The bees have perished

It was a sunny day today. The heather is blooming, but the hive was quiet.

I decided to check to see what I already suspected.
 
The bees are covered in white fuzz (mold or fungus?) 

The remainder are clustered together on the lower level.

But there's still what I think is capped honey on the top level.

In one frame a single bee seems to feed, but it's also dead.

A sad end to an interesting era of our lives.

 But it will soon be spring, and there are signs of new life in the yard.

Today's mite count

26

It seems within "acceptable " limits compared to other people's reports.

September 5

It has been sunny and warm w/o rain for the last week.
Found 31 varroa mites on the bottom board of the langstroth hive today after 10 away on vacation.Traffic is very good.
The top bar hive has very little activity. It seems they are dwindling away to nothing without a queen.

Morning Traffic on a hot August day.

August 15 Visit

I looked in on the hives briefly yesterday, the top bar hive still seems to have very few bees in it, while the langstroth hive has very many bees in it and a lot of brood soon to emerge.
There are two supers in place, and both have some nectar stored up but nothing finished, that is to say no capped honey yet. The bottom deep box seemed so full of bees and brood I decided to put on another brood box with two good looking frames of mostly drawn-out comb and the rest clean looking frames with plastic foundation. I have not used the queen excluder because it seemed from last year the bees didn't like to go through it unless there was absolutely no place else to go, so I am hoping the bees will continue using the supers for storage w/o trying to fill up the second deep box.
I only took one picture, I got a glob of wax on the camera and decided I didn't want to wax  the whole thing up. Seems once you get a bit of sticky wax on your hand it goes everywhere yet you can't get rid of it.

I want to remind myself to check back on them next week because we are leaving on a big trip on the 26th.