Hi and thanks in advance for any help you can offer. I live in Northern VA and think I've got my two hives prepped for winter but ran into an issue (I think). I sent the below email to my mentor but just wanted to post here for more opinions.
-Beer
A few weeks ago, maybe a month, I let you know that both of my hives had honey stores and young brood. I removed and stored my supers that only had drawn comb and last weekend I used a coat hanger to sweep the bottom board and make sure there were no unwelcome visitors. I reduced the entrance to the medium entrance and propped up the back of the inner cover with pencils for ventilation. I also used 1/2" rat wire to construct an enclosure around the entrance in the hopes of keeping any critters out.
Today I was doing some yard work and midday I stopped to look at the hives and see what was going on. Hive A had bees coming and going and I just checked the pollen trap to make sure there was nothing strange. Hive B had no activity. I took the top cover off hive B and there were no bees on the underside of the top cover and no bees visible in the hole of the inner cover. I pulled the inner cover and saw no bees in the top hive body. In fact, through frames 6,7, and 8 I could see daylight from the entrance reducer. I didn't have any gear on and no tools but I looked down each frame and stuck my ear close. I didn't see or hear anything. After about 10 minutes of looking about (I'm guessing) 50 bees worked their way to the top. I'm used to seeing thousands not tens.
OK, after reading this please tell me they were in a cluster in the bottom hive body. I'm concerned they all left or had a problem or worst of all that I made a big mistake.