A Tale of Two Glasses

I'm a half full kind of person, usually. My dear Devin, "bless his heart", tends to be half empty. Together we make quite a pair, and when it comes to these honey bees we see things a bit differently.
I see it as an adventure in the ever un-predictable realm of agriculture. There are so many variables when dealing bees that I tend to face the failures challenges directly as a way to try something differently the next go around. Devin sees these challenges failures as, well....failures.

In my mind I want to keep enough hives going to extract myself a little honey and attempt to raise me some queens with the eventual goal of selling nucs and honey. Devin , in his mind, wants to extract enough honey every year to supply a small country.

Two weeks ago he placed my candy boards on my 12 hives and was very half empty when he discovered 5 hives appear to be dead. They had food, but small clusters from what he could tell. Me? I take full responsibility for not checking on them in early October. It's my fault, but I can accept it without being too upset. Devin is mourning the loss of a ton of honey.

Well, today I decided to venture down to the hives and take a glance at them. Here is what I found.


Oh my! Many of the entrances were blocked with dead bees and I had to clean them out. Don't worry, my glass is still half full, but PLEASE let's not tell Devin about this little discovery. It is agriculture after all and I am always up to a challenge, and I can always cross my fingers for some warmer weather to head this way.