In Australia, noticed a bit of activity outside the hive this morning. Took a photo below. I notced the hive has a bit of a sickly-sweet smell to it. Some bees below and on the grass as you can see. Is this robbing? Is anything wrong here? Does the entrance size need to be increased? I opened the hive on Saturday and they are going healthy and strong.
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Hi there…ribbing should trigger aggressive behaviour at the entrance…did you see bees fighting, or trying to remove other beers from the entrance or the landing board??
Otherwise they might be prepping for a swarm, this upcoming weekend looks to be very warm, at least here in Perth…During the inspection did you see any queen cups? If your inspection was more than a week ago…I would recommend to have a look at the bottom/ lower half of each frame…keep us posted!!
Uh…I almost forget, in case of robbing you should find a lot of brittles at the entrance…
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Not any brittles, it’s a first year hive, just put the super on about a week ago. Not any fighting, only a few harsh buzzes but I think it’s because the entrance is congested a bit. Nothing unusual when I inspected last. We did have rain yesterday, maybe they’re streaching their legs? Might inspect again this weekend
My reduced hive entrance on a bustling hive always looks like that. One good tell of robbers are bees trying to get in through the lid and searching all over the hive for an opening plus as mentioned, fighting.
Checked this morning and it has seemed to calm down, since there were bees on the ground I was worried, but it seems it might be due to congestion