Bee Graduation

We just observed what we thought was the oddest thing, but is apparently normal.  About 4pm, Kelly looked out at the bees and said:  "come look at this, something is up with the bees."

We stood at the back door and gawked--the area in front of one of the hives was boiling with bees.  They were crawling out of the opening, climbing around and hovering around facing the hive.  We had never seen anything like it and wondered if something (a mouse, maybe?) had gotten into the hive.

A 10 minute search on the internet yielded the answer.

ORIENTATION FLIGHTS!

The bees that hatched out a few weeks ago have spent a few weeks doing house chores, but have just graduated to the rank of forager, so we are told.  They leave en mass and do this crazy thing all together--a graduation.  20 minutes later, the hive was back to its regular activity level.
 
Anyway, the info we found says they do this the same time of day.  We're never home to see it, but it is sooooo cool, I'm going to take off work early on Monday to see if I can catch it again.

Until then, here's a youtube video we found that will show you just what we saw, except for the guy who kept putting his hand in the way.  In our yard, it was me.  :)

Disclaimer:  This is video was just lifted from youtube, it's not mine.  The one I post tomorrow will be.  :)