Interesting Bee Behavior

Today I observed some interesting and different bee behavior. First of all, as I sat at my desk in my office preparing for tomorrow’s lecture, all of a sudden I noticed a Japanese honey bee flying above my desk, almost in front of my face. That is the first time I have had this experience. It did not seem to be interested in me, but just checking out the office. I do have some beeswax and other “aromatic” substances that might attract a bee here in my office, but so far as I know they had heretofore not come inside the office from the outside (the hive is on the roof above the sixth floor, and my office is on the third floor of the same building).

I caught the bee in a net and released it outside, and it flew off, I assume back to the hive. As I wondered what this might possibly mean, I decided to go up on the roof to check the hive and see what the bees are doing, expecting to possibly see that a swarm had issued from the hive. I did not see a swarm, but what I did see was a lot of drones flying in and out along with the regular forager traffic. Quite a few workers were fanning at the hive entrance. Then I also noticed a couple of worker bees that seemed to be scouting the area all around the hive and up the wall behind the hive. They could possibly just be “orienting” and it is their first flight outside the hive, but I don’t remember seeing this particular behavior before either. They flew around the hive, but stayed away from the entrance, landing here and there on the outside and top of the hive, and flying up the wall and down, but not leaving the area or entering the hive. I wonder if this is a precursor to a swarm issuing from the hive. Right now I am not sure what it means. Today was a very warm day and we are into May, and it is the season for swarms to occur. We shall see what happens.

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2 Responses to Interesting Bee Behavior

  1. Jason Ring says:

    What did happen?

  2. ljwestover says:

    It has been 20 days since I wrote this post. As far as I can tell, a swarm has not issued from the hive this year. There is still time, but it is getting late for one. So the answer to your question is this: So far as I can tell, nothing special has happened. The hive is still very active with foragers bringing in a lot of pollen and finally since the weather has heated up, some bees are clustering outside the entrance and underneath the hive. I’ll write again about he next thing that happens that looks interesting to me.

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