Another Dead Out Question

[Pond Creek Farm]

Second hive to fall to the winter.  Mounds of dead bees on the bottom board. The few bees that were on the comb were spread in pockets of 20-30 on three or four frames.  Many died with their heads into the cell, which I have been told is a sign of starvation.  There was plenty of honey, and the bees had filled many cells with the dry sugar that I put on the hive last December.  There was also pollen stored on many of the frames along with honey across the top.  What I did not see was any brood, eggs or larvae.  The last time one of my hives died (about a month ago) the discussion was perhaps that the hive did not have a strong enough fall build up of brood.  Does this situation sound like that too or is the absence of brood a sign that something happend over the winter to the queen?  Looks like I've got ten more drawn frames of comb and about six medium frames of fully drawn natural cell.  I hate this loosing hives business; it is quite frustrating. 

[NWIN Beekeeper]

Folks often think of starvation in the wrong sense.
Starvation isn't a lack of honey, its a lack of viable or usable stores.
Usable stores are those that can be reached without breaking cluster.
Or stores used without causing the cluster to move very far.

If you had dead bees 'bunked' in the cells, the cells did not contain honey.
They were trying to insulate the cluster by removing dead air space the empty cells cause.
Had they contained honey, there would have been food to generate heat and warmth.

Face first in an empty cell with everyone pushing your butt in, is doom for starving.

So, your bees should have put honey stores in the center where the cluster could have used it.
They didn't because maybe they reared brood too late, the flow ended too soon, or caught by early cold weather, or some other late beekeeper manipulation. Fall feeding can minimize these risks, but nothing is absolute.
If they stored granulated sugar in December, it is likely they were under fed for proper winter cluster stores.

You could have a failed queen. Improperly mated, impaired by freezing from a small cluster, etc.
But brood patterns are what you try to determine during the flows of the year. 
This is why attention to details is important year round, and important to remember season to season.

[Brian D. Bray]

I agree with BjornBee.  To add to his comments on starvation:
Bees, contrary to popular belief, usually cluster at the top of the brood chamber, where they remain for the entire winter.  During the occasional warm spell (2-3 days) the cluster will break and the worker bees go the the lower/outer parts of the hive where honey is stored and relocate in to comb within the cluster.  As the weather gets colder the bees go back into tight cluster and feed on the transfered honey stores within the cluster.  This process repeats itself all winter long. 
So, if the cold spell lasts an unusually long time, the cluster can starve because it can't break apart to retrieve more stores when those within the cluster are used up.  This is starvation, but due to extreme cold, and is evident from bees bunked in the cells, the cluster still relatively intack and honey around the bees.  Here the bees are in close proximity to each other.  You may or may not see capped cells of brood.
In another scenerio, with warmer temps the bees will break cluster to get stores, if there isn't enough stores the beekeeper will find the bunked bees all over the combs throughout the hive.  This is starvation from lack of stores.  Bunked bees are scattered all over the comb not in a specific place.  Again capped cells of brood is possible.

A different starvation method might be called the double winter where the bees have broken cluster, began foraging, and rapidly increasing the size of the brood chamber.  Then a late winter/early spring cold snap comes along the bees are forced back into cluster.  They will move the cluster in this case, directly over the brood. At this time the honey stores are low so the bees will turn to canabalizing the eggs, larvae, and pupae still in the white, in that order.  The bees may be relatively tightly packed in cluster and an capped brood cells will have holes chewed into them as the bees open each cell looking for brood still in the white.  Fully colored, ready to hatch brood, is left in the cell, some of this brood, when the cell is opened will attempt to crawl out of the cell in an early hatch but will usually be found part way out of the cell.  The bees will be heavily into the bunked state here.  This is true starvation, where all of the food and protien sources (brood) has been consumed by the bees.
Bees with too little stores will also show this same thing, all available protein sources are consumed and only holed brood cells remain.