Devastated

Despite appearances, these clusters are dead.

Yes, our colony is dead. My bee-bees are all dead.

I cleaned out the entrance this morning after Karl let me know he saw more piled at the entrance to the hive. Mind you, there were also dead bodies outside of the entrance, which would mean there were mortuary bees still doing their job.

But when I went back to the hive and swept off the ones at the entrance, something didn’t feel right. It seemed to me like there were a lot more dead bees than usual on the bottom board when I stuck my fly swatter ‘scooper’ inside to pull them out. It just felt like…too many.

Worse, to me, was that as I was pulling out all the dead bodies, there were no live bees coming out to see what was going on, like they did last Thursday. I’ve consistently seen a couple of live bees hanging around the entrance each time I’d clean it out. There was NO activity this morning. I also tapped on the side of the box and put my ear up to it. The last time I did this, I heard their hum. This time: NOTHING.

A couple hours later, after I filled all the bird feeders and did some writing, I felt a tug to check on my bee-bees. If they were ok, I was sure there’d at least be a couple of new dead bodies removed and outside the entrance. But of course, as soon as I approached the hive and saw absolutely zero activity – on this lovely sunny day (at least at that moment, which was peak bee time – around 1:30 p.m.), my heart sank.

Even though Karl wasn’t home, I had to confirm what my gut was screaming at me. And yes, as soon as I lifted the cover, I was sure. Oh my goodness, it was so, so sad.

They did not starve, at least as far as I can tell. They’d eaten some of the Hive Alive, and there were at least three frames of honey left, too. I’m also pretty sure from what I’m seeing on the frames that my queen (who was amazing) was laying eggs right up until the end. (Which makes me even sadder!)

I think my queen was still laying eggs right up until the end. I just want to cry.

My personal suspicion is that there was too much moisture in the hive. I’d mentioned to Karl several times while pulling out the dead bees from the bottom board that I thought they seemed too wet. I even speculated that perhaps the dead bees at the bottom had frozen, but then when I scooped them out, they’d thawed. (I didn’t know what I was talking about, I was just guessing. I wasn’t even sure if it was ‘bad’ for the dead bodies to be moist like they were. But they definitely seemed ‘too wet’ to me.) I guess I should’ve read up on it, or asked someone? I wasn’t even really sure if they were too wet. For all I knew, that’s what dead bees in the winter look like.

As it turns out, I discovered a little mold on the bottom of the inner cover (the one that was stuck in the outer cover when I went to put the Hive Alive inside). And when I unstuck the inner cover from the outer cover, I discovered even more mold.

Mold I discovered when I pried the inner cover out of the outer/top cover.

Some of the dead bees look like they were covered with mold, although the vast majority did not. Nevertheless, I feel like maybe the mold reached a tipping point or something? I just don’t know.

I am, as you can imagine, devastated that I let my little girls down. I’m sure many of you are sad about this as well.

It’s just so upsetting to me. We managed to get them all the way to the end of February, after a very difficult, cold and wet spring, some searingly hot weeks during the summer, and then a brutal winter, all to have the entire colony suddenly die. This was a strong hive, I just know it. There are so incredibly many dead bodies in that hive right now, which just proves that it was strong. Ugh. I know they were doing great as recently as last Friday.

OK, I realize I’m just repeating myself. I’m sitting here on my couch, poring over my Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping textbook, trying to figure out what happened.

It could be a disease, but I really don’t think it is. (I sure hope it isn’t.) I don’t even think the colony was weakened by Varroa mites. In my heart, I feel there was probably (umm, obviously?) a ventilation problem – maybe too much condensation? Karl and I will do a more extensive forensic examination tomorrow. I put everything back the way I found it so he can see for himself how I found it/them. And I’ll try to speak with someone who has experience in beekeeping.

In the meantime, my heart is heavy. I’m just so sad. I know this is a part of beekeeping, but I really, really thought we’d gotten through the hardest part. Karl and I were excited to go into the spring with a healthy, active colony and were thinking of adding one or maybe even two newbie hives.

Now? I guess the best we can hope is that they weren’t diseased and we can use their capped honey stores and the comb they built on the frames to give a new colony a head start.

They were such great bees. We had them in our life for almost exactly ten months. Wanishi, my girls.