Wrestling on the landing board

[KeyLargoBees]

Watching the girls this morning after two solid days of rain and they are going nuts.....ton of activity with the sun finally out and something is going on I haven't seen before. 2-3 sometimes 4 bees will get into a tussle on the landing board and then after a bit the whole scrum will fall to the ground.....the scrum will break up and all of the bees will fly back up land on the board or go to the upper entrance and enter into the hive unmolested and unchecked......aggressive guard behavior or something else?

Its only on the one hive.....and this is the strongest of the lot with the largest population.....have seen robbing in the past and its not robbing.... and it may have happened before and just be something I have never noticed until today.

Not worried at all just curious.....

[beehappy1950]

Are they pitching out the drones?

[KeyLargoBees]

Nope it seems to be all workers......its stopped now but for about 3 hours it was like a WWE match on the landing board of just this one hive...things are back to normal....was very odd....always something new ;-)

[GSF]

KLB, Look for signs of robbing, bees all over the hive - all the time. Another tell tell sign is wax crumbs on the bottom board.

[KeyLargoBees]

I have seen robbing....and this wasnt it. Entrance reducers are on at medium setting and since it has never "clogged up" I have never removed them. Also it wasn't constant just every minute or so a tussle would break out but there were plenty of uncontested in and outs...also as I said when the scrum would break up all the bees would fly back up and be allowed in....This is the strongest hive in the yard and if something were going to get robbed it would have been from a wild hive and we have a decent flow going down here with a ton of palms and other trees blooming....so no dearth...just odd and wanted to know if there was some sort of mystery behavior I hadn't heard about yet...one other piece of info ...Torrential rain past 2 days and there were "aborted" aerial spray missions for mosquito so the bees were trapped in the hives the past two morning until the spray misson cancellation was announced .....this AM no mission scheduled and we had a sunrise and good weather so they where they were free to get started as soon as the sun came upy....that freedom may have had something to do with it since early activity was way higher than normal.

[Hops Brewster]

I vote drone-pitching.

Either that, or they're volunteers to go a-pirating.  Training for a raid on a weaker hive. 
Avast, ye!  Haul to and prepare to be boarded!  Ye've got the golden elixer we be wantin'!

[BeeMaster2]

Sounds like the guard bee are doing a good bees of guarding the hive from initial attacks. Unless you have very few bees flying, it is very hard to tell that all of those bees flew back into the same hive. I have watched my bees for hours and it is very hard to tell which bees are coming and going once they are in the air.
Next time you see it, have some powered sugar in a shaker ready and sprinkle some on the bees as they fall to the ground. It will make it easier to see where they go.
Jim

[KeyLargoBees]

Thats a good idea Jim...

I did take a peek up through the screened bottom board and there are no wax cappings lying around so it isn't robbing.

This hive has always been a "very aggressive" cleaning hive and the genetics disclosed by the queen breeder claimed they were bred for hygienic traits...I always assumed when I saw bees rouging up the occasional bee on the landing board that that was the case...this was just the first time I saw them carry on like this for several hours.....I saw it again this morning during prime flight time to a lesser degree but since they weren't cooped up due to mosquito spraying or rain and had a normal morning it was a little less chaotic..its still so hot down here that the prime forage time seems to be between 8 am and 10:30 or so and then again between 4:30 and sun down.....the ladies are smart and traffic slows during the heat of the day.

Other 4 weaker hives are all normal and not seeing any thugs on the landing boards but then again they are all "feral" from swarms/cutouts and aren't "bred" for hygiene that I am aware of.

Something new every day and some days its hard to get any work done.....staring out the back window watching the ladies work from 10 feet away LOL

Jeff

[tjc1]

One of my two new packages this year has this same trait. All summer I have been watching this 'mugging' behavior that ends in a friendly walk-away. I had a post up about it earlier (including a video clip) and the other folks convinced me that it was hygienic behavior. I see it occasionally at the other hive, but these girls are at it like that every day.