Cleaning House

[40 Acre Bees]

We have two hives one that was quite strong, the other one not so much.  It would appear that we seem to have lots of dead bees lately on the strong hive (30-50 bees over a couple of days).  They really have been cleaning house.  The weaker hive we would be lucky if there were 3-4 dead ones on the landing board.   Is this something that should concern us or are they just dying off on there natural cycle.  Thanks in advance.

[robo]

Winter die off is normal and can look substantial.   Unless you see stains on the front of the hive indicating dysentery/nosema,  I would be too concerned.

[Riverrat]

normal activity in the winter for a strong hive. The old worker bees will die off.

[G3farms]

Yep just winter die off. Some of the bees will die inside of the hive, on a warmer day the bees will start to drag the dead ones outside. There may be several days worth of dead bees that need to be removed and that is why it looks like a big die off all of a sudden.