Greetings,

All my hive (12) have, in order over the deeps: shims with top entrances (added last month), center hole inner covers, vent boxes and telescoping covers.  They all also have mouse guards that are closed, the metal sliding kind, so now they only have 8 bee-sized holes in the main entrance.  So far 5 of the hives have almost completely closed off the top entrance with propolis and several others have reduced them a little.  Last week, only one had done it, and I reopened it with my hive tool.  They just sealed it back up.  The same hive has almost completely sealed off the center hole in their inner cover.  While most hives reduce the top entrance down to a bee-width or so, once the cold weather hits, I've never seen this kind of closing up on this scale and so early.  It has been a VERY mild fall so far - have not even had a frost, yet, let alone a hard freeze (it is 73F/23C as I type this), there are still some flowers in bloom (my roses, for example, and some dandelions), and I have seen minimal robbing attempts....so far.  Last week they were still bringing in some pollen.  This was a very good year for nectar and pollen, everybody loaded up, and the bees also managed to get into several supers I left stacked near the hives, so they got an extra boost of honey (and I'm not upset, would rather see them take what they need).  Also, as a precaution I added some syrup feeders (with essential oils added to make the syrup more enticing), but only two of eight colonies have touched it...so far.  All 12 have pollen patties, but have not removed inner covers to see what they have taken to date, if any.

So, what are others seeing, especially in the northern areas (I am in New Hampshire)?  Anybody have any ideas why they are behaving this way?  If I were the kind of person, who makes weather predictions based upon single-point observation of local events, I would predict a cold, nasty winter for these parts.  Hey!  Maybe I can start some kind of almanac fro agrarians  that uses that methodology?!?

Thanks,

Bill

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