Odd Behaviour

[ashley hunter]

On inspection this evening my bees seem to be clinging together almost linked like a chain, hanging off frames and linked between frames. I have not changed spacing or frame number ( 11 + Dummy Board) and not seen this before . hive is single national brood box - not overly full as was split a while back for swarm prevention. It’s just a bit strange, especially as you take out frames, you have rope like formations of bees joined nose to tail or tangled somehow with their wings I hope it’s just some odd thing they do rather than a problem as I have too many of those at the moment without having to deal with an additional issue. Is this normal ??

 

[drdrday]

When bees cling to each other in chains like this it's called festooning. They tend to do it when they're building or repairing comb, but I often see them clinging together at the bottom of a brood frame when I lift it out. Perfectly normal as far as I'm concerned, but it's only my second season, so happy to be corrected ;-)

 

[ashley hunter]

Thanks for the reassurance - not seen it before. I have been hunting an elusive queen and it’s not helping as I have persuaded myself she’s in one of the tangles that drops away when I pull out a frame and she’s then lost.

 

[drdrday]

Do you have a specific reason for needing to find the queen? Will presence of eggs not suffice?
If not, and you really do need to find her you could try the pairing frames trick. Move the brood frames out into a spare brood box, but put them in in pairs with a gap between each pair. You can then thoroughly search what remains in the original brood box on the floor and walls. If she's not there, then take a pair of brood frames at a time out of the spare brood box, opening them out like a book to look at the faces that were close to each other. Queens don't usually like to be on the exposed faces of frames, but prefer to be safely tucked between frames, so you have a greater chance of finding her.
Might help, but I'm sure someone else will have something else to recommend.

 

[ashley hunter]

She definitely in there - normally I would be happy with eggs but
It’s a very aggressive hive, they go beserk when I open them up - though they don’t sting - too often !!. I would like to Re queen as soon as possible but this is proving tricky. Will give your suggestion a try. Thank you

 

[Fritillary]

I love to see the bees festooning like that when building new comb in my top bars and often wish I had an extra hand for the camera.

 

[drex]

Yes they hang like this when building free hanging comb, but I try to select it out when choosing queens to breed from when they drip off the bottom bars of frames, since , as you found, it makes inspection a pain

 

[Fritillary]

Yes they hang like this when building free hanging comb, but I try to select it out when choosing queens to breed from when they drip off the bottom bars of frames, since , as you found, it makes inspection a pain

You're trying to breed out willingness/capability for drawing new comb??

 

[drex]

No, it is the running and dripping off the frames I do not like. I worded it poorly. Sorry

 

[masterBK]

This is a photo of festoon hanging off a shallow frame. If you look carefully you will see evidence of brood in the frame as queen had got "upstairs". Green marked Queen was found in the festoon (I have added red circle to identify her). Such frames need to be handled carefully and always held above the broodchamber as festoons can drop off.

 

[bingevader]

Complete speculation, only from my observations, but I wonder if there isn't an element of thermoregulation involved as the number of bees in the hive increase?
We seem to get festooning quite regularly in the Warre hives, where the bees seem to have no intention of drawing comb at all at that time.

 

[fiat500bee]

Yes they hang like this when building free hanging comb, but I try to select it out when choosing queens to breed from when they drip off the bottom bars of frames, since , as you found, it makes inspection a pain

I was amazed at my first time of seeing this yesterday. If that's the reason it must mean that they are gtting organised to draw comb where I've just put in a few starter-strips for them; I should have paid more attention.

 

[understanding_bees]

This is a photo of festoon hanging off a shallow frame. If you look carefully you will see evidence of brood in the frame as queen had got "upstairs". Green marked Queen was found in the festoon (I have added red circle to identify her). Such frames need to be handled carefully and always held above the broodchamber as festoons can drop off.

I had some problems last spring when I had excessive space below a frame. When I saw this photograph of bees hanging below a shallow frame (letter #10 posted by masterBK) my first thought was “How much empty space is there between the bottom of this frame, and the next solid object below it in the hive?”

I ask the question because I wish to know more about this kind of event. If the bees were hanging like this when the frame was withdrawn from the hive, does this mean they were hanging like that before the beekeeper opened the hive and withdrew the frame? Presumably it would take more than a few moments for the bees to gather together into such a cluster. The next question might be, “Is it a good thing for bees to cluster like this BELOW a frame?”

I know that bees festoon within the confines of a frame, when they are building comb, which is an amazing thing to see.

 

[masterBK]

When I saw this photograph of bees hanging below a shallow frame (letter #10 posted by masterBK) my first thought was “How much empty space is there between the bottom of this frame, and the next solid object below it in the hive?”

Normal bee space between super and excluder. When you take out a frame sometimes bees move to and then hang together (festoon) off the bottom bar. They weren't there originally. It is a behaviour characteristic found in some colonies (often runny bees) and not in others. I imagine that in this specific case they did it to cluster around the queen who just happened to be there when I took out the frame ( by the way I didn't see her at the time only when I examined the photo more closely and saw her coloured spot.