I'm still in my rookie year and haven't experienced what every season brings quite yet.
As my last check on my one and only hive back in late October, everything seemed fine with a pretty healthy population of bees.
My hive is raised so that I can peek my head in underneath it when the girls are busy staying warm inside. This past weekend I noticed about 40-50 dead bees lying on the SBB. I did not check the SBB prior to this so I don't know if this was recent or if they have been slowly piling up over time. Is this just the natural progression of dying bees and they have not been able to do house cleaning chores since it has been too cold to break cluster? Is this typical or should I be concerned?