Warm Winter Day

Hello to everyone who comes here to read my Blog. I recently went out to the bee yard at My friend Franks house to check the bees. It was an unusual warm winter day for Wisconsin 50's in February. Opened up the front access and found the hive almost plugged with dead bees. Not unusual for winter die off, started cleaning out the dead. And bees started pouring out in aggravation at me for poking around. I used a switch of switch grass stems and carefully cleaned. To my surprise lots of new young bees came out. And plenty older ones too who were straightaway challenging me. Me and Frank stepped back and let them settle down. Then went back to cleaning and more bees came out. So I then took the time to look at all I could as to see if any mites were attached. Could not see any on all that I looked at, and I and Frank looked at a lot of them. We were both surprised at the bees behavior when they landed. The older bees were cleaning the younger bees before going back in. This is a plus in the hygienic behavior of our bees. We were pleasantly surprised to say the least. From the looks of mine and Franks Colony's our bees are doing fine. Even with the hard winter we have had so far. We are preparing for spring and the addition of three more packages of bee's. We will place one at Franks and two at another bee yard I have found. Franks will be in a Lang type with no foundation and mine in Abbe WarrE type. Am looking forward to this new season with the bee's. :)