 - sometime in there.  One of my hives often holds orientation earlier than the rest.  They do it for 15 - 30 minutes usually.

The bees during orientation often collide on the landing - they haven't quite gotten the whole bit of leaving and returning down to a smoothly executed landing.

There are always a few dead bees in the hive - they carry out the bodies throughout the day, but more in the AM than the PM. 

It may have been robbing, but more than likely your bees were just getting their bearings before foraging becomes their full time job tomorrow.

Linda T in Atlanta

[annette]

Sounds like orientation flights to me also. The fact that they calmed down after about 1/2 hour. It can look very frantic like Tillie said and they will do this every day about the same time of day.

[JP]

Next time this happens try and enjoy the event. Orientation flights are truly spectacular and a sign of a healthy hive.


...JP

[poka-bee]

It does sound like orientation flights to me too.  The timing would be about right for the new bees to do this.  Here it is between 1-2:30 pm depending on how warm, drizzly etc it is on a particular day.  My green hive is 1st, it goes on for1/2 hr or so & just when the greenies are getting back to normal the blues start up.  Yesterday was spectacular!  Today should be great too as it is sunny.  I got some pics just have to download em from the camera. It is mezmerizing, I love watching. It's fun to try to watch 1 bees actions...always lose it.   Maybe someday when more seasoned!! Today will be 6wks so all the package bees should be my own Buckley bees now???  Enjoy your little miracles!!  Jody

[Rex]

Awesome.  Thanks for the replies :)

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrobbing.htm