Recently in another forum someone wrote asking about loafing bees.  I don't
recall seeing an explanation of this behaviour, but I am seeing plenty of
the same on my strongest hive.  At times there are a thousand (few thousand?
I'm estimating, perhaps poorly) bees just sitting on the front and sometimes
sides of the hive.  I've seen this in the morning and early and lat evening,
but not so far in mid day.

There is a picture at this link:

http://www.frank.net/pets/bees/BeesOnHive2001-0625a.jpg

What causes the bees to do this?  Does this behaviour tell me anything in
particular about this hive?

Frank.