After last week's inspection, I knew I had to check on the amount of stores the bees had in the brood box. I didn't know how little they had. Yesterday evening I saw large numbers of dead bees outside the hive and didn't know what to make of it. It was too late and too cold to open them up, so I made it a priority today. Since last week, when all seemed OK, thousands of bees have died, lying on the hive floor and blocking up the entrance. Looking through the frames of the brood box, I saw no stored honey, no brood, no pollen. Nothing. These poor bees have starved to death. We still have some live bees, probably half the colony, and the queen is still there. I've cleaned out the dead, and put on a feeder with sugar syrup and hope the survivors have the strength to take it. I just wish I'd put the feeder on last week.