Discouraging year

I'm pretty discouraged right now.  I hate to  be negative about this hobby of mine but I'm feeling pretty negative right now.

I did a hive check yesterday and saw that there were bees in there that didn't belong.  Also, behind the mouse guard, where bees come in and out, there was a pile of dead bees.  Then as I looked at the frames, a lot of honey they had built for winter food, were already emptying out.  No way will there be enough for the winter.

There are very few bees now.  I saw no signs of a queen...again.  So I lost two queens this summer.

1) one that went with the swarm
2) the replacement queen for the remaining hive

Started off with high hopes

I don't know how/why things went so poorly.  Especially since I wintered over my hive last year and started off with a very strong hive.  But....that's the one that swarmed. 

• The swarm was the start of the downward spiral.  I lost the queen and it took me a few weeks to realize what had happened and then more time to try to fix it.
• I also tried to split the hive into two but now suspect I did that after the swarm ...so that compounded the downward spiral
• As a last effort, I merged the two hives and bought a new queen for it.  More adjustment time for the bees and they started to act like they had a queen again....but by this time, it was too late in the season.

Now, I don't think I will bother to do anything much.  I will and already have added their insulation with the cedar shavings.  And I will add roofing paper around it.  I may put in a pattie or two just in case, but I expect to lose them all this winter. 

I will start out in the spring with a Nuc which will start me off with a new hive and thriving queen. And see how next year goes.  Next year I won't need to worry about a swarm, but the following year, I will if next year goes well. It's something new to me so I will be looking for it after this year's loss.