Early morning robbing, orientation or something else..?

[LeaBees]

Not an especially nice morning weather wise; about 8am, cloudy, mid-teens temp
1 of my hives has an unusual amount of activity at the entrance. At another time of year I would say there was a strong flow on somewhere as the number of bees trying to get in/darting out resembles that. I'm pretty sure there is no (or very little) forage about at the moment. Colony is a strong one, entrance reduced, 2nd Apiguard treatment currently in (almost a week ago) and topped up feed late last night (to avoid chance of robbing) as little to no stores in the frames. Although they did a lot of hanging out of the hive when 1st Apiguard treatment went in, there wasn't this sort of frenetic activity.

1 other hive also with bees milling around the front, but nothing like the frenetic activity of the other.

Could it be early morning orientation? Thought that usually happened in the middle of the day.
Or robbing?
Or the Apiguard sending them into a spin?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[enrico]

Robbing is very noticeable because bees from the hive that are doing the robbing will be flying about everywhere and anywhere! They tend to have a high pitch wing noise for some reason! It may be wasps or it may be that something upset them just before you arrived! The warm spell we had put my queen's back into laying mode so there will be lots of new bees around. Difficult to say really. See if the calm down!

 

[LeaBees]

Robbing is very noticeable because bees from the hive that are doing the robbing will be flying about everywhere and anywhere! They tend to have a high pitch wing noise for some reason! It may be wasps or it may be that something upset them just before you arrived! The warm spell we had put my queen's back into laying mode so there will be lots of new bees around. Difficult to say really. See if the calm down!

Thanks Enrico, will check them a bit later.

 

[drex]

My hives have been frantic too, but with obvious orientation flights. Must have been good weather 3-4 weeks ago when the eggs were laid.