Opened All the Hives

I made a quick mix of homemade pollen patties and in preparation for a warm day last week made a block of bee-candy.  The sun was bright and wind was fairly calm, the bees made an appearance so I decided to risk a peek. I quickly opened all the hives and its official. Five hives are alive and 7 are dead.  That is 60% loss for me this year.  I put in a small pollen patty and added bee-candy where I could. I guess I got away easy last year so this makes up for it.  I am getting 3 Russian packages with marked queens shipped and I am also getting 2 local NUCs from a guy near Utica.  A little worried about getting bees shipped as not very confident that the USPS will get theme here in 2 days.  I ordered early as an insurance policy. The packages will be here late May so if I can get them established I could get honey off the packages but it would be more work to build them up for winter.  I paid $3 extra for marked queens as thought it would be fun for showing folks a working hive.