Confusing Removal

[Aram]

I did an extraction today. All young bees, most on comb with some foragers. The interesting part was that there was no brood, no eggs, no queen (as far as I can tell) no drones... all in all about a half package worth of bees. Very mild mannered even with the rainy day. The owner said he did spray (Raid) both last year and this spring. From what I could tell the spraying only affected the entrance and didn't get to the comb.
What do you think happened that there would be just a bit of bare comb and a bunch of confused bees?

[okb]

I think you answered your question. The owner sprayed them, there probably sick.

[xC0000005]

Perhaps an afterswarm. Virgin queen would be easy to miss yet keep the colony content.

[Aram]

Bees looked healthy. I don't think the spray reached too far. Their comb was quite a ways up from the entrance. Could be that enough got sick/ dyed for the bees to abscond, leaving brood and enough nurses behind? There comb didn't look really old but not that new either. Could it be that this are newly hatched from a hive that absconded? Wouldn't those nurses have grabbed an egg to make a new queen?
At first I thought aftrswarm with a queen that didn't make it back. I gave them a frame of brood at the new location. I guess if they still have a queen I 'll find out soon enough. I'd love to keep their genes. (They seemed smaller= possibly reverted to small cell= possibly wild survivors and they were extremely gentle. If I wasn't getting paid for the extraction I'd have considered doing the job without a veil.)
Thank you for the replies,
Aram

[riverrat]

most small week hives are usually gentle. The just dont have the numbers to be agressive. There could be a number of reasons of why they was week. pesticide could be part of the reason they may have recently swarmed and something happened to the queen or there was a vigin queen in the hive. I have had a lot of calls for bee removal this year where people will tellyou the sprayed the bees. I dont like messing with bees that have been sprayed. I am going to start adding a $150 dollar fee to the removal just for the spraying. Sprayed hives are worthless. If they want to pay the higher fee I will do the job. if not I guess they can find one of them ole boys that do cutouts for nothing thinking they are getting a free hive of bees;)

[Aram]

I hear you about the worth of poisoned bees :(. It's a bummer and I thought about charging more for sprayed removals. The thing that holds me back is that I value the people being honest. When you throw money in with the spraying question, they might feel encouraged to lie.
Besides, as much as I like free bees at the end of the day, I'll always offer to hive them for the owners. They do look at me like I'm crazy but it's worth offering. If I ever get any takers I know they'll call me back for consultations.

[riverrat]

When you throw money in with the spraying question, they might feel encouraged to lie.

They can lie all they want but most generally if your paying attention doing the removal you will see signs of them being sprayed.

[Ben Brewcat]

Hey Farold and crew, what would the list of signs of pesticide spraying include?