At 04:58 PM 2/16/98 -0600, you wrote:
Hi Richard,
 
It is impossible to tell from this advantage what killed your bees but the
description you give is the common symptom for bees that have starved to
death.
 
It is common for hives to dwindle down in the winter to the point they can
not keep the cluster warm enough to move to feed themselves so they die
with a honey in the hive. If the honey was no longer liquid it becomes
impossible for a small cluster to re liquify it and they will also die from
starvation. Normally this type of loss can be due to queen failure in the
fall so the hive even if full of bees early in the winter did not have the
younger bees needed to live from the last brood to hatch to the early new
hatching brood.
 
This is not new and beekeepers have been experiencing this kind of loss for
as far back as records go.
It is true that if your bees had pests when they were alive and doing well
they may have had them when they die, like flea's on your dog. You should
be able to find dead mites on the bottom board, the red heads, or you can
pull the dead bees apart and check the breathing tubes for the T mites if
you have a good hand lens and the bees have not been dead too long. If the
hive has no scale from AFB I would just shake the dead bees out, clean up
the bottom board and start a new hive as soon as you can.
 
Good Luck,
the OLd Drone
 
>        Fellow B-liners
>
>My neighbor just went to check his one hive and found an interesting site.
>All the bees were dead except 3 or 4.  The dead bees were in the SE corner
>of the hive on 2 frames clustered in a small group.  The hive faces north
>with a stockade fence about 3 feet infront of the entrance.  We counted 500
>bees in this cluster.  The bees were still on the frames at the top corner.
>A white mold was growing on the bees but not in the cells.  No brood was
>found.  The hive still had 3 frames of honey/pollen stores.  Where the bees
>were also had stores left.
>
>He is located in south central Oklahoma, USA.
>
>Anyone know what could have killed this hive?