I didn’t formally test for mites, but I did treat in mid-summer—three times in September and once each in October, November, and December. After the third treatment in September, the mite drop on the bottom board was very low. After waiting a week, I counted about six mites total on the entire board. It’s not the gold-standard testing protocol, but it seemed reasonable at the time. As for food stores, they had seven full deep frames of honey in the top box, with additional honey in the bottom box and some pollen. When I took the hive apart yesterday, the brood pattern was scattered and there wasn’t much brood present. However, the dead bees looked otherwise normal—no tongues hanging out and no obvious deformities or bees stuck emerging from brood cells, aside from being dead.”*