Requiem for an apiary

   Well, this was a terrible year all in all. I started the summer with three hives and at the last posting, I'd lost one hive (the party girls) to swarming and then wax moths. The second (the overachievers) was in peril but I had hopes that it was going to rally. Unfortunately, it turned out that they too succumbed to the two problems..........and then there was one.
   The hive left was the new hive that I started from a package in April of 2012. This was the hive that was so strong (they produced about 40 pounds of honey for me)and a tad nasty! They followed me into the house, stung me on the eyebrow once I removed my gear and even stung my husband who was innocently doing yard work about 40 feet away from the hive! I treated them for varroa mites in July, fed them sugar syrup when the nectar flow was waning and tucked them in for the winter with great hopes for 2013. They had a full hive of capped honey for their winter nourishment so I wasn't worried about them getting hungry. I was sure that such an active hive would be so robust that I could split it in the spring and that I'd get a "twofer" from them.
   Our fall was pretty mild and we didn't really get any cold weather until late December.  I waited until we had a mild (above 45 degree) day two weeks ago and headed out to see if they needed food reinforcements. My first hint that something was amiss was the sight of hundreds of dead bees at the entrance of the hive. I leaned in closer and with a sinking heart, realized I couldn't hear anything-I should have heard a low hum or some stray buzzing.
   I opened the lid and found the upper chamber loaded with untouched honey but in the lower chamber, as motionless as if caught under a spell, I found this:

The queen is the one with the yellow spot-see how they're all around her with the intent of keeping her warm? I was totally devastated by the sight of this dead colony and sure that I had screwed up in a major way. I immediately went inside and sent a bunch of pictures and a disheartened email to my mentor. I also went on our bee club's Facebook page with pictures and questions. The only "good" news was that our club is seeing high numbers of dead hives this year so I absolved myself of total blame for this. My mentor wrote back with great empathy and told me that he thought the problem that I (and others) are seeing is the result of the varroa mites. I treated them as scheduled in July but we had a humid, damp summer and there was another infestation in September just as the colony was preparing for the winter. He believes that they were overwhelmed by the mites and couldn't recover.
   Once I got over the initial sick feeling of failure, I rallied myself and decided that I'm going to be a much more informed beekeeper from here on in. I have several books about bees and beekeeping that have been just languishing on the shelves so I've taken them down and am doing some studying.  Also, there are several very knowledgeable people in our bee club so I've approached one of them who lives in the next town. She has a total of 12 hives and I did a cursory inspection with her this weekend (too cold for more than that) and she has graciously extended an invitation to come back as often as I like-especially in the Spring when we can see what is happening in the hives.
   In the meantime, I've ordered bees to re-populate the three hives and am working at cleaning up the equipment in preparation for starting over.  This has been a very tough year-and a tough loss-but hopefully I'll have gained knowledge, even if I've lost the first three colonies.