May they rest in peace...

I confirmed my worst fears yesterday - one of my hives is full of dead bees.  They were unusually active when it was really cold and then lately since the weather has been warming up there was much less activity.  So yesterday I pulled off the top for a look.  This first picture you can see some bees with their little bee butts hanging out of the comb.  This is sort of comforting if they had to die this is a sign of starvation and not disease.  They all look healthy - the frames when pulled out one by one almost look like they were frozen in time.  Some walking around others digging deep into empty cells for one last drop of honey and then a bunch of them all clustered in one side.

This next picture also confirms that the numbers of them dwindled and then on one of those last sub-zero nights we had they expired.  The top of the picture is empty cells - the bottom and left side is capped honey.  Generally if things are going well the bees move up and down each frame in a big cluster.  They generate enough heat with their buzzing to thaw the honey and eat it.  This time of year they start laying eggs and the temperature gets up into the 80 degrees to keep the eggs alive.  They usually will start in one area and then bring the honey from another to keep things going.  If their numbers are too low in the rest of the hive and/or it gets too cold they can starve to death very easily, even when food is just 1/2 inch away.

Sort of a grim reminder how close any of us is close to death.  Their fate lies (like ours) largely out of their control, the temperature, how much it rains, disease, how much of their hard earned food some big dumb person decides to take from them largely determines whether they live or die.  In this case there is not likely much that could have been done, I could have tried to feed them crystal sugar in hopes they would have made it, but getting buried by snow drifts two times, lots of cold night and a touch of bee diarrhea all did them in.  It

As soon as the wall of snow surrounding them goes away I will move the hive out and clean out the dead bees and get ready for another try this spring.  I'll keep trying harder to keep those little buggers alive, it makes me sad to see them go and sort of guilty since I'm still enjoying the fruits of their labor.