# Empty hive in November



## Ford Zoo (Jan 27, 2012)

We've had rather warm weather here for fall, other than the rainy week we had last week. I have been feeding the hives sugar cakes, but had not went in and checked them for three weeks. All was well then, aside from them being cranky that day. 

The 2 hives I have were nucs that I purchased this past spring. Today one hive was completely void of bees. Zip, Zero, nothin'

They had 2 brood boxes full of stores. I did find 6 open queen cells, 3 in the lower box, three in the upper. All were attached to the bottom of the frames. ETA: The lost hive had eaten about as much of the cakes as the remaining hive had by today, if that matters. 

I also failed to place the entrance reducer. Hubby thinks wasps might have gotten them, but this was the much stronger, harder working hive that was more productive than the other. 

So I took one of the brood boxes full of stores without brood and added it to remaining hive. I did not see much for brood in that hive that was lost. 

Thoughts?


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## TxGypsy (Nov 23, 2006)

Well, there are several things it could be. I am really surprised to hear that you have queen cells this time of the year. Especially that far north I doubt that there would be any drones around for them to mate with. How long had it been since you checked that hive last? 

It is possible that they swarmed. It is also possible that the virgin queen left with the hive either didn't make it back from her mating flight or that there weren't enough drones to mate with.

Also possible that they were robbed to death. There are no bees remaining in the hive when it is robbed to death. Bees are very OCD. They will remove dead bees from a hive they are robbing. This has been the main constant problem I have with my bees....I am constantly fighting robbing. Part of that is due to the nature of the honey flow in Texas. It flows strongly all at once and then there is a long dearth. Sometimes there is fall honey and sometimes there is not. Bored bees are like naughty 3 yr olds....they are going to find some trouble to get into.

The bees being cranky that day also tends to point to active robbing going on in your apiary.


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## Ford Zoo (Jan 27, 2012)

Thank you. I should have added that the queen cells all had one big open hole, so I assumed they hatched at some point. 
As I am still learning, I did not dig down into the brood boxes much this year, I only took a peak at a few frames on the top box now and then. I was afraid of disturbing them too much but this obviously is something I need to learn more about and how often to do it. 
I am surprised though that the surviving hive was the one that was much more laid back this year. The 2 hives were sitting a few feet apart. Do you think hive A robbed hive B? or could it have been another neighboring hive? 
Also, are there any patterns I would see with robbing? The empty hive had frames full of capped honey on both sides, along with partially filled frames. I did notice one full frame had about 30 random cells scattered about that were not capped and only partially full of honey. 

Thanks again! I appreciate it!


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

When my hive was robbed out, there was chewed up wax on the floor of the hive, and a lot of it. The edges of the combs were ragged because the robbing bee were in a hurry. Also, there was no honey left.

Sometimes a hive sends out more than one swarm. I wonder if that happened to you, and then the queen did not come back from her mating flight? The man who taught me said that If there are just a few bees on their own that they often drift until they can find another hive. Some hives will accept a strange young worker bee. And, If a bee can get inside the hive for any length of time they take on the smell of the new hive and then they are fully accepted.


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## Ford Zoo (Jan 27, 2012)

I have found out that 2 other local beeks up and lost a hive of bees with no explanation in about the same time frame I did. One has years of experience, and is unsure why, although I did not talk to him myself. 

I'm wondering if our unnaturally warm weather played a part in this. In comparison, a year ago last week we had over a foot of snow on the ground. Today was again sunny and near the 50's.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Naturally hatched queen cells have the opening at the bottom tip, we call it a upside down submarine hatch. If they had holes in the side of the cell it was down by workers tearing the cells down after the queen hatched or another queen killed the one in the cell.

 Al


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## Ford Zoo (Jan 27, 2012)

I spoke with one of the experienced honey producers in the area about a month ago. He said there were large losses from swarms in the area late October/early November. Since this happened to so many, they suspect a large hatch of late season mites drove the bees out of the hives. He had 150 out of 200 hives just disappear about the same time. I'll be upping my mite prevention this year.


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