I am fairly new to the beekeeping operation.  I have 7 hives (west central Ohio).  The first 6 are behaving normally but one seems to be behaving strangely.  When I opened it during the warm spell a week ago it was full of bees, looked like a June afternoon.  Though a little surprised I didn't think much of it.  After a couple of cooler days (35-40 degrees), I thought the girls would have clustered and I could easily pop the hive top feeder off.  When I removed the top, there were thousands of bees still at the top and they also came pouring out the bottom entrance, so I retreated again.

Last evening after 2 days of continuous sub-30 degree windy weather, I again cracked the top expecting to not see any activity.  I was again met by a large number of bees that were very active and crawling around trying to get the feed from the nearly frozen syrup.  The outside air temperature was 20 degrees F but it didn't seem to phase them.

Is this hive some kind of mutant?

Glenn
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