Quite a mouthful. This photo was taken the evening before.
The bees started being very active fairly early in the morning. I ran to get the video camera to document what was going on. They grouped up on the outside of the hive entrance. The group slowly moved up the right side of the hive and then under the nose. My wife thinks this was a bunch of drones hatching, because they look bigger. I couldn’t get couldn’t get a good fix on the eye pattern. The next day was normal activity. Any ideas? We welcome your comments.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
I can’t see clearly enough to see if they’re drones or not, but it would be pretty late in the season to have lots of drones hatching – more likely they would be drones being kicked out of the hive by their sisters, as the mating season is over. Our bees have now harassed all their brothers out.
Sometimes bees will hang out outside if the hive is getting too hot, or if a virgin queen is out on a mating flight they will wait for her at the hive entrance and fan their Nasonov gland to provide a ‘welcome home’ scent to guide her back.
I probably should have known those were drones, my wife knew it…I just didn’t think that happened until October or so. I hope my wife doesn’t kick me out for blogging so much. 🙂
Ha ha better be on your best behaviour at this time of year!
That is really clever!
There’s a great YouTube video of a drone being kicked out of a hive by a cop at the entrance. I’ve never seen that many drones being evicted at once,
but I only have three years experience.
I did move two top bar hives from the mountains in Northern California to the bay area. The first one went well. Arrived before sunrise, taped the three entrances and trucked the hive to Berkeley. With the second one I arrived before sunrise and found a cluster of bees around the entrance. Maybe the 100 degree weather from the day before convinced some of the girls to stay on the deck. They did NOT want me to tape up the entrance. I’d driven 86 miles to get them. I could not back off. And I couldn’t light my smoker in a dry grass meadow . The whole thing was a 30 sting disaster.
The hive is now happily foraging in Berkeley
Let me get this straight…You got stung 30 times, then drove 86 miles?
You are one tough SOBee. 🙂
My record is 25 times but I didn’t have to drive after that. I bet you know the smell of the alarm pheramone by now.
Glad to know your bees are doing well close to home.
Well, I’m not sure I got an accurate count. Could have been five less. But I have arthritis in both hands and I’m a gardener………..bee stings give me relief from arthritis for at least three or four weeks. So I was singing and recounting the stings all the way home.
I like that SOBee title. Do you mind if I use it once in a while?
Glad you don’t mind the title. I forgot you were going to stop in sometime on your way back to CA…What if you DIDN’T like the title? 🙂
Pat