Lost one this week!

[Rodni73]

Right before the snow storm I inspected my two hives.  One was dead the other alive.  Opened the dead hive and there is not a single bee in it.
This hive was booming in mid September when I inspected it last.  I found about 60 dead bees in a ball in the middle of the hive with no queen.
I think something catastrophic must have taken place and hence it is dead.  Plenty of stores but no bees! Just ordered two packages of bees. I will start over with this one in the spring.

Hope all your bees survive!

-Rodni

[AllenF]

Sorry for the loss.   How were the mites in the early fall?  How did you feed them, maybe they were getting robbed and lost numbers or the queen that way?  They just did not have the numbers to stay warm.

[BjornBee]

How many frames of brood did you see in the middle of September? Those were the bees that would carry this hive through till spring. From the size of the cluster, I think you lacked fall brood, and the summer bees died off, and this is what would happen.

[Rodni73]

I do not recall how many frames of broods! They either lost the queen and dwindled or died out.
If I cannot secure two package of bees I will have to do a split on the surviving hive in the spring.

Bummer :(!

[rdy-b]

  or catch a swarm  :) RDY-B

[Brian D. Bray]

Right before the snow storm I inspected my two hives.  One was dead the other alive.  Opened the dead hive and there is not a single bee in it.
This hive was booming in mid September when I inspected it last.  I found about 60 dead bees in a ball in the middle of the hive with no queen.
I think something catastrophic must have taken place and hence it is dead.  Plenty of stores but no bees! Just ordered two packages of bees. I will start over with this one in the spring.

Hope all your bees survive!

-Rodni

Sounds to me as if your hive encountered a late season application of insecticide on one of its harvest area ( 2 adjacent hives don't always forage the same crops) and it desimated the population to the point they could no longer keep the queen warm enough and they died out.  If you had an early freeze for a length of time were the bees couldn't have reached their stores they could have died out that way too.  Most mid to late-winter die offs with stores left is due to prolonged freezing weather where the bees can't break cluster longer enough to transfer stores from outside the cluster to within the cluster.