OMG, the unthinkable is happening!!

The unthinkable is happening, my bees are dying!!!!

"One of the Few", RIP

I was watching them on Saturday morning busy flying to and fro, even flying in pollen, so as the afternoon was nice decided I would have a quick look inside, to my horror hardly any bees, maybe a thousand, but where are all the dead bodies! Looked twice through the frames and no sign of the queen, very little brood cells, what there was were dotted about, but many bees seemed dead hatching from cells, see the black spots on photo.

The hive was full of honey and pollen stores so they can't have starved, I think perhaps are this changeable weather confused them, if you recall they were flying on new years day. The over wintering bees aren't supposed to fly much so that they live through the winter, unlike summer bees that only live 5 weeks, think mine just flew too much, wore themselves out and died, meaning numbers went down and when cold snaps happened, not enough bees to keep the colony warm and then more died including the queen!

So much for my plans of colony expansion this summer! I will have to start all over again.

Hopefully I have managed to secure an over wintered nuc which will give me a good start and just maybe I will get some honey this year. Have also booked another nuc for May time, I need two colonies as a minimum in future