Is this weird beehavior???

[juliabusybee]

Hi
I stupidly destroyed all my queen cells to prevent a swarm before checking there were eggs and larvae...which of course there wern't. So my bee keeper kind friend brought me over a queen cell on a frame with some brood which he placed in my hive. 4 days later he came over to look at hive and on approaching we saw that weirdly the bees were all over the outside of the hive (except roof). We looked inside and saw queen had hatched and my friend said he had never seen this before and could only summise that all the bees were being voyeurs and watching the newly hatched queen in flight. We were however flummuxed to say the least. Soon after they all went back inside. What I would like to know is .....does anyone know for sure why the bees would be all clinging to the outside of the hive like this...there wasn't a square inch of space on the front or sides of the hive. I am now waiting patiently for the queen, who has hopefully mated to start laying, I gather this could be sometime.

 

[Teemore]

My father saw this on one of my Nucs yesterday afternoon. From his report I surmise that a recently hatched virgin was out on a mating flight and the bees on the outside of the hive were fanning her back.

 

[Luminos]

the bees on the outside of the hive were fanning her back.

I think she might have needed it, after all those drones...

 

[jackbee]

the bees on the outside of the hive were fanning her back.

I think she might have needed it, after all those drones...

excellent - I do like that one

 

[nonstandard]

There was lots of activity in my apiary late yesterday afternoon, I looked at a few landing boards and two out of three bees flying in were drones. As I leant over the fourth hive I spotted the queen flying in, she landed then took off, landed a second time and walked in. Great to see as I was beginning to wonder if they were queenless.