Small Swarm in my Garage???????

[Scott Derrick]

Hi Everyone,

I had something odd happen to me today with bees. I came home from a doctor appointment and opened the garage door as usual. When I got out of my car I noticed about 100 or 200 bees in the garage flying around buzzing as loud as you could imagine. I thought...they must bee looking for food or something in my garage...I have 3 cases of Pierco Frames and empty hive boxes without frames and thought that this might be attracting them.

I walked into the garage with the bees flying all around trying to see what they had in mind but couldn't put a finger on anything. I thought that they might be scout bees looking for a place to hive so I quickly put together a hive body with frame and placed it on the floor of the garage. I continued to look at their movements trying to get a sign of what was going on. I was looking for a queen or a swarm cluster. I noticed on the window of my garage that a bunch of bees were walking around towards the top of window almost in a worried sort of march. I quickly opened the window to let them out. A lot of the bees started falling to the ground and walking towards the garage entrance. Many of them falling from the window didn't look healthy at all. I actually picked many of them up an placed them into the hive box. Then about an hour later they started all dying. Falling from the window as well as the hive body.

I thought maybe there might be some bug spray around the peremeter of the window but I don't think I or my bug man has ever treated this high. Last look they all had died.

Does anyone have any idea as to what might have been happening? I actually went down to my hives during this phenomanon to see if one of the hives might have swarmed but I saw nothing obvious . I did have a hive that had about 7 or 8 queen cells in it three of which I posted photos of but I don't think is was that hive.

I just thought it strange. Any clues would be appreciated.

Scott

[mick]

Maybe they got sprayed somewhere or fed on something that had been sprayed.

Maybe they were just some lost bees half dead anyway and were looking for a home in there.

Maybe some smell led them in there and they fed on something bad.

[Brian D. Bray]

If there is a smell that attracks the bees they will find a way in to it, they don't always find their way back out.  Especially where windows are involved.  
Most likely there was something that attracted the bees momentarily, such as splashed syrup, and the bees found it, consumed it, and then got disorientated on their way out by the window.  After a few hours of frenzied activity buzzing the window the bees tire, and dropping out of flight becomes more frequent, they they begin walking, then staggering, and finally die.  
For more on the subject put a bee in a jar and watch what happens.