Answer to a Bee Mystery

For anyone who reads this blog and was as puzzled as we were by the weird bee behavior of a few weeks ago, we got an answer last night at the potluck. Another local novice beekeeper had a similar experience and he called up his mentor after it happened. Apparently it was a "cleansing swarm" - everybody exits and takes all of the yucky stuff out of the hive, gets some fresh air, and then return to business as normal. This sounds pretty close to my original guess of a "bee holiday".