Hot, swarming or?

Newbie here and is this behavior normal for dusk? Sincerely,
Martha from Nashville

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Looks like bearding - normal in hot weather :blush:

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So late? It’s about 78 Degrees out. They will beard at that temp? Interesting and thanks!

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I’m guessing it was even hotter earlier today where you are, and so it could still be inside the hive (and yours is a lovely dark color too)…anyway, hanging out on the porch at night could be a sign there’s a been a population increase - a good thing!

@Martydallas reported many a late night sighting of his bees bearding - he’s in Texas & maybe he will reply too!

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By the way, your stand is interesting - you should post that pic on the Stands thread, and point out how good those giant eye screws are for feet that could sit nicely in ant moats :sunglasses::+1:

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Thanks! I made the stand with leveling and ants in mind. I was worried that my cinder blocks would settle. I also wanted to have the correct degrees for when I put on my super. So I put a board under the eyelits to easily remove when extracting honey.

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Yes - didn’t see that at first, but so easy to level too! Genius, girl :wink:

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Probably just warm and swarm preparations. Check for swarm cells and even cups along the bottom of the frames, especially the bottoms of the frames in that second box. Mine had over dozen cups so I split them.

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The top box has food in it. I will look for a queen cell and move the bottom corrugated down one level for better air circulation.

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Make sure that you shake the bees off the frames when you inspect - they love to cluster on and hide queen cells. If they intend to swarm, there should be several cells with royal jelly and larvae, or capped, depending on when you last inspected. :blush:

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these photos where taken last year in may about 5:45am and it was cool out. one is just the thermal image of the other. I have a Flir camera that I have been playing with. It has come in handy.

But yes, they seam to hang out all the time, Box may have been vary full for me but they did not swarm

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I just went out this morning and checked the situation out. They are still hanging out, 70 degrees out, it looks like it’s going to rain so I’m hesitant to disturb them. But I think I’ll give a gander now that I got on YouTube and looked at royal jelly! Lol :grinning:. Good morning bee peeps! :honeybee:

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That is so cool! Mine are calm and quiet doing a lounge lizard act.

I opened up the hive and made some observations. I saw a baby bee coming out of a cell and that was so exciting! Geek moment! 3 empty queen cells but they could have come with my nuke so no telling how long they were there. An explosion in numbers! 3 frames of capped brood if that’s an accurate novice observation. I saw one veroa mite running across the brood frame. Several hive beetles as my trap is unsuccessful and I still have not located the queen. I know she is there but I still can’t find her. I think I’m going to need another brood box asap.

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You have awesome eyes if you saw a varroa mite running lol. I always say if you can see mites, you have too many.

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+3 readers! :grinning: I plan to treat for mites the conventional way as at this point my investment in the girls is both emotional and financial. My count is low as of today and I clean the bottom board after an inspection of the hive. I’m going to watch your suggested vid tonight when my full attention can be had. Spent the morning on brushy mountain bee store buying supplies. Thanks for all the support and suggestions. It’s very appreciated . :grinning::honeybee::+1::us:

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I read the fogging thread and it was informative. Thank you for sharing it. I’m going to order the OA vaporizer. What treatment do you use for veroa? But for now I had to order hive beetle traps and some frames for my expanding hive. One note on the fogging is the experimenter did not use wintergreen. Im going to use your split method but it’s for a 10 frame? How will it work for an 8 frame? All the best! Have a great weekend.

I use OAV during the broodless times and Apivar strips after the honey harvest.

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Hi Martha, I am in Nashville as well, Green Hills area, my bees were bearding yesterday and a few days ago. Last summer they bearded big time in the middle of the summer. My neighbor has 3 Langstoth hives which are white. He didnt have bearding so I wondered at the time if it was because the white paint made his hives reflect some of the heat?

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I bet your right! I also had a 99% full capacity thing growing on. I added a new brood box yesterday an so they are busy. Nice to meet you! I should have just put tounge oil on the brood boxes. Oh well!