Poor Management - Hive #1

Yesterday was warm but windy and I felt it was time to open Hive #1 and see what was left inside. In my previous posts, I had stated the hive starved to death and that's exactly what had happened. There were not any stores in the hive - none. Poor management on my part in not checking and knowing they needed to be fed.

But that said and done, I took the hive apart.

This is the only hive that had a full bottom board - all my other hives have screened bottom boards which is what I prefer and feel is better for the bees in our area.

All the bees were clustered between these two supers.

These are the frames taken straight out of the hive - there were not a lot of bees in this hive but if I had been feeding, they would have probably been okay through the winter.

The queen - I was glad to find her just to know there was a queen in the hive - you can tell she is bigger than the workers. She looked fine as did all the bees - other than being dead!

I cleaned everything up and put the brood box and supers on the stack with some moth crystals.

Hard lesson.