honey consumption and late winter brood rearing

My 8-frame hive is wrapped in a hive cozy. On warm afternoons in December and January, bees flew vigorously and performed orientation flight. These 2021-2022 measurements show that bees are most likely consuming their honey stores and raising late winter brood.  

• Temperature measurements are taken at dawn at the top vent using an inexpensive RadioShack Waterproof Pocket IR Thermometer. The orange trend line is most likely an increase in total bee metabolism/respiration (bees covering late winter brood). Peak temperature top vent measurement of 78°F (25.6ºC) is not the expected 89.6-96.8°F (32-36ºC) brood nest temperature, so why? Cold air flows into the hive entrance and screened bottom board and mixes with warm moist bee respiration and exits the top vent - usually I discover the warm moist air condensed to the outside of the hive cover.
  
• Less frequently, I weigh the hive using an inexpensive luggage scale. The green trend line is most likely winter consumption of honey stores. I would prefer to connect densely sampled weight measurements (points) with a spline instead of the polynomial trend line.  However, extra hive weight measurements are not possible with my travel schedule. 
• Also shown are HoneyBeeNet 2012 hive weight measurements from Cowetta GA (40 miles from Atlanta). HoneyBeeNet is a NASA hive and climate citizen science project. The zoom into these end of year weight measurements show a similar sharp drop in hive weight.