Hi: As per the snow angels, a few bees on the ground is not uncommon. Some fly out and quick chill, especially on a sunny day when warmth and light hit the entrance and the cluster warms up a bit. We always find a sprinkling of dead bees in front of wintered hives. Remember, in the summer, bees die every day and some of these end up in front of the hives, so why be surprised when this happens in the winter? Keep in mind that all bees eventually die (as does every other living thing), colonies have lots of bees, so odds are that some will die every day (spring, summer, fall, and winter). A pound of bees is equivalent to about 4500-5000 bees (depends on race, comb cell size, etc.). Mid-summer population sizes of 40-60K (K= 1000, but we all know that, I think) are common, some colonies may exceed 100K of bees. From these colonies, we should get fall populations of 20-30K. Assuming 50% of these bees die by spring, (10-15K of bees) we can expect an average of 67 to 100 bees dead bees per day over a 5 month "winter". Many of these will fall to the bottom of the hive, some are stuck in cells, and some may stagger out the entrance. My point is this, 2 dozen bees in front of a hive is insignificant to the population. Best wishes to all for the coming year. Jerry Bromenshenk [log in to unmask] The University of Montana