I've read this and it makes alot of sense. In times in spring, I'll see spotty brood pattern, but as weather warms more consistantly, the brood pattern tightens up and looks good.
When I see dead outs with bees butts showing with heads in cells, but some honey right next to them, I look closer and sometimes it seems as if the cluster was not large enough to keep warm, not that they starved. I'm coming to the conclusion that just because bees heads are in cells is not automatically a die out from starvation. More information can be gleaned from further observations. How large of pattern was the cluster that died and how many frames did they cover and how close or far from stores were they and what was recent weather patterns.