# They're flying all over my yard., what are they doing?



## Frankiebee (Sep 5, 2014)

I thought I had a late swarm today. I was watching the game (GO HAWKS) on TV today and noticed bees flying into my window. I looked out and there were bees flying allover my yard. I never observed this crazy flying all over the yard before from any of my bees. It was early evening and the bees are usually getting settled in for the night. One hive was behaving normally while my other hive appx 50 feet away was buzzing with activity and bees were flying all around. They were not acting aggressively. I walked around our yard and was thrilled to see bees entering a swarm box I had set in another part of my yard. I proudly told my family I finally had caught my first swarm, albeit late in the season. After about an hour everything seemed to settle down. When I went to place my "new swarm" in it's own hive, it turned out the box was empty. The original hive appeared to be just as full of bees as it was last week. I didn't inspect further then taking the top and inner cover off. I didn't see anything in the trees around my house. It was getting late so the light was diminishing too. Can anyone tell me what this may have been?


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## Agis Apiaries (Jul 22, 2014)

Do you have a robbing problem going on?


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## RD35 (May 20, 2014)

I'm a first year newbie so keep that in mind. I had a similar experience with one of my two hives (the stronger hive). Turned out to be a very large orientation flight. We had had two days of continuous rain and so the newborn bees had not had a chance to fly yet. At around 6pm the next day (a sunny day) we had your same experience...bees everywhere flying in circles. As we watched you could see a bee fly a short circle and land back on the entrance board. Then it would fly a larger circle and land again. By around 7pm it all stopped and the bees were happily in their hive again!


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

What's in the swarm box? If I leave something out to rob at the house, the neighborhood bees make it look like what you described as they're trying to rob any nucs I have at the house as well as any other bee equipment around. They will be flying into the windows etc... but a frame with a little bit of honey left out turns it into a full robbing fest wherever any bee equipment is.


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## smccabe (Oct 8, 2013)

That sounds like "orientation flights" - House bees maturing into foragers explore the hive neighborhood in the late afternoon.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

There are several "events" in the course of a typical day. The exodus of the drones to the DCA. The return of the drones from the DCA. The orientation flights of young workers. These events are short lived. There are a few events that happen occasionally. One is a robbing frenzy. Once one is set off the whole yard can erupt in chaos. These events last until all the weak hives are dead or you break it up somehow. Another event is a queen flying off to mate. She is often accompanied by some bees. Kinds of like a small swarm. They sometimes cluster in a nearby tree for a few minutes but usually they just fly back to the hive. Another event is an actual swarm. It looks like a tornado of bees. They will collect on a limb. It is very short lived. Then after they decide where they are going, another tornado of bees leaves...


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## Frankiebee (Sep 5, 2014)

Thank you everyone for responding. I'm still not sure what they were up to. I've put feeders on both the hives now and will continue to see if I notice anything unusual. I have not been seeing any robbing going on. Of course I'm not out there all the time, and that particular hive is in the lower part of my yard, so the entrance only gets looked at a couple of times a week. The upper yard hive is easy to check on every day. I did have two undrawn combs it my bate box, so having the bees entering would make sense. I didn't see them leaving so assumed it was the tail end of a swarm just moving in.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Frankiebee said:


> I've put feeders on both the hives now and will continue to see if I notice anything unusual.


Did you begin feeding before or after the 'event'?


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I had my first experience with robbing last weekend. The previous Wednesday I'd set up a little science project, took a frame of brood and a frame of stores from my strongest hive and put them in a nuc box next to it, with a frame feeder and frame of drawn comb and one of foundation. Came back Sunday and the frame feeder was bone dry ... like a couple of thousand bees were going to drain almost a gallon of 5:3? RIIIIIIIIGHT!

And there was no syrup in the drawn comb. Uh-huh.

Filled up the feeder with more 5:3 and within minutes there was an awful lot of traffic at the entrance. No fighting, but a lot of sniffing. "Sister, can I borrow a cup of sugar? Uh, maybe make that 6 cups. No, I know where it is. I'll just help myself."

I'm sure a lot of the bees I'd moved just drifted right back, and did a little waggle dance pointing to the feeder.

I doubled down, moved the nuc to a nuc observation hive, stole two more frames of brood to fatten it up, moved them a distance away, and buttoned them up for 24 hours. The feeder is not in the observation tower, with more bees and a queen excluder to get past in order to find it. Last I saw, the robbing had not started again, and the bees I'd moved did NOT seem to be drifting back to the original hive. It probably helps that I fed the strong hive, too.

We'll see how long this lasts.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Phoebee said:


> It probably helps that I fed the strong hive, too.


I don't think it does. Even if you feed everyone in the yard.....the big 'uns will still rob the weak ones. 
Unfortunately they don't think like people. 'Oh....we've got plenty of our own....there's no need to rob those guys'. Nope. They're driven by instinct.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If you reduce everyone's entrance (including the strong) and feed them all the strong hives are occupied with the syrup and the traffic jam at the door slows down any robbers so at least they don't get so out of control.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

What at least temporarily worked was:

I moved the nuc to a location about 100 ft from the robbers. Buys a little time. And surprisingly the recent draftees to the nuc appeared to say there.

I buttoned up the nuc for 24 hours. Broke the cycle, at least temporarily.

The robbers had enough to worry about. It was mite treatment day.

And I fed everybody, reducing the urge to go look for someone to rob.

Typo above: the frame feeder is in the nuc tower of an OH now, so there are deep frames and a queen excluder to get past to find it.

Which slowed them down at least a day. We'll see. There's plenty of wingstem in bloom so there's no excuse for rudeness. Maybe if I shake the formic acid bottle in the general direction of the robbers, they'll get the hint. But nothing drastic. The smart money is on them as the sole survivors come springtime, not due to their robbing, but due to a failing queen in hive A, and the unliklihood the nuc will raise a queen in time to save it. But we must try.


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## Frankiebee (Sep 5, 2014)

I was planning on placing my entrance reducers on but we have a few days in the 80's coming up and I was afraid they wouldn't be able to cool themselves. Do you think I should put them on anyway? BTW I'm looking forward to your education day in Olympia next month.


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## Frankiebee (Sep 5, 2014)

I started after the event and both hives are taking up the syrup. Still a steep learning curve over here.


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## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

some times a swarm will return to the hive. i had one that did that this year






i immediatly found the old queen and made 3 nucs out of the one that swarmed. check for queen cells


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## Frankiebee (Sep 5, 2014)

Yesterday much robbing going on. They are all being fed with sugar water and now have sugar patties inside the hive. I'm hoping to make up for the dearth and my not feeding them. Entrance reducers are in place. Thank you everyone for responding to my thread.


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## Frankiebee (Sep 5, 2014)

I didn't check for queen cells. Both hives were pretty agitated, and I was actually afraid of inciting them more. I'm not up for making nucs yet. I hope I'll be ready for that next year. I really liked your suggestion, thank you.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Update on my robbing solution: After leaving the new nuc, installed in a nuc observation hive in its new location 100 ft from the original hive, they were doing splendidly. No signs of robbing. I pulled the frames to inspect ... the frame feeder was down about 1 1/2 inches, the frames were active and there was one open (hatched) queen cell and two intact ... the girls are doing what I'd hoped, raising a new queen. And there are still drones in the other hives.

But the obs hive is not intended for the weather, so I transferred them to a new 8-frame deep. This revealed something interesting. The 8-frame is the same color as my other hives, almond beige, with a unique identification letter. This one is hive X (the eXperiment). All I can guess is that the donor hive could not recognize the obs hive as an actual hive, but the 8-frame was instantly identifiable. Robbing resumed in minutes. The following morning the frame feeder was nearly empty.

Sounds like the idea of disguising a hive to prevent robbing probably has some merit.

I've put on a top feeder on the nuc above a queen excluder, gone to the smallest entrance reducer, put on a robbing screen, and installed a compost bin in front of hive X. I put a medium reducer on the robber hive. This combination seems to have temporarily slowed robbing. I'm seeing bee tussles at the entrance now ... the guards can handle the reduced traffic better? There is still some traffic between the hives.

Still hoping one of the new queens makes it. Without a queen, this remains just a portion of the donor hive living 100 ft away. But it is up to them now. 

Curiously, the donor hive is not robbing hive A at all. Hive A is so apathetic they could probably be brushed aside with hardly any effort, and is barely a yard away from the robbing donors. But we did spot eggs in A ... the queen is still working, perhaps just winding down for the winter instead of failing as we had feared. Hive A has always been really good at defending the entrance, as the number of carpenter bee bodies will confirm.


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