I live about 25 miles east of Albany, NY on the Mass. line.  When I checked
one of my hives this past week I discovered the cluster was dead. It seemed
a classic starve out with most of the cluster stuck headfirst in the cells.
This hive is in 4 medium size supers and it had two full supers of honey in
the fall(the top two supers).  It appears that the cluster formed all the
way on the east side of the hive(the hive faces south)and it used all the
honey in the eastern 3 or 4 frames in both of the upper supers and starved
when there was no place higher to go.  But both of the top two supers had 4
or 5 frames full of honey on the west side of the supers!  Do clusters not
move over to reach honey? Will they only move up? Any thoughts will be
appreciated.  How can this be avoided in the future?  Is it possible the
cluster stayed against the eastern side because it got the morning sun?
This was the coldest winter in years-we had minus 20F on at least 5 nights.
Howard Kogan, Stephentown, NY.

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