lots of dead bees outside and under the hive - help!

[chickweed]

 This is my first year in beekeeping, and I need some advice: Today one of my hives was very agitated, lots of flying around out front, and bees were swarming into the entrances with a certain frenzied quality. I thought maybe it was orientation flights, but there was a more agitated quality to the bees behavior. Not a lot of fighting out front so I don't know if it was robbing. There were a fair number of drones on the ground outside the hive , crawling but not flying back to the hive. Then late in the day, large numbers of bees clustered under the hive, by the bottom screen. A lot of them looked like they were shaking or vibrating. When I went back to look at about 7 pm, there were several hundreds of dead bees carpeting the cinder blocks on which the hive rests and also dead bees on the ground in front of the hive. I will look in tomorrow to see if there is a shortage of honey (two weeks ago, half the frames in the upper brood chamber were full of capped honey, and I'd removed one full super.) Anyone have thoughts on the various possibilities that might be have caused the die off, and what to look for in the hive?

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrobbing.htm

[asprince]

First, WELCOME to our forum. Second, please fill out your profile so we will know your location.

Steve

[JP]

Robbing can be more than just ugly, downright ugly!

Yes, please fill out your profile, Mods can we get this act mandatory?


...JP

[41chevy]

Just had the same thing happen to my hive!!! Lots of dead worker bees, think it was a case of robbing. I think I may have caught it early enough to stop the complete desturction of my hive. I blocked the entrance this morning and left only a small gap to allow the workers to exit. This afternoon there were lots of Drones trying to enter the hive but the entrance was to small to allow them inside. They just covered the outside of the hive and then slowly they all flew away or just droped to the ground and died. Not to sure what to do next?