(c) 2013 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com
It's hot. In fact, it's DARN hot, especially for this northern US clime! We've had a stretch of around 90F days, with not much cooling down at night, which is rather uncomfortable! Luckily for us human types, we can escape to the magical land of Air Conditioning! Fortunately for the Kluges/Huis household, we gave in and purchased window air conditioning units for the 3 bedrooms last summer. Thank the Lord for those, 'cuz hot = nobody sleeps (well) = grumpy pants family!
But my poor little bees haven't got none of that air conditioning business! Instead, they do this:
They hang out on the front porch when it's hot.
Sometimes there's enough of them hanging out outside that they end up just climbing onto & hanging off of each other... then it's called "bearding."
Here's how bearding looks from the side...
...and the back, so you get a sense of just how many bees are hanging off of each other. Pretty crazy, huh?
This is a view from above(ish) of the landing board. Notice anything different about some of the bees?
The ones on the left (south) side that are lined up in rows are fanning - standing there, buzzing their wings like nobody's business, to try to move some (hopefully cooler) air into and up through the hive.
And that concludes your beekeeping lesson for the day! Hope you enjoyed it!
