Beekeeper Laurence Edwards found a collapsed colony with dead bees piled at the entrance and starving workers. The queen was alive but weakened. He fed her honey, caged her with attendants, and moved her to a new hive to save her life.
This colony of bees is completely dead. I was doing inspections today and feeding my colonies and came across a colony that had no activity at the entrance. Instead, I found a big pile of dead bees in the entrance and at the bottom of the beehive. There's no sign of any food, but there is cannibalized brood and bees with their bums hanging in the air trying to scrape the bottoms of the cells to get what honey remains out. Amazingly, I found the queen and she was still alive but in desperate need of a feed. I fed her some honey, put her in a cage with some attendants, and introduced her into a new on it. So the queen is safe and sound. It's one of the hardest things as a beekeeper, knowing that you've let your bees down, but hopefully this video serves as a reminder to everyone to get out there, make sure your bees are well fed, and don't let this happen to you.
