Mostly we get enough days above 45 degrees that allow me to look at what is crawling at the entrance. I have stuck my ear to the side and not heard anything. Some of my earlier boxes have cleats and so it is harder then it should be. I don't think my ears are very good anyway and I have not tapped on the hives. Mostly, I don't have out yards yet and everything is in a field right behind my house and so I know many oppertunities come during winter when the bees actually come to thier entrances. I do live 40 miles from every store except one local walmart that is about 6 miles away and that I avoid like the plauge. Now if they sold them at the feed store, I do have to go there once a month. I have turned into a pretty big hermit since retirement and luckily my wife is willing to shop and so I even avoid the local walmart except maby three or four times a year.
I also usually only carry a smoker and a painters tool when I go to my hives. Even though close to the house, I leave a few extra supers set up like hives that I steal from when needing to add boxes. If I ever get extra comb that needs protecting, I will have to carry more back and forth but right now it is just a smoke and painters tool.
If I ever move some bees to dads 12 miles away, I am going to have to become much more organized then is my nature. I am guessing that we get more warm days here then in new york. If my warre with the smallest cluster, dies, I won't do anything and if it is one of the langs that dies, the hives all have sugar water in them and so I would not try and extract and so would probly leave them and hope that they don't get wax moth before I can make a split or something to use the comb in very early april. I am thinking I will be close to good with this plan and if not, I will learn better. My biggest fear besides the small ones and the fact that I did not treat will be starvation and it being warm enough and me being smart enough to catch it before I kill a hive that does not die of other reasons. So far they are alive but lots of winter/spring left to go.
Cheers
gww