We lost six hives this past winter, so we were down to twelve. We know that one hive starved - all stored food was gone, including that which we fed them at Christmas time. I don't like having to feed the bees, but I like dead bees (dead hives) even less. Our winters here simply are not cold enough for the girls to cluster through, meaning they end up eating more food than what's recommended for them to have. On the other hand, when they start to need food, it's often too cold to open the hives to give them more food. The good news is bees are very prolific, responding to God's command, to "be fruitful and multiply". We managed to bounce back to 22 hives, simply splitting what we had and buying some new queens to get the split off colonies started! We did not buy any additional bees, other than queens this year, which is a wonderful first for us!!!