Cleasning flights and Cleasinging

[wjw777]

Question,
Today the temp got up to near 40 today ,two days ago snow storm dropped almost a foot of snow but today saw some bees out but many dead bees in entrance took off reducer and bees came out started flying and cleansing. color everything from a bright orange to a dark brown. they were very heavy and quite a few hit the ground and died but many did make it. but i could actually detect a smell from the cleansing in the air, is this normal? the bees look clean and not shiny or wet. It really hurts when one sees a bee hit the snow and slowly die. Help
walt

[Michael Bush]

I have seen the same thing on warm days in the winter, that aren't warm enough. I don't know what you can do about it. It's one of the reason's I'm hesitant to wrap them in black. I'm afraid they'll do more of the flights where it's too cold because they think it's warm.

[beeman 202]

Today in Western Wisconsin the temps soared into the mid 50's. Bees were flying and defecating. Yellow rain was so heavy that I had to spend 20 minutes cleaning car windows before departing the bee yard. Two warm days in january that allows the bees to elimenate should help the bees to survive the winter. Checked a yard with 55 hives. Three deadouts, apparently queen failures. Remainder strong with plenty food stores. The warm weather allows bees to move onto more food stores. Sure has been a wonderfully nice winter here in Western Wisconsin. No snow. Hopefully the bees are smart enough not to start raising huge amounts of brood for awhile yet.

[Bigearl]

It was 68 in Festus yesterday and my bees were flying everywhere. I opened up a hive and the bees were feedng on the honey in the top hive body. There were a lot of bees in the two bodies. I also did a mite check and couldn't find one mite on any of the bees. SBB's help.
Bigearl