So I went through the remaining 2 hives and threw out the few bees that were hanging on, no Queen, the swarmed hive has definitely flown away and never to be seen again, the original hive was weak before it got robbed so this just finished it off. Really sad.
Today the 14th of September, the hives have been cleaned up, sanded, disinfected, painted with Belinka No13, the frames have been cleaned up, de wired, de waxed. those that needed doing and the rest were disinfected, now they are waiting to be wired which should see all the hive equipment ready for next year.
I took out the 4 semi full frames of honey and extracted from them, crush and strain, thought about freezing them for next year but decided against it, as I don’t really have the space in our freezer even for 4 frames. So we will just have to enjoy the honey.
Hopefully lessons have been learned, seems like other beekeepers have had problems with robbing, absconding. I will make my bees stronger next year and work extra hard to make it work out well for us.