Bees Outside the hive

[ouluman]

Hello I have a new hive with 2 deep brood boxes. No signs of Supercedure cells. Bees were from a 5 frame nuc installed on May 13. I have many many bees spending time on the outside of the boxes and on the landing board. They seem to be doing a back and forth "dance". Is anyone familiar with this behavior?? This has been going on for a week with more bees added every day. 

[iddee]

Yes, it's called washboarding, and is very common. Maybe someday we will figure out why they do it. So far, no one has.

[ouluman]

Thanx, I thought I was doing somthing wrong.

[JP]

You'll also notice that they do this when its hot out moreso than any other time.


...JP

[Colobee]

If they have filled out both boxes, or the bottom one & ~80% of the top one, it's time to either add a super, or replace some of the drawn frames with undrawn ones. If you replace just a few frames, be prepared to monitor & repeat frequently.