We were up checking our remaining bees this evening.  Noticed something
different.
 
Temperatures today were in the mid 70s.  Frost last night.  About 65 F
degrees right now.  About 40 minutes til sundown.  Sky is clear and no
wind.  Entrance reducers (about two bee size) on all the colonies.  One of
the hives had about 20 bees hanging around on the front landing board.  The
QUEEN was walking around with them.  This hive is not real strong, survived
robbing by other bees and yellow jackets.  Bee cluster is in bottom box
with honey stores in the second box.  Why was the queen out for a stroll?
She walked around for a bit then went back into the hive.  She was not
surrounded by bees as she was walking but most of the bees followed her
back in.
 
We use large stones on the top of hives to stop the covers blowing off.
One hive had a cluster of bees on the stone.  They all had their rears up
and were fanning.  We looked through the cluster and they were all worker
bees, no drones, no queen.  There was another small cluster in the brood
box.  Again, not a real strong hive, due to robbing.  What would cause this
behavior?
 
Thanks for any help.  Still learning, slowly.
 
Dave says he is going to invent a yellow jacket smasher.  It will consist
of a small weighing scale on the landing board that detects the yellow
jacket as underweight to a honey bee.  A very small hammer will then come
down and smash it.  Still on the drawing board. :-)  It has got to beat his
standing up by the hives every evening since we realized our robbing
mistake for an hour with a fly swatter.
 
Judy in Kentucky, USA