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This is our first year overwintering a top bar with the entrance at one end. At the end of summer we had plenty of bees and honey. You could see a ton of bees through the observation window. By September, bees covered about 6 bars of comb. But then the amount of bees got smaller and smaller, until by December you could see no bees at all through the observation window.
However, there has been a steady stream of bees coming and going all winter. We thought we'd lost the hive, and these were robber bees. We opened the hive a month ago (we're in California and it wasn't that cold) and found that there were combs still full of honey toward the back of the hive, but that the bees were all hanging out on an empty comb near where the brood nest would be if there were one, and it looked like they were cleaning the comb. We didn't look any farther, to avoid upsetting the queen, if there was one.
Two weeks ago I saw bees emerging from the hive and doing what looked like orientation flights.
How small can a winter cluster get anyway? Could the cluster just have gotten so small we couldn't see it through the observation window? Could it be we still have a hive?
However, there has been a steady stream of bees coming and going all winter. We thought we'd lost the hive, and these were robber bees. We opened the hive a month ago (we're in California and it wasn't that cold) and found that there were combs still full of honey toward the back of the hive, but that the bees were all hanging out on an empty comb near where the brood nest would be if there were one, and it looked like they were cleaning the comb. We didn't look any farther, to avoid upsetting the queen, if there was one.
Two weeks ago I saw bees emerging from the hive and doing what looked like orientation flights.
How small can a winter cluster get anyway? Could the cluster just have gotten so small we couldn't see it through the observation window? Could it be we still have a hive?