Hi As regards this, my gut feeling would be that something disturbed your bees. In my area it never gets cold enough for bees not to be able to defend themselves, but I have had rats come in and chew frames out of weak/cold beehives. When their brood is disturbed they become a bit odd at times. What shapes were the white things in the cells between capped brood? Are you sure they were not eggs which had undergone shape changes from desication etc? Another possibility is that your hive lid was slightly lifted for some reason and the bees were then 'frozen' slowly, as to me it seems unlikely that they would die so suddenly if hit by varroa. I have had nuc attacked by rats on a number of occasions. young rats (that have not been taught about bees yet) crawl into a hive with too little brood to be aggressive and eat brood. The bees then just crawl away. In my case they abscond. In yours I would think the cluster would move up into the honey higher up. Honey is quite a good heat sink, and warming the new living area may have been impossible leading to them freezing?? Just some ideas Keep well Garth --- Garth Cambray Camdini Apiaries 15 Park Road Apis melifera capensis Grahamstown 800mm annual precipitation 6139 Eastern Cape South Africa Phone 27-0461-311663 On holiday for a few months Rhodes University Which means: working with bees 15 hours a day! Interests: Fliis and bees Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way reflect those of Rhodes University.