On 12/22/2013, I went outside to find that my bees were dead. I hadn’t seen any hive activity for several days, even though we had been fortunate enough to experience a bit of warm and sunny weather. When I went outside to see what was going on, I found this:
All of my bees were dead in the hive.
Some of them still held lifelike positions.
I’m unsure what killed the bees. My best guess is that it was the severe cold snap we had a couple weeks ago. I had also seen signs of varroa mites on some bees. I didn’t have time to clean out the hive, but maybe there will be more clues once I open it up and look inside. I’ll have to try again in the spring.