Whole colony deserted, leaving eggs, brood & honey behind.

[The Riviera Kid]

I just went round to remove the second Apiguard tray (put on Thur 13th Sept) at the end of treatment to find one of my colonies has completely deserted.

There are eggs, brood, sealed brood on several frames (in textbook laying pattern) and some honey. All the frames are in good order. There are no signs of disease and no corpses in or around the hive. I scraped the caps off of a few sealed brood and they're fine. No sticky goo symptomatic of foul brood.

It's like someone has opened the brood box and hoovered them all out.

There were a few robber bees in there but the hive could only have been undefended for a short time as there was still quite a lot of capped honey remaining.

The queen (2012 born) was pretty much my best one. Good-natured and has laid constantly through the rotten summer and didn't go off-lay while being treated with Apiguard.

Any ideas what has gone on? It seems hard to imagine that they would abscond en-masse so late in the season because of the Apiguard, having shown complete indifference to it through treatment.

I am baffled.

I have closed the hive up to stop robbing - in case there is some disease there.

Time to call the bee inspector?

 

[drstitson]

"I just went round to remove the second Apiguard tray (put on Thur 13th Sept) at the end of treatment"

today's only the 21st?


IMHO any disease will be varroa in the brood cells and accompanying high viral load in the larvae.

 

[Chris Luck]

IMHO any disease will be varroa in the brood cells and accompanying high viral load in the larvae.

How does that cause all the bees to disappear in that space of time?

I would have thought something made the hive untenable to them otherwise there would be dead bees.

Chris

 

[The Riviera Kid]

"I just went round to remove the second Apiguard tray (put on Thur 13th Sept) at the end of treatment"

today's only the 21st?


IMHO any disease will be varroa in the brood cells and accompanying high viral load in the larvae.

Sorry, that should have read Thur 6th September. I looked at the wrong diary entry. I last lifted the lid to check all was well on Sept 13th and it appeared to be so.

I took the yellow tray out from under the mesh floor and had a look and there was no unusual varroa level.

There are no bodies though. Not a *single* corpse in the hive.

 

[The Riviera Kid]

How does that cause all the bees to disappear in that space of time?

I would have thought something made the hive untenable to them otherwise there would be dead bees.

Chris

I agree. But I just don't know what. They'd had 3 weeks of Apiguard... so it seems odd that they would suddenly go when they did.

However, that is the only "variable" as nothing else has changed at all through the whole summer.

 

[Finman]

.
If all bee go away as a swarm, there should exist however soft bees which could not fly.
Then quite much bees (hundreds) should emerge afterwards from cells. They should be somewhere in a cluster.

What about tracheal mite? How it kills in summer time?

In typpical CCD (usa) bees disapear and the queen and group of workers remain with brood.
It only happens in USA.
.

 

[george]

How secure is your site ? Just thinking aloud but could someone have just stolen the bees and left the hardware .Any signs of disturbance round the apiary ?
No bees left at all is a bit odd .
G

 

[For want of a better word]

Aliens........ They will probably return with an abduction / out of hive experience?

Notably total lack of crop circles around here this year !


BUT Loads in WILTSHIRE !

 

[The Riviera Kid]

.
If all bee go away as a swarm, there should exist however soft bees which could not fly.
Then quite much bees (hundreds) should emerge afterwards from cells. They should be somewhere in a cluster.

What about tracheal mite? How it kills in summer time?

In typpical CCD (usa) bees disapear and the queen and group of workers remain with brood.
It only happens in USA.
.

There is no sign of a swarm in nearby trees etc. but a swarm would not totally desert eggs and brood.

How secure is your site ? Just thinking aloud but could someone have just stolen the bees and left the hardware .Any signs of disturbance round the apiary ?
No bees left at all is a bit odd .
G

All the hardware is there as are the two colonies either side of the deserted one. They appear to be fine. It would be very hard work to nick the bees and not the hive though I suppose it's possible.

Aliens........ They will probably return with an abduction / out of hive experience?

Notably total lack of crop circles around here this year !

BUT Loads in WILTSHIRE !

This has already been suggested by some of my more esoteric friends!!!

 

[Chris B]

How about a photo of some brood frames? It might give clues.

I'd be guessing varroa, even though it's sounds a bit odd.

 

[Chris Luck]

I'd be guessing varroa, even though it's sounds a bit odd.

Can you explain that and how the bees disappeared?

Chris

 

[MuswellMetro]

was this the smaller of the three hive, ie where the hives either side much larger than this one.

a large hive sometims draws the bees from a non queenright hive..but then you says the hive has eggs

the temperature in early august around the 9th in london was 28c which could have increase thethymol load in the hive, but i expect leicester was cooler

 

[user 6228]

something persuaded every bee to fly or WALK out...
Walking out in my limited experience is bees that are dying

Has rhe entire hive has been poisoned?

Recheck the dosage/contents of the treatment you have just done

 

[Chris Luck]

Has rhe entire hive has been poisoned?

My thought as well one way or another.

Chris

 

[Luminos]

No bodies at all, though?
Weird.

 

[Chris B]

Can you explain that and how the bees disappeared?

Chris

A colony collapsed due to varroa suddenly ends up with a massive population reduction and much fewer hatching bees to replace them. That doesn't explain total disappearance I know. The state of the brood would be a stronger indicator.

 

[jackbee]

No bodies at all, though?
Weird.

where would the non-flyers go???

 

[Chris B]

where would the non-flyers go???

Perhaps they never emerged from their cells. A struggling colony would have chilled brood and we've had some cold nights recently.

 

[Luminos]

where would the non-flyers go???

They go to the same place as the queen goes to, whenever I try and find her...

 

[Finman]

A colony collapsed due to varroa suddenly ends up with a massive population reduction and much fewer hatching bees to replace them. That doesn't explain total disappearance I know. The state of the brood would be a stronger indicator.

that has happened to me too. Huge hives are empty when I looked inside.

In those hives there were a brood brake. Mites rushed into winter bee brood. When they emerged, they died all. Then old summer bees died and hive was empty. Brood shilled out and remain.
.
More usual is that varroa kills half of cluster, 20%, 70% or what ever. And folks think that "a colony survived".