Bees in January

honey bees, winter care
Out of all my hives, this one package from California always seems very active compared to its peers. Here you can see that the bees have moved up (they never seem to go back down) and started eating their emergency feed. The “tissue paper” at the upper left hand corner is the wrapper from their winter patty. And a long time ago, I left a quart bag of syrup, which you can see in the upper right hand corner.

I am not sure what makes this hive different from the others, because their surroundings all seem to be fairly consistent. What are your ideas?