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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Catherine Adamson <cadamson AT alumni.unc.edu>
  • To: Elisabeth Curtis <granda.curtis AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] unusual bee behavior?
  • Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 22:49:56 -0400

Hi Elisabeth,

You are seeing orientation flights - bees that have graduated from house duties taking their first trip outside.  They waver back and forth in front of the hive entrace to get a fix on the shape of the hives and surrounding landmarks.  I see this behavior a little bit every day from my hives between about 5.30 and 6 pm right now, but some days are much bigger than others.  I think of it as a large cohort of bees of the same age switching tasks together.  Since the queen can lay a couple of thousand eggs a day at peak, that means a couple of thousand bees leave the hive for the first time each day as well.

Cheers,
Catherine

On Jul 2, 2010 9:45 PM, "Elisabeth Curtis" <granda.curtis AT gmail.com> wrote:

This afternoon several hundred of the residents of one of my hives were flying in erratic patterns in front of the hive. Most of the activity was confined to an area about ten feet in all directions in front of the hive, though some of the bees seemed to fly away. Bees solidly covered the hive body above and below the entrance, and directly in front of the hive entrance there were about a hundred bees apparently waiting for a space to open for them to eneter the hive. This part of it looked like a normal busy day at the hive except much more so. Over a period of about a half hour the activity gradually slowed, as more and more bees re-entered the hive, and eventually all was back to normal. It happened once before about a month ago and was reported to me by a neighbor, but this time I got to see it myself. Any ideas about what was happening here?  -Elisabeth Curtis


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  • [ocba] unusual bee behavior?, Elisabeth Curtis, 07/02/2010
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      • Re: [ocba] unusual bee behavior?, Catherine Adamson, 07/02/2010

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