Festooning bees

Sorry I haven’t posted much for a little while.  I normally check on my hives on the weekends, but recently my weekends have been otherwise filled (laying new flooring in second story of my home).  Even if I wasn’t busy,  there isn’t much to report.  I didn’t want to bother the bees too much after full inspections on both hives.  Today when I went, I simply gave them some sugar syrup (at the last inspection they didn’t have much reserves and I don’t think there is much blooming).

One funny thing I found at hive #2 was some bees festooning (hanging on each other).  This is actually quite common inside the hive and I see it pretty much every time I have opened up the hives.  Usually, the are bees connected across top-bars, so when I remove on I commonly get a line of bees that look like they are trying to hold the two top-bars together (I just pull a little and they let go – I’m stronger than them 🙂 ).  This time, I found a nice line of bees connecting the roof’s overhang with the entrance.  I’ve often found some bees recently haging out under the overhand of the roof, but this is the first time I have found them forming a chain to the entrance.  They just stayed there for a few min. while I watched them.  I had to break the chain however when I removed the roof to refill the feeder.  Inside the hive, bees do this while building comb.  I have no idea what they thought they were doing outside the hive (actually, I don’t think they thought it through fully 🙂 ).