Revisiting our Swarm in January

In winter time our bees are primarily left to their own devices, but on a warm day in January we take an opportunity to open up the hives and take a peek inside. 

Our established hive was looking fantastic! The girls were flying, there were plenty of honey stores, and good number of worker bees to keep things humming (or buzzing) along.

Then my assistant and I visited our smaller hive. This hive contains what was left of our swarm capture from 2015. On approach, things weren't looking so good. There were no bees flying to or from the hive. I was worried that maybe the colony was gone, or had succumbed to cold temps. I'd never seen the behavior of what we found instead: