On Fri, 24 Mar 1995, Adrian Wenner wrote:
 
>    Honey bee swarms almost always travel rather near the ground and are
> easily seen as they move through an area.
>
>    Drone congregation areas are usually high enough in the air (~above 10
> meters) so that the individual drones cannot be seen unless they pursue
> some object as it descends lower.  These aggregation areas can be detected
> by the hum of insects aloft that seems to have no center.  I always
> demonstrated their existence (in mid afternoon) to my students by bringing
> along a slingshot and lobbing stones up into the air.  The students could
> then see a comet of drones descending into view as they chased the stone.
 
This reminds us of an episode one year when bees were chasing swallows in
our yard.
 
The swallows were up about 30 feet and the bees chased them up there
constantly.  Since they were nesting and raising young, they had a
horrible time coming and going from the nest, and were always running
from bees.
 
They (the swallows) blamed our cats and would swoop at them, so the cats hid
under the vehicles. This went on for several days as I recall.
 
We had a hundred or so hives in the yard (large nucs).
 
We speculated that the bees were drones because of the size and the
height and wondered if they were trying to mate the swallows.
 
Anyone else ever see this?
 
Allen
 
 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                        VE6CFK
Rural Route One   Swalwell   Alberta   Canada  T0M 1Y0
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Virtual Art Gallery: http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka
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