Bad News Bees

The weather hit the 50's today, and the bees came out to fly about and poop and stretch their wings.
Soon, the assistant beekeeper raised the alarm.  "Something is terribly wrong with the hive on the left!"

The grass to the left of the hive was full of bees.  Individual bees, little balls of bees, far too many bees, just sitting around, huddling, not moving or making any sign of returning to the hive for the night.

We have two main theories.  1) Starvation.  We plan to go into the hive tomorrow with some extra frames of honey at hand in case they have somehow gotten low on honey supply.  We doubt this is the case, since we left them with what we considered to be a LOT of honey.  2)  Tracheal mites.  Not sure we can treat this time of year.  Terrifying to think we might lose the hive, and so sad to watch them come out to die in such numbers.

We'll keep you posted.  Beekeepers in this area lost about 50% of their hives last winter.  That could easily be the case for us as well this year.  If one hive survives, we might split the surviving hive or catch a swarm and rebuild our stock.