Anyone have any idea what killed this hive?

[Beewildered61]

 I checked it, just popping the top and seeing if there was honey in the super about 3 weeks ago? And there was bees a plenty...Last weekend when there was a break in the rain, I walked around the yard and noticed no bees coming in and out...maybe one or two every once in awhile, now I am thinking they were robbers/curious bees.

When I opened it today, there weren't many dead bees in the bottom, and maybe a good double handful of dead bees in the whole hive, and not much brood. I wondered if something had happened to the queen maybe? Some of the bees have their head in a cell, like I have read starving bees do. There were two full frames of honey on each side of the top deep, and the super still has plenty of honey, as you can see from the photos. Most of the dead bees were stuck to the frame like in the photo.

I started this hive from a softball size swarm that got in my trap, while it was under my screen outbuilding, year before last. It took them a little while to get built up, but then they were booming all last year... I got a good bit of honey from them this last summer.

[BeeMaster2]

Bewildered,
I had 3 hives do the same thing. Only difference was that I did not have more than a couple of dead bees in each box, I am pretty sure they were newly hatched bees. This, I believe is CCD.
Maybe someone who has more experience with CCD will answer.
This was my first experience with it.
Jim

[AR Beekeeper]

I would say the cause of death was going into winter with an adult population that consisted of "old" summer bees that were virus/varroa infested and they dwindled away before they were able to raise sufficient young bees to survive winter.  It is always a guess, especially not knowing where you are located and what you do to control varroa mites.  Virus infected bees do not always show deformed wings or other visual symptoms, but slow build up is often caused by heavy virus loads.

[BeeMaster2]

I would say the cause of death was going into winter with an adult population that consisted of "old" summer bees that were virus/varroa infested and they dwindled away before they were able to raise sufficient young bees to survive winter.  It is always a guess, especially not knowing where you are located and what you do to control varroa mites.  Virus infected bees do not always show deformed wings or other visual symptoms, but slow build up is often caused by heavy virus loads.

AR,
Our winter bees are long gone. We have been in full build up mode since the winter solstice. These hives were full of bees a couple of weeks before they died.
Jim

[Beewildered61]

 There is a guy that just started a new beekeeping club in my town, and he has a facebook page. I posted about this on there, and he said he is hearing other people are having the same thing happen...

[chux]

I spoke with a commercial beek not long ago who has seen quite a few hives die this winter. He opens the box and finds plenty of honey and pollen, but hardly any bees. No mass of dead bees in the bottom. I guess there are times when even if you do do everything right, they still don't make it. Hold on girls, we're almost to the bloom.