Dead bees

[Dave Warren]

Thursday, here in Indiana the Temperature was 77 degrees F. I just got back from a 2 week cruise, went out to see the girls, and they were doing great.
Several drones were hanging out too, thought wow their on borrowed time!
I have a top feeder, left them with a 2.1 mixture before I left on vacation, well it was dry, good for me, removed the feeder looked down to my deep all is good 9 frames full of honey and capped.
So I put a wrap around my single hive, waited till almost sunset to add my reducer for the bottom entrance.
When I started to move things around from the outside and add the entrance reducer, wow did they come out of the hive with a mission to get me!
So I waited till dark and then added the reducer. No problem, a few security guards came after me but it was sucessful.
A cold front came through Thursday night, lowered temps down to 38F, and the cooler temps are suppose to last at least a week, with the highs only going to the upper 40s, and the lows being in the 30s so I
thought it was a good time to reduce the entrance.
We have lots of mice too, so I thought it would keep them out too!
Inspected the outside this morning, and my, there were around 50 dead bees laying around the landing board, a yellow jacket and a bee were dead in the entrance.
Being a first year Beeker, thoughts of is this normal, the bees are old and just dying off, leaving room for the young winter bees, or do I have a problem inside,
I'm not about to open the hive being it's so cool out.
Can't wait to see why the carnage is taking place.

[Mr.Beeman]

For what it's worth, my two hives are doing the same thing, cleaning for winter. If you think you have dead bees now, wait until spring! Should be a few hundred either inside, outside or both.
Good luck overwintering.

[Dave Warren]

Update, today, I removed the narrow restrictor board and put in a larger one, (bout 2 inch allowance).
The undertakers brought bodies out of the hive, including 5 drones.
The drones couldn't have made it through the small hole.
Restrictored it to about an inch with aluminum tape, they can come and go without the threat of Meeces entering the hive.
They still dumped bodies out at an alarming rate.
Also so some fighting with robbers, since it got cool, I thought robbing was over, well guess not.
Was in the mid 40's here today with sunshine, bees were very active coming and going.
Lots of them just hung out around the hive enjoying the sunshine!

[Oldtimer]

50 dead bees outside the hive MIGHT be normal, but it's high and it might NOT be normal also and could indicate a problem.

Without opening the hive for a look you won't know, so your call. However the robbing rings alarm bells, because a healthy hive with only a 2 inch entrance would easily defend itself and would not be getting robbed, assuming it's not a top entrance. It could be that your hive while outwardly looking healthy, has actually been weakened by mites to the point where it is starting to get robbed, and if this is the case it will likely soon crash.