We get even closer to the hive in this next video, seeing what the bees are doing right by the entrance to their hive. I set up my macro lens as close as possible and collect about ten minutes of video as these honey bees do their thing. Watching the video later on I noticed several interesting traits of these bees. And I created some gifs to help describe them. The video link is at the end of the post and contains all of the screen shots and animated gifs
With the entrance reducer installed I can see exactly what is going in and out of this hive. Though eventually I will need to remove or change this reducer as the hive grows.
Animated gif of bees arriving with full pollen baskets going into the hive to add to the combs.
Throughout the day the behavior of the hive changes, in the morning they are very calm and are mostly just waiting for the sun to heat up the hive. By after noon more start to leave the hive and go look for nectar and pollen. And then by evening, all of the foraging bees are returning to the hive for the night.
Bee politics captured in this gif, their antennae is doing the talking. Looks like the bee on the right has some pollen on its face..lol
Seems like the opening is getting crowded, I have had the entrance reducer in since I installed the hives. And from what I have read about a month into the hive being operational I can remove it.
A group of bees discussing something, I have noticed they will group and seem to be communicating something. Maybe it was just a random cluster of bees hanging out, but seems to be as if they are in a group discussion.
Multiple kinds of pollen can be observed in the still above as the bees bring back this on special organs called pollen sacs.
One bee feeding another, I see them do this every so often helping out each other.
Sometimes I just like to observe what color pollen the bees are bringing in. I have seen at least five different shades, from mostly white to yellow to a reddish yellow or orange color.
More feeding going on, its interesting to see this compared to the solitary bees which do no such thing. I guess this is what a colony is like.
As some clouds more in it casts a shadow on the hive. Seems to slow them down a little but they do not stop. Mostly only the rain or incoming windy and cold weather will make them take a break.
Another observation is two bees are working on ether side of the entrance reducer, and appear to be chewing on it. I think this is a sign I need to open it up more for them so they can move in and out of the hive more easily. Since the population has grown now there are more guard bees to protect the opening so the reducer is not needed as much.
Two bees communicating in front of the hive, while the rest and entering and exiting the hive. Guard bees standing around checking out who is entering. They have quite the system, and its alot of fun just observing them. Glad I could capture some macro video of them and share it in my community for others to see. I will be doing an update video soon since we now a month into bee keeping.