I noticed a lot of washboarding at my observation beehive. There is also lots of washboarding inside the hive as well. You can see lots of bees working as a team to circulate the air inside the hive to where they want it to go. I also found an Assassin bug with a bee in it’s proboscis.
Here’s my video, cheers
Great video, @JeffH, and very pretty bees too - I love the broad yellow band at the top of the abdomen, graduating to darker rings near the tip. Beautiful. Nice demonstration of fanning and washboarding. I bet most people (including me) had no idea that bees washboard inside the hive too!
Hi & thank you Dawn, I had no idea that they did it inside the hive either. It’s only very early morning now. There’s no washboarding at the moment.
It’s ironical that it was a 32 degC day & the bees were doing lots of fanning when in fact they like to keep the brood at around 34-35degC.
It’s only during this hot weather we’re experiencing now that I notice the bees actively fanning like in this video. Actually yesterday was the most fanning I’ve ever seen in that hive. Thanks again, bye:)
PS. the queen in this colony is the one we removed from this Queenslander. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P4bbthyz_I She’s getting a bit old so I put her in this observation hive so she has an easier life & less likely to get superseded.
I had a good guess that they washboard inside the hive as well cause the other day we had 44 degrees C and I could hear them inside flapping like made.
But… They don’t flap when they washboard… See the video for proof.
It’s amazing that after so many years beekeeping Jeff has only just noticed washboarding!
I have noticed that the 2 bought bees, from reputable sellers, are generally the ones to washboard on the hives external.interestingly the only washboarding I have seen so far with the cut out colonies are inside the hive. The hives are side by side, roughly the same strength and the bought bees also seem to beard more.
Yeah I looked at the other hives in my yard this morning. I couldn’t see any until I looked a bit closer. There was about one or two on each hive hard at it. I guess it’s been happening all along without me taking notice of it. The other day it was no noticeable on my observation hive, I couldn’t help but notice it, especially after watching @RBK’s video.