Orientation

Bees spend the first few weeks after emerging from the brood cells working inside the hive caring for other brood, managing the food supply, guarding the entrance from intruders, cleaning.  After about three weeks the venture into the outside world and become foragers.

In the days leading up to this change in responsibility, they begin making forays outside: orientation flights around the hive and surroundings, so they can recognize home and the landmarks that will lead them back. For whatever reason, the bees often choose to do this activity in the mid-late afternoon, all at the same time. This can often look like the bees are planning to swarm, as I thought a few days ago.  There was a particularly large orientation flight happening, and bees began clustering on the front of the hive, not normal bearding to keep cool, but clumping in the middle of the top hive body.  The airborne bees were making the distinctive 8-shaped patterns of an orientation flight, though; and sure enough--within about 5 minutes of me convincing my partner we needed to try and capture the swarm--the bees began to flood back down and into the hive entrance. 

While the prospective foragers are exploring, some of their sisters will gather outside the entrance and fan the hive scent outward with their wings, nature's air traffic control signaling the path to the runway.

Third Extraction of the Year

This past weekend was spent extracting more honey. We had accumulated three supers full that we were storing in our laundry room until we could get the extractor from the bee club and make some time to actually extract it all.

Those two requirements converged this weekend and we were able to get it all done. We had a total of about 70 lbs. of honey when all was said and done. One of the supers had frames with two clearly distinct shades of honey so we separated them out into two batches. Therefore, when we get everything bottled and labeled you will see a total of four different batches available in our shop - July, Early August, Late August and September. It still amazes me how distinct each different batch can be from the other.



Meanwhile -- we all know how crucial scent is to honey bees. In Britain, according to the Daily Telegraph, this trait is being used in surprising ways. Honeybees are being trained to respond to specific scents and then used to sniff out explosives! See the photo essay here.

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