Festooning

The top bar has been progressing so quickly that I asked J to help me open it to check on them again. They have been very busy building more comb. I interspersed a couple of empty bars and while pulling a couple apart caught these ladies in the act of festooning.  My camera skills are negligible at best, but if you look closely you can see them performing their little barrel of monkeys chain act at the bottom of the hive. The part that looks like crumpled aluminum foil is actually the light coming through the screened bottom of the hive. Bees must move in a cluster during cold temperatures and use the process of festooning to cross empty space inside the hive. It certainly wasn't cold when I took the photo, but I must have put them in survival mode by pulling their home apart so abruptly.