The warm weather

Wintering hives. The hives with cardboard covers are alive. Bees are covering the top entrance holes.

Warm weather coming. The bees will be taking cleansing flights over the next few days. This is a good opportunity to make sure your colonies are alive. Watching the bees take their cleansing flight will help confirm this.
 It is normal to see dead bees in front of the hive. The warm weather will also help the bees reposition in the hive if they need to move on to new frames of honey. The bees may have not moved up into the top box in mass yet. They may be starting this transition now and should have the bulk of their population in the top box in the next two to three weeks.