Cloud of bees

[Anonymous]

This morning I was alarmed by the activities of one of my hives.  My wife saw it first and asked me qhat was wrong with my bees.  I looked and there was a literal cloud of bees in front of the hive.  My first thought was "they are swarming".  I suited up and investigated but I could find nothing that would explain the activity.  The bees were just flying into the air and buzzing around in big circles.  It was time to inspect the hive anyway so I looked at each frame.  There were no queen cells under construction so I don't think they were swarming.  The bottom brood chamber seems pretty full.  There is brood on four or five frames and the bees are drawing comb on 9 of the ten frames.  I had already installed a medium super for them to use as another brood chamber so I know that the bees had plenty of room.  I could not find anything wrong so I put everything back.  This afternoon things seemed normal.  I did check on my other hives and found the second one doing the same thing.  We had a tropical storm blow through Saturday.  Could it be that they were just enjoying the sunshine after a couple of days of clouds and rain?

[Finsky]

Nurser bees and young come out to clean themselves. It happens normally at afternoon 2 a'clock.  If you have couple of rainy days, flight will be very strong.

Nurser bees are full excrements when they have eaten a lot of pollen. So they must get rid of pollen shells.

[Michael Bush]

If you see that kind of activity all day long and if there is a lot of wrestling on the front board on a lot of bees searching the outside of the hive looking for entrances, then it might be robbing.  If it's for an hour or so in the afternoon, then it's like Finsky says, it's young bees orientating and voiding.