Honeybees and a Porch Light

The other night ago I was surprised to see a bunch of our honeybees buzzing around our back porch light. I didn't think this was a behavior that honeybees engaged in. I always was under the assumption that honeybees go in the hive at night time. I found out that like many other insects they are attracted to lights also.

 Around a dozen or more honeybees gathered around the porch lights. They seemed quite excited and acting like a moth with the light. Except they are not looking for a meal.

This is our Italian honeybees which in lighter in color. However, I did see some of the darker bees from our other hive.

 As you can imagine my little girl was fascinated by all the bees buzzing around the light.

What surprised me the most was that they literally rub their backs on the light bulb. It was a bit colder this night from all the rain. At first I thought they liked the heat from the light. That wasn't the case as they are just aattracted to the bright light and had some strange behavior. Every thing I read is that they will eventually fry themselves from rubbing their backs on the light. 

I ended up turning off the back porch light as I was afraid we would get a lot more bees on the porch and I didn't want Bug to see them fry themselves in the light.