The weather this week dipped down below 30*F at night, which reminded me it's time to take the hive top feeders off the hives at home.

They've been on there empty for over a month and I've been too busy (lazy) lately to take them off.

I took the lid off the first hive and it had 9 frames covered with bees in the top box. I peeked at the bottom box and found another 9 frames covered with bees. This hive is plenty strong and I have confidence it will overwinter just fine.

Then I opened the other hive and found that it was empty. Completely empty. Except for 5 worker bees and the queen, frozen in place.



This hive was plenty strong just a few weeks ago with plenty of brood in all stages, bees covering 15 frames with pollen and stores.

If they'd have shown any indication they were weak I'd have combined them, but I didn't see any. I'm not sure what caused all the bees to die/disappear and leave the queen to freeze, but I'm glad I found out now instead of in another month or two.

I put one of the deep hive bodies into storage for winter and gave the other box with plenty of extra stores of honey and pollen to my remaining hive.

They'll have plenty of food to last them the winter and in the spring when I need to split the hive to make (regain) increase in hives, I'll move the extra deep back to an empty stand as part of the split.