Went walking on Thursday, were home the rest of the day, bees flying, Friday we went cycling in the morning, later stayed at home bees flying Hive A was behaving a bit strangely, there were bees trying to get into the other two hives and were met with force in front and chased off, Hive A just looked as they had bees behind the door waiting for introders to come in lack of activity should have really been enough, Saturday the 24.9 we were home, came to the hive first thing in the morning, looked at the floor which had a number of bees, dead bees on the floor, knocked on it, no noise. Checked the other hives they were buzzying. Waited for the weather to get a bit warmer just in case, opened it and no noise because there were no bees in the hive, it was totally empty, except for stores some of which were capped, second super had 2 frames of capped brood, some ready to come out, and 2 capped Queen cells. Spoke to a friend who said it is some virus, has happened to some of his friends, to clean the hive burn the comb if I don’t want to clear it, desinfect it and move on.
So that was my biggest colony, I have 2 hives left one pretty strong one, one slightly weaker one.
Pretty annoyed with myself. Not sure whether this was CCD Colony Colaps Disorder. or the bees Absconding, but this is what happened the year before last when my two hives got robbed and the last absconded, so why, what am I to learn from that?
The two hives that are left stil have the feeders from 17th of Sept. E had 12 kg C 5kg, they are taking the last syrup really slowly, and I am planning to give them any more after that, bees are coming back with dark orange and soft yellow pollen, the dark orange will be from the Crocuses they look amazing, two fields above the hives are full with them. They have reduces entrances and C has a little bit of moss stuck in the entrance as well to alow 1-2 bees to go through, Hive E had that as well – they took it of, C left it and so am I.