I have a couple of hives in Southwestern Wisconsin and noticed some odd behavior in one yesterday. We have about 15" of snow and yesterday was somewhat sunny and temps were in the upper 20s. In the hive in question , there sounded like a lot of activity inside and bees were coming to the entrance and flying off and not returning. Not cleansing flights, just leaving. No such activity in hive #2. I know I had some mice visit both hives and have since screened the entrances. Is it possible the mouse killed the queen or the queen just died? Would they make a new queen in the winter?
Can't make a queen unless she was laying eggs.
need drones too.
whatever has happened, there isn't much you can do about it. if the temp comes up enough, take a look to see if they have enough food.
That all varies from hive to hive. My bees were doing something similar on Saturday, on hive they were flying (and dying). Their cleansing flights can go quite far (as I can tell from the yellow spots on the car!!).
One hive was fairly active, a couple slightly active, and a couple no activity at all. I wonder if it has something to do with the location of the cluster compared to the entrance, the active hive has a bore hole about the same height that the cluster would be at. The others didn't. The sun was shining on them all.
I don't think that a queenless hive in the winter will fly any more or less, and the bees are just as content to die in the hive as outside of it.
Mice :-x gotta get them screened early.
Rick
I think they have plenty of food. The combs were pretty full in early Sept. and I was feeding them until the temps dropped. It will probably be three months before it's warm enough to open the hive for a look-see.
Well I had one hive bearding at 9 pm. very weird