# Autumn Abscond?



## SilverBack (Dec 10, 2011)

Checked one of my yards yesterday and found one hive totally empty. This was one of my stronger colonies, so this is a disappointment. This was a new package this spring on all new equipment. I'm running all mediums, and this one had filled four boxes plus another super of surplus honey. I did no treatments. I did not do a mite count prior to buttoning things up for the winter.

No signs of robbing, all of the honey was still capped. Several sections of pollen packed away, and the brood spaces on comb was nearly empty. There were a handful of still-capped brood. There were a couple dozen dead bees on the bottom board.

From all appearances the hive was ready for winter...except there are no bees.

The other two colonies on this site appear to be in good shape for winter, and there was activity outside those hives yesterday.

All of my yards are on native prairies sites. This one the landowner did a modest fall burn (only several hundred square feet) that came within ten yards of the hive on one side.

Could the burn have convinced the bees to abscond? Or could this be colony collapse disorder?

I know bees do what they please...and this one has me mystified. Any insight?


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

It's always tough to determine why a hive just ups and disapears. Obviously it had a queen and stores so doesn't seem any good reason to take off. How much time between burn and missing bees? I wouldn't think it would affect them as I would assume it was a quick burn that passed by the hives fairly rapidly.


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## SilverBack (Dec 10, 2011)

JRG13 - it was about two weeks between the burn and my inspection yesterday. I do not know what happened and when in those intervening two weeks.

Everything was fine one week *before* the burn. I didn't inspect the hive in the days leading up to the burn, so I don't know if they absconded/died before or after the burn.

The burn event could be a red herring. I did a burn around my home yard this spring with no ill effects on five colonies.


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## Michael B (Feb 6, 2010)

Without really seeing with my own eyes............I would suggest mites might have something to do with it. Just a guess though.

I have seen hives abscond in mid-winter with super heavy mite loads. Not my hives mind you but a friends that is "treatment free"


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

SilverBack said:


> There were a handful of still-capped brood. There were a couple dozen dead bees on the bottom board.


I think you'll find your answer here...in the remaining brood. Are there any bees that died while emerging...tongue out maybe? Dig them out with a pocket knife. Do they have wings? Are their abdomens normal size, or are they flat and stunted? Do you know what mite feces look like?


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## Utahlefty (May 16, 2011)

see my contemporaneous thread -- I had nearly the same thing happen to me two weeks ago. My hive had 80# of stores, a large colony, then nothing. I had the state inspector come over and go through the hive with me to rule-out any signs of disease. Nothing. I dejectedly tore down the hive and stored everything. 

Got a call from my wife today saying there's a swarm in the neighbor's tree that's been there for "about two weeks" according to the neighbor. I'm going to try to catch them in an hour of so....


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## benstung (Mar 20, 2011)

varroa mites is the problem


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## SilverBack (Dec 10, 2011)

@Michael Palmer - no brood emerging as you describe. I'll dig into some of the left-behind brood (there weren't many) and see what's in there.

Could a new package (this spring) have mites so bad after just five months to cause this, as suggested by @benstung and others? If so, that is stunning.


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## benstung (Mar 20, 2011)

yes it seems southern mn had some ideal conditions for mites to populate very quickly this summer, the mildness of last winter also was a contributor.


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## timcaz (Jan 28, 2008)

I'm a hobbyist with 4 hives in central NY. I checked my hives today and my two strongest hives, which seemed fine two weeks ago had absconded. One hive produced 160# this year and the other 100#. They were third year local nucs that I had treated with Apistan and Fumgicillin yearly and fed sugar water spring and fall. They had plenty of honey stores. Of note, I had SHB for the first time this year. Is this CCD? Mites,SHB? Is it OK to use the honey in the hive bodies for other hives? Thanks.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

this absconding fascinates me. it makes sense that the bees could be smart enough to 'know' if the should leave the hive, for example, if the food became contaminated or something.

i do wonder about if they get so infested with mites, and are miserable beyond tolerance, that they might blame the hive for their problem, and leave it.

the lack of brood could have been their late season shut down. 

can you see any mite feces on the 'ceilings' of the comb?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I very much doubt your bees absconded in the middle of November. More likely, it was a varroa problem. You used fluvalinate...Apistan..which doesn't work in most cases, to control varroa mites.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

michael, do you know of any cases of absconding where mites were ruled out?

i guess it's hard to check them if they are gone, but the feces would be a clue.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

squarepeg said:


> michael, do you know of any cases of absconding where mites were ruled out?
> 
> i guess it's hard to check them if they are gone, but the feces would be a clue.


Absconding isnt real common, fall absconding even less so. The symptoms are classic late fall varroa collapse. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck........


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

SilverBack said:


> I did no treatments. I did not do a mite count prior to buttoning things up for the winter.


Without any counts or treatment, I suspect mites as well but believe that it isn’t necessarily an abscond. As has been discussed on several other threads recently, this time of year is when the parasitic tax on a bee colony peaks. Many, if not all of the bees in an untreated hive are weakened. As long as there are able bodied bees remaining, the carcasses of the inhive dead will be removed. And, as long as there are daylight hours with temps allowing it, many will leave the hive and not return. The result is what looks like an abscond but is actually a collapse over a period of days/weeks.


timcaz said:


> They were third year local nucs that I had treated with Apistan and Fumgicillin yearly


As Michael Palmer just pointed out, Apistan is often no longer effective. The only way to be sure is to test before treating…and then again after. Having said that, I’m betting you’ve suffered the same fate as the original poster.

I'm so slow composing a reply, I see that Jim also posted..so again what Michael Palmer and Jim Lyon said.


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## GLOCK (Dec 29, 2009)

I had two hives swarm in sep. and i think it might have been because of there mite loads i am trying to go the cemical rout and both hives had real high mite counts 100 plus a day in sep. and the reason i know they swarmed is be cause my wife seen them and i cought both a day apart and there in nucs 3 storys high doing well very strong. When spring rolls around i'll find the queens and then i'll know cause one of the hives had a black queen and was the only one in the beeyards that color so we'll see in the spring. But both hives had 100 plus pounds of honey but dwindled guessing no queen plus late in the season for drones to make a new one. 
good luck .


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i witnessed one collapse down to a handful of bees recently. an alcohol wash revealed more mites than bees in the hive.

in this case, there were numbers of dead bees acumulating at the entrance, and out in front of the hive, and they didn't abscond.

but, if i wasn't able to look at this hive everyday, i may not have seen that. the yellow jackets and ants clean away the dead bees pretty fast.


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## xcugat (Mar 4, 2008)

Mites are the problem, but this absconding I find strange--To those that have experienced this, there are NO bees left or what??? Mite collapse of a hive can very fast--the whole hive can go from booming in mid October to dead now (like what occurred with my hives last year in part due to circumstances beyond of my control)--but usually the bees do not abscond, rather there will be a small cluster of bees too small to keep warm and move in to fresh honey stores and then starve, so you would see dead bees in the combs/bottom board but not no remaining bees


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## Seymore (May 1, 2009)

I'm afraid I'm getting ready to experience the same thing. It was a nice, sunny day today and 2 hives were bustling. My strongest hive this year was void of much activity. Some, but not much. I rapped a time or two and got "the hum," but that's just not right - such little activity. This hive had just started showing signs of mites. 

So...when you lose a hive to mites, I wonder how long it takes before any remaining mites die. I wouldn't want to take mite-infested equipment and introduce it to another hive. Hours? Days? Weeks? Anyone know?


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## the doc (Mar 3, 2010)

i had a horrible time with absconding this year. All related to nucs. One would swarm out and several others would swarm and join them to make a mega swarm. Then they would fly around my yard, never happy enough to settle down when i rehived them. It made for an poor year in terms of increases.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Seymore said:


> So...when you lose a hive to mites, I wonder how long it takes before any remaining mites die. I wouldn't want to take mite-infested equipment and introduce it to another hive. Hours? Days? Weeks? Anyone know?


I'm not sure there is a definitive answer, as it may depend somewhat on temps but I would guess somewhere between 24 hours and a week. 
Xcugat: it's not unusual to see small clusters of really mite infested bees for weeks during the latter stages of collapse and a few handfuls of dead bees scattered about the hive but the majority of its previous population is usually nowhere to be seen.
For the record I consider absconding a somewhat mysterious disappearance of ALL the bees in a hive and not the natural swarming of some fraction of the hive population.


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## Anthony Ritenour (Mar 17, 2008)

I had this happen with fire ants, but you don't have those in your area.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

the doc said:


> i had a horrible time with absconding this year. All related to nucs. One would swarm out and several others would swarm and join them to make a mega swarm. Then they would fly around my yard, never happy enough to settle down when i rehived them. It made for an poor year in terms of increases.


Did they abscond, or did they swarm? Did the nucs have swarm cells present when they left? Did the nucs wind up with new queens?

I've had swarming/absconding problems over the years with my nucs. The difference is obvious, but you do have to look inside the box. When a colony swarms, they start queen cells before they leave. They don't necessarily have to be sealed before the bees leave...as production colonies cells usually are. I've seen them leave with queen cups/egg or day old larvae. 

When a colony absconds, they leave before they start queen cells. Almost all the bees leave with the queen, leaving brood and a few young bees behind...and whatever field bees that were in the field when the bees left. A week later, there is a small cluster of bees...many newly emerged bees, too much brood for the cluster to care for, and, the real clue....emergency queen cells at the edges of the brood pattern.

So, if you don't look at the right time, and the virgins have emerged and mated, you really wouldn't know if they swarmed or if they absconded.


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## Seymore (May 1, 2009)

In my way of thinking, probably swarmed. Nucs build so fast, ya really got stay on top of them. But absconding, in my understanding, leaves ZERO bees, correct? Wouldn't that be the true indicator?


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## Dan. NY (Apr 15, 2011)

What does the mite feces look like?


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Mites tend to deposit their fecal matter at a common site within the cell. Since their feces are white, the accumulation of it at that site makes it visible.
Don’t take a lack of it as assurance that mites were not present. Before the colony fails, bees remove it as part of their cell cleaning. And, as I've pointed out on a number of occasions, there are any numbers of scavengers ready to remove any material of nutritional value from a collapsed colony. Mite fecal matter is easily removed and disappears pretty fast.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Dan. NY said:


> What does the mite feces look like?


they were small white-ish flakes, located primarily on the 'ceilings' of the empty brood cells.


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## Dan. NY (Apr 15, 2011)

Well hell... You guys nailed it with my issue. Mass amounts of small white substance on frames, easily shaken off. Looked like and fell like little teeny tiny hailstones falling when shaken. Gotta be mite crap. So much for my Minnesota hygenic queen and mite removal. Strangely, my superceded queen hive thrived right next to the collapsed one. Now I am worried as many bees robbed out the alleged mite collapsed colony. Can I treat still with formic or is it late in the season for that? I have strips on hand ready to go but didnt think they were needed. Live and learn, dont repeat. grrrr. thanks though.

Dan


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Installed 2 new packages in spring, both swarmed in July, I had seen signs of deformed wings so knew mites were a problem. So I made a formic acid fume board as per Amrine and Noel and tried it out on one of the new packages on July 13. It worked very well with an exess of 2000 dead mites the next morning. I then treated the rest of my hives over the next 4 months. I happened to check the hive treated in July in early November and found the bees removing deadbees and larvae from the last frme of brood they were uncapping and removing everything, this troubled me a little untill I opened up some myself and saw any mites. So I treated them again and dropped another 500 or so mites, My feeling is if I had not dropped the mite load that hive might be dead by now, they still might not survive the winter. If I had been aware of the formic acid fume board I would have treated the packages when they arrived, I had not seen a honey bee on my property for 7 or 8 years untill I brought in package bees, so where else coul the mites have come from
John


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

They came with the bees most likely.


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## Seymore (May 1, 2009)

JRG13 said:


> They came with the bees most likely.


Seems like a package or nuc should be inspected for mites before being sold... But then we'd probably never get to buy bees cuz there would always be mites or they would be cost prohibitive, eh?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Seymore said:


> Nucs build so fast, ya really got stay on top of them. But absconding, in my understanding, leaves ZERO bees, correct? Wouldn't that be the true indicator?


No, not zero bees. Brood, newly emerged bees and field bees are present. Emergency cells are present.


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## Seymore (May 1, 2009)

Not absconding. ALL bees leave when absconded.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Well, I've witnessed absconding in nucs. The bees act as I stated above. 99% of the bees leave. Cluster that remains after is newly emerged bees and field bees. No cells present when they leave the hive. What would you call it than, swarming? Did you ever see a swarm take 99% of the bees and leave no cells?

Have you seen bees abscond, or just witnessed an empty hive that was previously occupied and figured they must have absconded. What happens to the brood in an absconded colony? It continues to emerge. If the temperatures are hot, quite a bit will emerge and form a cluster. Those bees, and the field bees that returned after the cluster left the hive, construct emergency cells, and most will raise a new queen. The brood that can't be cared for dies.This talk of bees absconding when 2 weeks before they were so strong, really is off base. Absconding in our european honey bees isn't common, as it is in africans, Apis dorsata, and others around the world. If the bees in your hive have "disappeared", I would place absconding at the bottom of the list of possibilities.


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## the doc (Mar 3, 2010)

Micheal all my nucs absconded. I witnessed it several times. One nuc would get a bunch of activity at the entrance and then all the bees would pour out through the robber guard fly off and cluster in a nearby limb. No bees remained except a few brood that would emerge over the next couple hours. Next they would land on an adjacent occupied nuc on the outside and start running in and then all the bees would leave that nuc and that queen would be on the ground with a small court around her. This would happen several times and they would build up to a large basketball sized cluster. I would then try to hive them. They undoubtedly then left a few days later. Tried splitting, requeening with the newly abandoned queens, adding a frame of eggs to each split of the "swarm", this would happen again - incredibly frustrating

These were definitely not reproductive swarms. No queen cells or even cups in any of these nucs.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

that's downright freaky doc!


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

doc: Could you describe these nucs. Give us a time frame for when they were made up, and what they were made up of and at what stage they were in when they left the hive. Also what other activities were going on in the yard, were there cell builders in the yard, were there other strong hives in the yard and if so were they affected as well and any other clues you can give us.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

the doc said:


> Micheal all my nucs absconded. I witnessed it several times. These were definitely not reproductive swarms. No queen cells or even cups in any of these nucs.


I found it happens when the weather is hot and humid, and the nucs are strong and in single story. Adding the second story eliminated absconding in my nucs. Interesting that you found them uniting themselves. The nucs I witnessed abscond seemed to fly straight away over the trees and gone...no clustering in the apiary. Seeley and his assistant are going to try to get nucleus colonies to abscond next summer...by heating them up with heat lamps and waiting to see what happens. I mentioned in a talk this summer what I saw...the bees from absconds not clustering like swarming bees. I know what I saw, but maybe didn't see everything...as witnessed by Doc.


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## timcaz (Jan 28, 2008)

Thanks for all the comments. Still not sure- had no bees left at all- but mites seem to be the most likely cause.
Tim


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## timcaz (Jan 28, 2008)

I guess what confuses me is that there were no bees left - alive or dead.
Tim


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

if it had been a long time since you visited the hive, the ants, yellow jackets, and other carnivores could have eaten the dead bees. otherwise, you may have had a true abscond.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Sick bees will leave the hive to die elsewhere...taking their disease with them. Not strange at all that there aren't any bees left...dead or alive.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

as always, very good point michael. and i should have gone back and reread timcaz's post. he states that the hives were strong with bees two weeks prior. could all of them have left the hive to die?


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