The evidence from your "crime scene" sounds suspiciously like that here except these colonies were in Langs - 1 russian and 1 italian, each in different locations about 70 miles apart and each bustling, robust foragers. I found the tiny clusters had eaten themselves into the corners of a shallow frame that was otherwise loaded with honey and about that time we were in the middle of an unusually cold period in December, just long enough to make that trek back across 10 inches of empty comb impossible. Hmmmmmmm. . . I wondered, this was the second year witnessing the same demise.

The experts and authorities are so busy tweaking the "software" aspects of beekeeping (genetics, medications, pesticides, etc), I suppose, because they've become complacent with the stability of the hardware involved. And here I was noticing what was essentially a mechanical shortcoming in the design of moveable frame hives, or at least large brood nests. With their silence the bees spoke.

These are my last two (ok, three) packaged swarms. This is my last year "trying". I don't expect to harvest this summer so I won't know what my spales are good for until, perhaps, this time next year. Even though I have reasonable access to a very well-equipped woodshop where I could cut rebates and finger joints and compound miter angles until the cows come home the uninterrupted brood nest is also a matter of economics. I need to know that beekeeping can be a successful endeavor for folks like us, the beneficiaries of the solar economy, the low-energy futurists, the luddites!