This may have already been described, but I don't remember reading it yet.

I have been observing my bees flying in and out of the hive entrances on
several hives for the past several days, and I noticed that there is a
behavior that all the bees were doing, including the drones, and every single
bee did it.  When they came to the entrance of the hive, just before taking
wing, each bee rubbed its front legs over its antennae and eyes, almost as if
washing its face or rubbing the sleep out of its eyes before taking off.
After I recognized what I was seeing, then I watched closely, and every single
bee that left every hive I looked at did it without fail before flying.

I then was left to wonder what the purpose of this action was.  Was it just to
clean their eyes off before flying?  What if their eyes were already clean?
Why would they have to do it again?  Then I wondered if it might be something
that helped with their orientation.  It was just curious and fascinating to me
that they did this because I had never really noticed it before.  Are there
any agreements or disagreements with this observation?  Can anyone else shed
any more light on this behavior?  Thanks,

Layne Westover
College Station, Texas