I heard what’s often referred to as piping from the bottom of one of my hives today. (Read more about piping at Honey Bee Suite.)
Bees on the entrance of Hive #1. (August 17, 2011.)
Piping sounds supposedly come from newly emerged queen bees. I requeened this hive back on July 11th. I’m not sure what to think. Perhaps it’s not piping at all. At any rate, I got it on tape:
You might need to crank up your speakers.
March 2019 Postscript: I’ve heard piping from inside my hives many times, and I’m long past thinking it means something is wrong. Most beekeeping books say that piping occurs when a virgin queen emerges from her queen cell and goes on the hunt for other queens or queen cells so she can kill her competition. I guess so, but I haven’t witnessed that yet. In fact, I haven’t been able to connect anything unusual to the sound of piping.
The last time I heard some piping, it was during a normal hive inspection. A could hear a bee piping away, quacking, whatever you want to call it, and I spent minutes holding a frame of bees up in front of my face looking straight at the sound, and I couldn’t see anything. No queen of any kind, mated, virgin, wounded, nothing. No swarm or supersedure cells. Everything normal. Which is what I’ve noticed every time I’ve heard piping from inside the hive. Maybe I’ve heard piping more in the fall when the brood nest is shrinking. But I don’t know.
The other sound I hear is crunching, as if the bees are chewing on the wood inside the hive. I hear that more often in the summer when the population is at its peak. But again, I’m not sure. Should I be concerned when I hear unusual sounds? Maybe, but probably not.
Whatever that piping sound is, it’s still happening. I’ll check the bottom box this weekend when we remove the honey supers. It’s probably nothing.
The piping i have heard on my hive after it requeened itself was more like a duck quacking. Like this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qXLEZejRow
That’s interesting. I watched some other videos of queen bees piping. Whatever is happening in our hive seems mild. I heard from another beekeeper who said a queen’s piping is usually more pronounced what the piping that’s coming from my hive. So it’s probably nothing. The final hive inspection for the year is planned for next weekend, so we’ll see what we find.
I noticed about 10 mins ago the bees in that hive driving out the drones in a big way. I saw worker bees riding the drones like broncos. (I’ll post video of it as soon as I have a chance.) I could still hear the piping, too, little screams like in the original version of “The Fly.”
It’s probably just that time of the year when drones get the boot. Or might it mean something else?
I guess I’ll find out soon enough.