Bee-ing Cooperative
One cooperative behaviour you may see honey bees do is clump together at the entrance to a hive in an attempt to regulate the temperature or humidity within the hive. That is typically done on hot and/or humid days. The clumping is called bearding in the bee-keeping parlance.
This image was taken on a very cool morning, so heat wasn't an issue. There was lots of dew, so maybe humidity was a problem.
In trying to figure out what I was seeing, I checked out a few websites. The Honey Bee Suite site seemed to offer the best explanation: "Once the bees begin to finish their work in late summer, you are more apt to see bearding, especially in large colonies. This occurs because the cells are already full of nectar, but summer dearth means flowers are scarce, so no new cells are needed. Simply put, the bees are left with nothing to do.
Too many bees in the hive block air flow, which slows down the drying of nectar, so the bees hang around outside. New beekeepers often misread this behavior as preparation for swarming, but it has nothing to do with swarming. In fact, many of these bees will die at the ends of their natural adult lives of four-to-six weeks, and most will not be replaced in order to bring the colony down to a manageable winter population.
Then too, bearding often increases after the beekeeper removes honey supers, thus forcing the bees into a smaller space. Since there isn’t enough room indoors, the bees stay outside, just doing their thing."
In this case, two hives were exhibiting the behaviour, and both looked to have been downsized recently, meaning the extra summer storage areas for honey and pollen (supers) have been removed by the bee keeper. So, perhaps I happened to show up when there was simply no room in the hive and all these bees were just hanging out at the entrance.
If anyone knows of other explanations for this behaviour, please share your knowledge.
Bee-ing Cooperative
One cooperative behaviour you may see honey bees do is clump together at the entrance to a hive in an attempt to regulate the temperature or humidity within the hive. That is typically done on hot and/or humid days. The clumping is called bearding in the bee-keeping parlance.
This image was taken on a very cool morning, so heat wasn't an issue. There was lots of dew, so maybe humidity was a problem.
In trying to figure out what I was seeing, I checked out a few websites. The Honey Bee Suite site seemed to offer the best explanation: "Once the bees begin to finish their work in late summer, you are more apt to see bearding, especially in large colonies. This occurs because the cells are already full of nectar, but summer dearth means flowers are scarce, so no new cells are needed. Simply put, the bees are left with nothing to do.
Too many bees in the hive block air flow, which slows down the drying of nectar, so the bees hang around outside. New beekeepers often misread this behavior as preparation for swarming, but it has nothing to do with swarming. In fact, many of these bees will die at the ends of their natural adult lives of four-to-six weeks, and most will not be replaced in order to bring the colony down to a manageable winter population.
Then too, bearding often increases after the beekeeper removes honey supers, thus forcing the bees into a smaller space. Since there isn’t enough room indoors, the bees stay outside, just doing their thing."
In this case, two hives were exhibiting the behaviour, and both looked to have been downsized recently, meaning the extra summer storage areas for honey and pollen (supers) have been removed by the bee keeper. So, perhaps I happened to show up when there was simply no room in the hive and all these bees were just hanging out at the entrance.
If anyone knows of other explanations for this behaviour, please share your knowledge.