I ended up deciding not to open the hives today, even though it reached the mid-50’s and both hives had bees outside of them. The weak hive, which has a top feeder on it, was again the most active. They had bees all over the place, some of them actually coming and going! This was not purely an orientation flight.

Upon closer inspection, I found that several of the bees were actually bringing in a gray pollen of some type. I suppose this could be from one of my camellia’s, but I doubt it. This looks like grass pollen or something. I remember seeing this same kind of thing happening in December and wondering where these gals had found their little gold mine of pollen. But, the main thing was the activity. These things were going to town.

After looking at them for awhile, I became concerned (as always, my mind goes to the worst case) with this activity. Was this robbing? Do bees actually rob in the Winter? There was no fighting, but maybe these rogues had already killed the fighters? More then likely, all of this activity is just evidence that Hive 2 is thriving. But, I plan to put up my robber screen tomorrow, during a rain (when they will not be active.)

The stronger hive (or the one that was stronger back in November) showed very little activity. But, this time there was some flying about, which I suppose was orientation flights. These gals only received (straight sugar) supplemental feeding as of yesterday. Maybe this keeps them a bit more docile in the Winter.

Well, I have living bees, which is a positive no matter what. Hopefully, all is well.