First Winter Questions

[marion.orca]

Last week I fitted the mouseguard as the weather had turned a bit colder and my thoughts went to the mice looking for a nice warm place. I watched the bees at the entrance and they certainly seemed perplexed by this new unfamiliar addition to their home. A couple of days later I went back to spend a while with them and also checked the floor, where I discovered to my dismay 50 dead workers and 3 dead drones on the floor. Is this because of the mouseguard ? Were they trying to get in through the OMF as opposed to tackling the mouseguard with which they were unfamiliar ? They are healthy bees, so I can see no other explanation for this. I also started feeding, and with regards to feeding, do I just feed for a certain length of time and then stop during winter ? They are currently on syrup - 2:1, and I thought that when they have stopped taking that and seem to have enough, I would put on a block of fondant just to tide them over until early spring. Would that be the way forward ?