Swarming or Cooling Down?

24°C - Are they cooling down, or about to swarm?

On the way out this morning, I wandered past the hive to check on the girls (as you do) and saw this interesting sight. -->

It looked very much like we had a swarm, but on closer inspection, the bees were darker than the usual colour of my ladies. The day before I had opened the hive and done a partial inspection prior to popping in the Apivar to treat for Varroa. There had been no sign of swarm cells, I had healthy brood in cells, a few eggs (not having inspected the entire hive). The mood was good with all the bees quite happy to let me do my thing. Mr 5 was up beside me without a veil watching me work (with the hope of a sneaky bit of honey) and they weren't bothering him either.

Update: The expert opinion on this is that the introduction of our strong hive (packed full of lovely honey) has drawn the (slightly neglected) neighbors bees over. There is another robbing attempt going on and, combined with the recent varroa treatment it's resulted in this "bearding". Our girls are coming out for a breath of fresh air - and then finding themselves mixing it up with the visitors and it's all action stations.

Action Plan: Reduce the entrance to the hive to help with defense, flick on a sprinkler for a while to encourage the robbers to go home, and start working on the financial controller for approval to buy a mesh bottom board (helps with ventilation as well as simplifying mite inspections)