Is this robbing?

April (Autumn) in NSW Australia. Dearth - nothing much currently flowering. 3 month old hive, filling most of the 8 frames but little in the way of honey stores. Entrance reducer in place. Put an internal feeder in, using 2:1 syrup. Next morning, found the girls in a frenzy, buzzing in a huge cloud outside the entrance to the hive. Observed one short wrestling episode on the landing board, but nil else. Bees climbing up box, but not dipping on take-off. Some bees at box junctions outside, maybe smelling syrup. A few bees returning with pollen.

After dark, I closed off the hive completely. Next morning, about 2 hours after sunrise, with the hive still closed off, only 2 or 3 stragglers outside. No sign of any robbers. Opened up the hive, and bees boiled out again, in a cloud.

Is this robbing or just exuberance?

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I love the video. What type of camera do you have?

Watching the bees wrestle in slow motion is pretty cool.

If there are no robbers the next morning showing up then they are not being robbed. A lot of bees will be hovering when the young bees do an orientation flight. They are not frenzied, but are very active.

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iPhone 6s, using Slo-Mo mode - 240 frames per second slowed down to 30 frames per seconds, so 8 times slower than real life.

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Very cool! Thanks for posting.