I got down to the plot for an hour tonight; it was all I could manage as I'm bogged down with marking. To my surprise I found a swarm of bees crammed into a narrow gap under one of my hives.I've had them move into empty hives before; this is the first time I've seen one take an interest in an occupied hive. I had to annoy the bees in that hive and pull it apart to get at the swarm, but I boxed them up and combined them with a split I made the other day. The extra bees will be really useful, and they've come at a good moment, just as the honey's started coming in again after the chilly spell we had.
Heard a strange high pitched buzzing in my back garden this evening, it sounded a bit like a mosquito. When I finally located the noise it was two bees one on top of the other, they looked like they were mating. I don't know what kind of bees they were but they looked like bumble bees to me, is this normal behavior?
When bees die inside the nest they're taken out, often some distance, and dropped. I often see the carrier get caught up with the legs of the corpse, and then you get that agitated while as it struggles to get free.
Yes, could have been, it was certainly the one on top making all the noise :-[