Sunday, May 27, 2012
Piping, Have you ever heard a virgin queen pipe before? Today I was doing some minor checking up on a couple of hives, when I heard the familiar sound of a new queen piping, I regularly listen with my ear pressed against the hive boxs. You can learn all kinds of things about a colony by doing this. The hive that was piping was number 3, they had just swarmed, I could actually hear about three different pipes. Later that same day I heard something totally new to me, I didn't even have to press my ear against the box, it sounded like a small motor or growling animal, almost made me jump. I had read about this kind of sound before from BushFarms.com, I tried to record it but my mp3 player has a terrible mic on it. I'm sure it has something to do with new queens and wining over the colony.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Sam,
Wish you could have recorded the piping.... Guess I'll have to try with my KTBH as the queen is gone and supersedure is about to happen. Good news is it is table height so listening will be easy. Thanks for this post, you learn a little more about bees everyday.
I have not heard about that growling sound before, but it sounds like it was a "victor wins all spoils" kinda sound.
I've heard the piping before, and I am always intrigued and stopped to listen too.
Post a Comment