Unfortunately, I lost my first hive sometime in late winter. I found a lot of bees dead head-first in the cells. They consumed all of the honey in the bottom box, most of the honey in the second box, and never touched a very little honey bit of honey in the top/third deep. The queen last year laid brood in all three boxes - lots of bees - but I knew there were problems late in the Fall when I suspect the queen was laying almost all Drones.
Anyway, I came home from work today and noticed some bees flying through the yard. I checked out the hive and I've got a lot of activity going on. The bees are darker and smaller than the Italians I had last year. Are these bees just robbing the hive of the 20-30 pounds of honey left from last year? or they checking the hive out to swarm into? or what? When I say "honey" I really mean mostly hived sugar syrup.
By the way, I took off the top deep yesterday before seeing any bees at all and set it up to install a package when I will get them next month. It has bees visiting it too!
I don't want to mess with them since they just came to visit me . . . what shoud I do?