New bee behavior

Beekeeping - Basics
1

Hello everyone,

I just went for a hive visit and stood near the entrance and observed a small group of bees at the entrance of the entrance reducer walking forward and then backward. They almost seemed to be rocking back and forth, odd? While they were doing his several would land with pollen and nectar and others would take off. Is this rocking odd behavior?

2

Washboarding. :blush: The Search function reveals all:

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3

Those are the OCD bees from your hive. They don’t know whether they’re coming or going. :grin:

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4

Is this a bad thing?

5

Read the links. It is completely normal. Nobody knows why they do it, but they are probably adolescent bees who have been told to “go clean your room” and they are outside sulking instead. :wink:

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6

This is really interesting. The only thing that I did different is, last night there was no wash boarding but I noticed a lot of ants so I spread cinnamon around the bottom of the hive that touches the blocks. Maybe they don’t care for this.

7

Bored bees… young bees keeping busy until they are old enough to become foragers

8

Wax on, wax off. All will be revealed in time :sunglasses:

9

I don’t think that the bees care about cinnamon at all. They way I look at it is that your colony is happy and has plenty of new bees. The new ones are not required for nursing/guarding/cleaning inside etc at this point. So they go outside and exercise until they are mature enough to start foraging! :blush:

Probably a vast oversimplification, but I only see it on my hives when they are actively expanding. I think it is a sign of a healthy hive. :wink:

10

Thank you Dawn, I appreciate the vote of confidence.p

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11

I have only seen washboarding on one of my hives once and I think it signified the start of a nectar dearth and bees with nothing to do.

This particular hive then went and absconded on me, though I think that may have been a coincidence as it was a brand new queen they had made and I’d just done my first inspection so maybe spooked her, or maybe the couple of ants who got in annoyed her, or maybe they went off to look for more flowers… too many variables to draw any conclusions really - grrr :slight_smile: