I am in the Charlotte NC area and have not had a full week of bees clustering yet. Yesterday I inspected the hives and extra comb is being built, with drone eggs. I have a lot of worker brood as well. Is anyone else experiencing this and how are you changing your management hive?
I added an extra medium box with drawn comb and pulled some of the brood up and replaced with empty comb frames. I do not want a February swarm.
Comb being built in January?! Here in North Carolina? Wow. Our hives here in Wake Forest have been keeping a moderate amount of drones through this Winter, but I have not noticed any comb being drawn, albeit, I have not looked into many hives from fear of stressing them during the Winter.
We do have Red Maples start blooming in late December in towns and in roadsides, but the majority in the rural forests don't bloom till the beginning of February which is the earliest I have seen our bee hives start drawing out comb and swarming.
The Japanese cherries and other plants get confused and bloom during the winter here in our erratic Winter weather in Eastern United States, but our natives seem to know and stay dormant even through the warm spells in the depth of winter. Henbit and dandelions bloom through our winters also.
From what I have experienced the build-up of colonies in our early Spring that we have here in North Carolina depends on the kind of bee. Some colonies will not really build up until April, while others build up by February, and so swarm early. So with their early large population, they are gathering nectar and drawing comb even though it is still cold outside. Other colonies that have not started to build up stay quiet and dormant.