Sound to me that your queen failed or was superceeded, and the hive
failed to requeen itself.  Your hive likely went into winter queenless, or
with a poor layer and resulted in a unavoidable death.  A hive must go
into winter with a good queen and lots of young, and the bees you
were seeing were the old dying off while in cluster.  You can hive right
into that colony next year, it will have lots of resources for your new hive
to use.  BUT check the equipment for disease first.

Ian

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