1st year beekeeper kind of freaking out HELP....

[Beer]

Hi and thanks in advance for any help you can offer. I live in Northern VA and think I've got my two hives prepped for winter but ran into an issue (I think). I sent the below email to my mentor but just wanted to post here for more opinions.

-Beer

A few weeks ago, maybe a month, I let you know that both of my hives had honey stores and young brood. I removed and stored my supers that only had drawn comb and last weekend I used a coat hanger to sweep the bottom board and make sure there were no unwelcome visitors. I reduced the entrance to the medium entrance and propped up the back of the inner cover with pencils for ventilation. I also used 1/2" rat wire to construct an enclosure around the entrance in the hopes of keeping any critters out.

Today I was doing some yard work and midday I stopped to look at the hives and see what was going on. Hive A had bees coming and going and I just checked the pollen trap to make sure there was nothing strange. Hive B had no activity. I took the top cover off hive B and there were no bees on the underside of the top cover and no bees visible in the hole of the inner cover. I pulled the inner cover and saw no bees in the top hive body. In fact, through frames 6,7, and 8 I could see daylight from the entrance reducer. I didn't have any gear on and no tools but I looked down each frame and stuck my ear close. I didn't see or hear anything. After about 10 minutes of looking about (I'm guessing) 50 bees worked their way to the top. I'm used to seeing thousands not tens.

OK, after reading this please tell me they were in a cluster in the bottom hive body. I'm concerned they all left or had a problem or worst of all that I made a big mistake.

[BenC]

If this happened today then I would just say it was probably too cold for a smaller cluster to be out flying.  I had a few in bright sunshine out flying while 30ft away in light shade the bees were sitting tight.  Next day it gets up to 45 or above pop the top and use a flashlight to shine down between the frames, be quick about it to avoid letting too much heat out.  If you have a screened bottom board you can tip the box up and shine the light from below without opening anything.  I wouldn't pull any frames or bang around in these temps unless the flashlight test shows absolutely no bees.  The pollen trap could have been taken off 6-8 weeks ago, just my opinion :).

[Beer]

Thanks Ben, and just to clarify a little bit, I might have misspoken when I said pollen trap. I have the hive stand below with screened bottom boards. I really meant that I pulled the drawer off of the bottom of the hive stand. It kind of has a bucket to catch stuff.

OK, well, I'm to new to post a link but it's a plastic stand with a drawer on the bottom from Dadant.

-Beer

[JP]

If the temps get above 50farenheit, investigate.

[Jerrymac]

1/2 inch wire will not keep out the mice. You have to go to 1/4 inch.

[randydrivesabus]

the next couple of days should be warm where you are so if your work schedule allows you could tear apart that hive a bit more.

[Brian D. Bray]

1/2 inch wire will not keep out the mice. You have to go to 1/4 inch.

3/8 hardware cloth will also work.  1/2 inch might keep rats out but not mice.