They fly a lot in the winter here, as our winters are very mild, even compared to northern texas. there is always something growing whether it is enough to constitute a flow. the large hive has made about three small supers full this year but two of them is still on the hive. I used a bunch of their frames this year to make nukes,probably knocking them back quite a ways. so if they are left alone they should do a lot better this year. I might just keep them together and increase from the smaller hives . but the other two hives are doing good now. I might wait until they have pretty well increased and are going to be a big hive and then either split them or make nukes. If I did split the big hive , It has a huge population, I was thinking it sould recover in a long west texas summer and still produce some honey. what I don't want to do is make all bees and no honey next year..... thanks