What was that all about?

An odd thing happened this afternoon with the hive that I didn't understand, perhaps someone can shed light upon the incident.

About 4.15, sun shining brightly, warm and still, thousands of bees boiled out of the hive filling the garden to over 30ft in the air. I wondered if I was witnessing a swarm starting to form. This went for about 20 mins and the the bees started to settle back on and below the hive in a swarm like form. Oh no, I thought, I'll never get underneath to capture them later in the evening.

I hastily donned the bee suit and wandered up to the hive. To my astonishment they were reentering the hive. Lots of the bees had their bums in the air, I assume spraying pheromones about. By 5 o'clock the colony seemed to be settling down into a fairly normal mode.

Did I witness the supercession of the old queen - a kind of apian coup d'etat?

I'd be grateful for your thoughts,

Pete

Melbourne Area Transition Invitational.

With many thanks to Sarah and family who came to our last annual Intro to Beekeeping session, we have been invited to describe our approach to husbandry with the Melbourne Area Transition group, whose website can be found here.

Wednesday 15th May, 7:45pm to 9:00pm
Church House (next to Melbourne Parish Church - follow the signs to Melbourne Hall and you can't miss the church)
£2 entry charge (probably to fund the venue and refreshments)

If you can come along and mingle enthusiastically we would appreciate the support. The format will be similar to our popular 'chat over a hive' style, as I'm told the venue is quite intimate, but we've been asked to kick off with a more formal 10 minute summary of sustainable beekeeping.

Wish us luck ....

Tim.

Bait Hive Cam now live

Hi I've put my bait hive out and you can view live action at mikmon.myfreeip.me  user name - bees password bees - works on Google chrome , and Firefox  log into server push mode works on ie 10

let me know how you get on - last computery type blog promise

M&M