A close-up of some bees hanging off the bottom of a frame last week:
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Look at the bee just right of the middle doing the splits. Ouch. I suppose this behaviour is a variation of festooning.
I saw some of the bees feeding or cleaning each other in front of the hive today. I don’t know. But they were out in large numbers again, so I’m happy.
The bees haven’t been too active for the past week. I thought maybe I squished the queen during my last inspection. I usual, I don’t know. But the temperature went up and they were back to normal today. If we get a warm, dry September, I think both of my hives will have strong populations and plenty of honey stores for the winter.
UPDATE (Dec. 23/10): Most likely this is a forager coming back with nectar and transferring it to nursing bees who will feed it to the baby bees. Every bee has a specific duty at a certain time in its life cycle. Foragers only forage. Other bees take pollen and nectar from the foragers and store it or feed it to other bees.
UPDATE (Jan. 24/11): What we’re seeing in the video is called trophyllaxis.
Thirteen days ago, we added a second brood box to one of our young honey bee hives and included four foundationless frames as an experiment in backwards beekeeping. Six days later, we took a quick peek at one of those foundationless frames and found this:
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Today, we took another look at that same foundationless frame — and look at it now:
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But that’s nothing. Check this out:
Read on . . . »
I checked out the bees while I was home for lunch today. The sun was shining and it was 19 degrees Celsius in the backyard. I’ve never seen so many bees outside Hive #1. I could smell the honey, or the pheromones from the bees, from a distance. I could hear them from a distance too. Here’s a quick video:
THE 480p HIGHER DEFINITION SETTING MAY PROVIDE SMOOTHER PLAYBACK.
I assume they’re just really healthy bees and not bees getting ready to swarm.
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
One of the first things I noticed about our honeybees is how they line up in front of the hive, hold their ground and beat their wings to cool the hive (detailed photos). (I assume that’s what they’re up to.) I usually see 3 or 4 bees in a row, but today I saw about 6 of them forming one long line from the edge of the bottom board going right into the hive. I suppose you have to hang around bees for while to get excited about this. At any rate, I grabbed the camera and managed to record about a minute of it. The line wasn’t as straight and unbroken by the time I hit the RECORD button, but still, bees are cool…
THE 480p SETTING MAY PROVIDE SMOOTHER PLAYBACK.
UPDATE (Jan. 24/11): They are ventilating the hive either to help regulate the temperature inside the hive so the developing brood don’t overheat, or they’re trying to create an air current to evaporate nectar into honey, or both. They’re also likely releasing the Nasonov pheromone which helps foraging bees orient themselves to the hive.
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I got an email from someone who noticed our cats in a few photos. They asked, “How well do your cats get along with your honeybees?” The short answer is: it’s not a problem.
We have two cats, a young cat and an older cat. The older cat, Nigel, is so completely laid back, it’s absurd. He doesn’t even notice the bees, and so far the bees haven’t taken much notice of him either.
The younger cat, Winston (seen in the photo), will chase after anything that flies. He approached the bees cautiously when he first saw them. Then he got bolder and sat in front of a hive entrance one day and tried to catch a few bees — and got stung in the face. He didn’t make any noise when he got stung, but ran away and tried rubbing the sting off with his paws. A couple minutes later he was back to normal and hasn’t tried to catch a bee since. He will notice bees crawling on the ground once in a while, but even then he’ll just sit there and look. Cats learn fast.
UPDATE (Nov. 25/10): Nigel eventually got stung in the face and freaked out. He didn’t know what to do or where to go. He rain in circles, didn’t watch where he was going and banged into the fence, and eventually ran for the back door and we let him in the house. Now whenever he sees a bee, he runs away scared.
Our other cat, Winston, continues to keep a respective distance from the bees. As seen in this photo, he gets very close to the hives at times, but seems totally at ease around them.
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
I like watching the honey bees in my backyard. It’s impressive to see a bee come back to the hive weighed down with pollen. I’ll get a picture of that soon enough. But today — five minutes ago — I noticed a row of bees near the entrance of Hive #2 fanning their wings.
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON DEC. 23, 2010.
We started up our first two honey bee hives a little over a week ago, both from nuc boxes. Hive #1 had a Boardman feeder installed. When we checked the hives a week a later (just looking down at the frames, not pulling them out), it was clear the hive with the feeder had built the most comb in that week. So we decided to move the feeder to Hive #2. Some bees from Hive #1 went along for the ride, but we assumed they would fly back to their own hive. We also installed an improvised feeder for Hive #2 because we didn’t want to deprive them of a food source they’d been used to (a regular Boardman feeder has been ordered and is on the way).
We’ve noticed more bees hovering around the entrance of the hives from time to time since we switched up the feeders. They weren’t hovering like this before. I did some quick research, and apparently feeding the bees can set off a robbing spree. Bees from another hive will force their way in and steal honey. The bees being stolen from can eventually starve to death from a lack of honey. But it’s also possible the hovering bees are just young bees orientating themselves to the hive. I think that’s more likely the case since the nuc boxes came with at least one full frame of brood (eggs), and many of those eggs may have begun to hatch now. I hope that’s what it is. Here’s a low-rez video of what it looks like (I have a high-rez camera coming soon):
Read on . . . »
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