September Swarm?

[ctbees]

I'm a first year beekeeper. We had queen issues in the late spring where we think the queen was superseded with a new queen. Two weeks ago, there was a lot of capped brood and honey along the top, so we thought that with perhaps some feeding later on, they may have a chance to make it through the winter.

We inspected today and found the hive completely empty other than a few bees. There were a handful of dead bees on the bottom board screen. All of the honey was gone, all of the capped brood also gone. The last few days there was a lot of activity around the hive which we thought were new bees being hatched and taking their first flights. I didn't see any yellow jackets.

What do you think happened? Is it possible that they swarmed this late in the year? There was plenty of room in the upper deep and two end frames were pretty open in the brood chamber.

Thanks, Patrick

[honeybeekeeper]

The hive was robbed! IMO

[LAC]

CTBees,
If the hive was weak they were probably robbed out as Honeybeekeeper stated or may have just decided to abscond. Do another inspection ASAP and if the hive is empty, check the comb for any diseases. Be on the look out for wax moths. It wont take the wax moth larvae long to rune good comb. If you can place your comb in a freezer for a few days this will kill any wax moth larvae and eggs. The comb will come in handy next year. Good Luck

[David LaFerney]

If they had swarmed there would still be a lot of bees. You might not even notice if you weren't really paying attention.

[ctbees]

CTBees,
If the hive was weak they were probably robbed out as Honeybeekeeper stated or may have just decided to abscond. Do another inspection ASAP and if the hive is empty, check the comb for any diseases. Be on the look out for wax moths. It wont take the wax moth larvae long to rune good comb. If you can place your comb in a freezer for a few days this will kill any wax moth larvae and eggs. The comb will come in handy next year. Good Luck

This makes sense. I don't believe the hive was as strong as it could have been. I am not able to watch the hive a lot, but I did not see anything other than honeybees around it. We only had the one hive in our garden, so I guess that's it until next year. Hopefully, we'll get a better queen this time.

Thanks for your help and advice

[MichaelShantz]

Same thing just happened to me. No dead bees out front. Three days ago it seemed happy except that they seemed to have a lot of guard bees out front. The entrance was just a few inches wide, and I wasn't feeding. Now, every cell is empty, all bees gone, an occasional yellow jacket going in and out. Very discouraging. It was a small swarm capture in May and it slowly grew until about 5 frames were pretty well filled including some foundationless frames that I had put between the foundation frames. Sigh. One or two little pieces of webbing that might indicate moths. No wax moths in the cells. No Varroa mite sign.

I haven't seen the queen for three weeks or so and there weren't many larvae cells left for the yellow jackets to finish off so I'm thinking that I lost my queen a month ago and didn't notice. Otherwise there would be far more brood cells left I would think.