Much Ado about Robbing

We left the hive on the sidewalk overnight, and this morning there were bees flying in and out. By the sunny part of the day there were a good twenty or more bees coming in and out of the entrance. We got all optimistic about the belief that we were hosting a swarm, but figured we needed to pop that top deep box off and put a feeder on top.

So we took off the top box...peeked in the bottom box...and there were maybe ten bees sitting on frames hanging out.

We have a new theory. One bee flew into the garage, found the old deep and frames sitting there and found a little something left in a few of the cells on the frames that she thought was worth collecting. She went back to the hive, recruited some of her sisters with a little dance and brought them back to the garage.

Just then, ABK and teenagers came to get in the car. ABK moved the hive outside and the bees continued to rob those small portions of whatever was still in the hive. (We had left it out on the open air porch for a month or more for the bees to clean out prior to storage.)

So...robbing, not swarming.

We went ahead and moved the hive out to the middle of the yard, where they can rob it to their little hearts' delight....and where, if they feel a need to swarm this week, they can move in. But probably not.