Steamed Honey - strange behaviour?

o.stjohn · Sep 23, 2013

I had a super that I delayed extracting for a bit too long - despite being new comb it was full of wax moth so I decided to steam it out in the garden. Big mistake as the bees and wasps are all over the residue like a rash despite showing little or no interest earlier in the summer when I cleaned up old brood frames etc. That's fine - lesson learnt (another one!) but I am intrigued by the behaviour of the bees - as well as being around the pot full of wax and water they are all over the adjacent decking in clumps up to about 2m from the offending pot. Two, three or more bees in each clump. Nose to nose, some even balling. Anyone know what they are doing?

Skyhook · Sep 23, 2013

I would assume bees from different hives fighting over the honey. I would suggest doing whatever you can to get rid of the residue as you could lose a lot of bees that way.

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o.stjohn · Sep 23, 2013

Yeah, I'm on it - will they fight away from the hive?

BeeJayBee · Sep 23, 2013

o.stjohn said:
I am intrigued by the behaviour of the bees - as well as being around the pot full of wax and water they are all over the adjacent decking in clumps up to about 2m from the offending pot. Two, three or more bees in each clump. Nose to nose, some even balling. Anyone know what they are doing?

Trophallaxis? One bee transferring food to another, to take it back to the hive?

I've seen the same sort of thing happening around the solar melter when the lid got pushed loose. I've watched them transferring food within a feeder, it looked just the same - they were not fighting.

pargyle · Sep 23, 2013

BeeJoyful said:
Trophallaxis? One bee transferring food to another, to take it back to the hive?
I've watched them transferring food within a feeder, it looked just the same - they were not fighting.

That's interesting ... I was watching the bees in my feeder this evening and they were clearly doing exactly that ... I wondered what was going on to start with until it became clear that the ones around the rim of the feeder were actually taking up the syrup, turning round and getting up close and personal with other bees. I thought, perhaps, they were either feeding the other bees or passing on samples of the syrup. I see now what was happening ...