Saturday, August 14, 2021

swarm abscond

After a 3 week vacation, I returned to a hive with:

  • no May 10th swarm bees
  • no wax capping waste on the screened bottom board
  • wax moth egg laying concentrated on the only frame of dark comb
  • most amazing, no small hive beetle (SHB) destruction which makes me more convinced that the bees absconded leaving no brood or honey behind for SHB

I found the pre-cleanup look too sci-fi horrific for the blog post.  So, the video was taken after the cleanup of sticky wax moth destroyed comb.  Wax moth larvae were offered to the chickens which they voraciously consumed.  

As you can see in the video:

  • new comb was built on all frames showing no reluctance to build on plastic starter strips
  • previously I donated a deep frame of capped honey to this hive and now this frame of comb is intact less the honey contents

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