[redfan]

When last we left our intrepid apiarist, he(me) was patting himself on the back for successfully wintering 2 hives started from packages. The boxes were heavy, and presumably had enough honey to last until the early spring blooms started. Mother Nature and the Seasons had a different plan.
I don't know how the late Winter/early Spring weather went for the rest of the country, but around here it was pretty screwy. Winter held on for far too long and didn't really seem to want to leave. Consequently, it delayed the early blooms. It seemed everything was late in blooming this spring, white clover in particular.
One fine day in the beginning of April, I went out to the bee yard to check the hives. Much to my dismay, there were piles of dead bees in front of the hives. Thousands and thousands of bees, dead and dying on the ground. I pop the lids, same story: giant wads of dead bees on the bottom board. In the frames, clusters of dead bees with their heads in empty cells.
Well GODDAMMIT!! I mean what the ****?!?!? What the hell happened?!?!?! They were doing so good!!

What I've surmised during autopsy:
1. The lingering winter affected the spring bloom, delaying it by a few weeks.
2. There were some warm days, so the bees were active; not in a cluster. When bees are active, they have to eat. They ate all of their winter stores, and had nothing left.
3. Because there weren't any blooms, the bees weren't able to collect nectar to replenish what was consumed.
4. There were a couple of nights/days that were quite cold, we had several freeze warnings this spring. The bees starved then froze to death in their hives.

Whatever the causes, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late for one hive. It was a total loss for the best honey producing hive I had last year. Damn y'all, beekeeping ain't much fun when your hives die!! I was really down about the deadout, and thought about just having the one survivor hive this year. No splits, no nucs, and no new packages. Just the one hive and if it dies, it dies. **** this stupid shit, I suck at it anyway.
After spending a coulpa days ruminating about why I'm doing this beekeeping thing, and feeling bad about so many dead bees, I decided to go ahead and see about getting some package hives. Mind you, by now it's the 2nd week of April, and that's getting kinda late to decide. Still, I called up my supplier, and whaddaya know, he's got some packages that I can pick up that day! Okay then, I guess it's meant to be! I'll take 2 Italians, please.

Let's just see what happens this year!
I've already had some (mis)adventures with these package hives, but this post is already too damn long.