Worldwide Beekeeping

Beekeeping => Beekeeping 101 => Topic started by: RLTS on April 15, 2015, 05:47:11 pm

Title: Mid-day flight
Post by: RLTS on April 15, 2015, 05:47:11 pm

As a new bee keep I do not know what this is about and have not read anything concerning this.  At mid-day around 2:00 there is a large cloud of bees all around the hive both flying and all over the "front porch"  this last a little while then everything settles down and the traffic returns to normal.  what is this about? or what can i search to find more information.

Title: Re: Mid-day flight
Post by: iddee on April 15, 2015, 05:56:20 pm

Orientation flights. Young bees flying for the first time and learning the neighborhood. Sign of a healthy hive.

Title: Re: Mid-day flight
Post by: Perry on April 15, 2015, 07:48:06 pm

Iddee is right.
Take notice of the way they are flying. It will look like a kind of "bobbing and weaving" flight, very calm and gentle type of thing. Robbing is something that that can happen later in the year, and is more frantic, with a lot of zig zagging.

Title: Re: Mid-day flight
Post by: Slowmodem on April 15, 2015, 08:53:48 pm

My first thought were they were swarming.  Maybe you were going to get two sets of bees for the price of one.  That's what I'm dealing with nowl  Good luck in either instance1   :yes:

Title: Re: Mid-day flight
Post by: RLTS on April 15, 2015, 10:28:46 pm

I do not think it is swarming activity as it happens every good weather day at the about the same time and it is just a couple hundred bees.  thanks for the info.

Title: Re: Mid-day flight
Post by: tbonekel on April 16, 2015, 06:10:38 am

Another sign of orientation flights is that the bees will crawl up the front of the hive a little, then lift off.