Robber Bees!

Today we had a cool start then as the day progressed the temperature climbed slowly till it became quite hot. After a morning trip away I took a casual look at the hive. There appeared to be more then the usual number of bees at the entrance. I was first puzzled then became a little concerned because of the amount of noise they were making. Someone was not very happy.

I could see many workers returning with pollen, but there were also quite a number of bees just hovering in front of the hive. Something was happening though I wasn't quite sure what. Were they too hot, or something else? I watched for a while then to my horror I saw two bees tumbling out of the entrance fighting! Robbing!  I thought. I ran into the house and jumped into my bee suit and lit the smoker. I needed to reduce the entrance. Grabbing a handful of grass I got close to the hive and after a few puffs of smoke some of the bees flew away I stuffed some grass into the entrance. Some returning workers were a bit confused by the changes and started to walk to and fro on the entrance block. After a while things seems to calm down a bit. As things had been settling down so well up till now I was a bit shocked by this sudden turn of events. 

When I looked again, a few minutes ago, things seemed to have improved a lot. The bees are getting back to their normal rhythm.  Some of the grass has been removed by the bees. I am waiting for the sun to go down so that I can do a proper job in reducing the entrance. I am thinking of using my mouse guard and tape some of the holes up. There must be more bee hives near me than I expected.