Et tu, bee hive?

Goddammit!
Not the fucking bees, now too?
I am so sick and tired of things dying around here, I can't take it anymore.

As mentioned elsewhere, the bee hive is visible on Bramble Island from the kitchen window and for some time has appeared lopsided.
That wouldn't be odd in that the ground is saturated due to an exceptional amount of rain lately, and that the area's usually soggy for its proximity to the creek.
But it was cause for concern.
It'd been at least a month since I'd last looked in on them, so made my way over on a nice Sunday after cleaning out the chicken coop to see if this leaning Tower of Pisa would need shored up.
After getting tripped up by the unyielding blackberry briers (which we really do need to keep up with), I nosed around the hive for activity.
It wasn't alarming not to see some of the gals out buzzing around since it was still wet and chilly.
Knowing the colony was a fraction of its summer size, neither was I worried not to hear them buzzing inside when I pressed my ear up to the backside.
Yet, something seemed off.
Using a stick to scoop out the entrance, there was a lot of ochre colored muck.
Popping open 2 of the 3 port hole windows not swollen stuck, I noticed again unattended comb.
But it was when I removed the roof knew something awful was amiss.
Not only were bees not moving about the quilt box through the burlap as they'd done for over a year, the telltale sign of mouse activity appeared in the cedar shavings.
Sure enough, a little nest housed a mama and two babes stuck to her teat.
I hate those little shits and all the damage they've done to our house, shed and cars, but I'm not a monster.
There was no killing them; they were only doing what came naturally.
Immediately after setting the box on the ground, she took off into a den of thorns, leaving one of the pinkies hung up on a branch.
Thinking if I ignored them while dealing with my real problem,  they'd regroup and find a new place to live far away.
Thoroughly defeated, I turned my attention back to the somber task at hand, knowing my bees were gonners.
Now it was a matter of figuring out why.

If you're a long time reader, then you've followed these bee trials and tribulations all along, the take away being, I'm very hands off.
The Warre hive is designed so that nature leads.
And why shouldn't it? They've been doing their bee thing longer than humans have been mucking about with them.
Which is why I'm strongly against the more popular and commercial Langstroth system.
Our priority was always strengthening and adding to the bee population, especially in light of this dreadful colony collapse terror.
There is no doubt in my mind chemicals, poisons and artificial interference have contributed, nay, are responsible for this tragedy.
That is why when I began this endeavor swore I'd do no harm to either the beings nor the environment.
As a novice, I was initially dismayed to see my hive swarm, but having followed up realized this was a good thing.
It demonstrates a healthy and growing population and has the added benefit of guarding against the varroa mite with natural selection (not pesticides).
Honey producers, professional pollinating companies and the like certainly don't want their investment running off with profits, which is why they tightly manage and control all aspects of the operation.
But again, that is not our goal. Honey would be a nice gift, but it's certainly not the reason we got into this racket; we are stewards of our little piece of borrowed Earth and mean to do well by it.

The beauty of a Warre hive is that there are no pre-fab frames, so the bees construct their own comb in marvelous organic shapes building down only from top bars laid across the individual boxes.
Having finally opened it up and really giving it a good look at the end of the summer for the first time, I was able to assess (as best I could never having prior experience) by color and size, which were used for what and how much pollen and honey they'd stored.

They'd been damned busy for months, so I wasn't too worried about their future.
In fact, I was feeling rather smug in that the hive had already over wintered successfully the year before without my having done a thing.
So when I began to disassemble the contents noticed a tremendous amount of mold.
It was possible the quilt cover had wicked the copious amount of rain we'd been having inside, which of course is a death sentence.
But later, after reading up on autopsying 'dead-outs' realized the mold, like the mice, were after affects.
It would seem those little darlings had starved to death.

How? Why? They'd been so diligent during peak food stores time and were still out and about well into the fall on the oregano and mint gone to seed in the herb spiral.
In addition, we had a fair amount of blackberries flowering late into the season they were also taking advantage of.
At least I think it was them.
The range of a honeybee is 5 miles.
Could I have been witnessing neighbor bees' industry all along and mistakenly credited ours?
The colony had also reduced itself in size, thus regulating resources and energy.
Damn.
What a bummer.
The tell tale sign was that of the few intact bodies remaining in the hive, (the others having fallen to the bottom board below and virtually disintegrated) heads were buried and stuck deep into the comb cells, as if they were licking the last infinitesimal drops of food.
My guilt was two fold. 

First off, I'd harvested a wee bit of honeycomb this year, hardly anything to make a difference, I'd thought and certainly early enough to give them time to make more.
Secondly, should I have fed them with fondant/candy board. But again, I never expected there to be a problem.
Other than the strange detritus, which CAM was sure due to rodent activity, were the combs themselves.

I've yet to find anything similar in my on-line image search.
It was as if middle areas had been melted away.
The rest of the wax was pretty gross, too. Certainly not the light, perfectly pristine stuff of catalogs and boutique shops.
I'd harvested some at the end of the summer that was quite dark and believed it to have originally been brood comb, though there was some honey at the top.
It definitely had an unusual flavor that I'd just attributed to potent herbs; I knew removing it would be on my 'to-do' list come spring as they're really not supposed to use it for many years.
Now, not a problem.
Scrape and clean it all out and begin again.
Learning curve, right?
We've got some work to do on the burlap/quilt box- ensuring none of the fabric hangs over to attract moisture as I suspect it did before.
Also wondering how to keep them from chewing through, as the suggested rye paste method failed immediately. 

However, opening up the hive here was always my go to since I could actually see the little dears hard at work.
In fact, I really need to SEE these things, not only out of curiosity, but to also monitor them.
There's a fellow down in Coos Bay who keeps bees in the most extraordinary hives he sculpts from fallen timber and other assorted objects.
His trial and errors are both insightful and inspirational, and he's much more successful than I.
All of his hives have both thermometers and viewing windows, making me covet the latter.

So when mine failed, in addition to fixing the obvious problems, like leveling the ground, hell,
relocating the damn thing to a spot getting more sun, I wanted to change up some of the boxes.
We'd chosen not to treat the originals, but despite the manufacturer (Professor Bee) claiming that'd be fine, were weather affected.
In fact, all of his hives had been painted pretty colors and now I wanted the same.
But more importantly, intended to add a view box to the hive.
After a cursory Internet search, discovered exactly what I had in mind was made at a smart looking operation in Portland, reasonably priced.
They also sold their products at my favorite local store, but understandably inflated for profit, therefore a bit out of my price range.
Before I'd even worked out whether to make the trip up, or have friends come down with it, clever CAM decided to try fabricating one in an existing box and if per chance it fails, I'll end up buying one anyway.
This cost saving measure will allow me to purchase a new package of bees at this same store, which I prefer to the only other game in town, despite it being more expensive, as opposed to crossing our fingers and again hoping to attract a swarm.

CAM's done a great and swift job of cleaning up the bars and boxes and once they're dry, I'll paint them and he can route his window.
And then we'll try this beekeeping thing again.