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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #12001  by MickBBKA
 23 Sep 2021, 11:17
This week I found one of my hives empty of bees. Floor clean as a whistle, no dead bees or wasps to be seen. It was double brood and no obvious issues 2 weeks ago. They left 10 frames of brood at all stages from eggs to emerging bees. I can only suspect they absconded due to a high varroa load although there was no sign of that at my last inspection looking at my notes.
I have got it into my head someone shook them into a sack but maybe that is just my imagination.

Anyone else had similar before ?
 #12002  by huntsman.
 23 Sep 2021, 16:06
Any sign of open queen cells in the middle of the frames you may have missed?

If so, then it may be pretty late supersedure and the bulk were away with the second or third new queen.

Doubt it had anything to do with varroa as they seem to have been healthy.

Poison spray would have impacted on your other colonies.

Very unusual for bees to abscond when brood is present.

Interesting to see what other think.
 #12003  by NigelP
 23 Sep 2021, 16:58
Had it happen a time or two in the spring. Called them my Marie Celeste hives
No idea why it happens but it does.
Talked to several experienced beekeepers who have had similar happen, again no rationale as to why.
 #12007  by MickBBKA
 23 Sep 2021, 20:04
huntsman. wrote:
23 Sep 2021, 16:06
Any sign of open queen cells in the middle of the frames you may have missed?
I inspected all 24 frames today and no sign of a single QC. 2 weeks ago there was 16 frames of brood and eggs and I noted in my records that she looked very healthy. The thing I can't get my head around was that she was clipped and there were eggs still standing although dead in quite a few frames so the Q was there right up until the end so she couldn't possibly have gone with the bees. Very strange. But that's bees for you.
 #12010  by AdamD
 24 Sep 2021, 14:44
Weird.
I guess there was no sign of robbing?
Never seen an absconding colony apart from one nuc that was starving which went into a nuc a few metres away.
 #12012  by JoJo36
 24 Sep 2021, 18:20
I wonder if somebody vacuumed them out although surely they would have taken some brood frames with the bees??!!
I think I've watched too many crime series!! :)