To drown in ones own shit

It happened. I went to check my bees today because my dad was concerned he hadn't seen any flying around one of the hives today. I assumed quite laissez faire that it was nothing to worry out, it's borderline too cold for bees to be flying any way. But I put on my gloves and headed up to check all the same. First thing I'm met by, the sight of diarrhoea sprayed all up and down the entrance of one of my hives. Now I know I've posted before that I thought my colonies had died a winter or two ago. But this time it's actually happened, I broke through the propolis glue which had stuck the supers together, to find bees, rotten black in the hundreds, festering their own shit, the bees that survived, about one hundred or so, clever little guys, had piled into the middle to try and stay as far away from their rotting sisters. But upon further inspection, many had missing wings and not a single frame had any brood on it.

Now this is hugely depressing, I neglected to inspect my hives regularly last year, but they were healthy at least in October, we had a mild November, and I probably could have checked for another month, but I didn't, meaning sometime between November and April they've died out. Point is, this year, when it's honey season, I won't be selling any, that means the small amount of money I make in a year has been slashed by half. I'm not sure if the hive is a write off, but it's the festering equivalent of London circa 1665, a pandemic zone, which I need to clean as soon as possible.

Unfortunately the cuntish British weather means I can't get out there to do anything until it warms up and stops fucking pissing with rain every five minutes. Which means my other colony could potentially become infected if it hasn't already.

If that's the case, and I can't save it. I'm not doing it any more, it's more hassle than it's worth, literally, from a financial perspective, I can only afford to keep my bees on any profit I make from honey, now that's impossible. So to be brief, I feel like absolute shit, and needed to vent. Imagine finding your pet dog one morning dead on the floor, slowly rotting in a puddle of black decomposing biomass. Yeh, that's what it's like to be a bee keeper and have this happen.