Absconding vs. Colony Collapse Disorder

I find myself thinking about Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. Alexander is having such a bad time of it that he thinks throughout the book that he would like to move to Australia.

Although I imagine that Australian beekeepers have it pretty good - at least down there it's winter and if you are a beekeeper you are hoping your bees make it through the winter. Me, I'm struggling with my bees not making it through the summer.

So I came back from helping my brother in Natchez to find that Mellona was completely empty. The bees had absconded.

Beekeeping is an interesting challenge for me on so many levels. I have struggled all my life as an oldest child in my family, because I always feel like I have to get it right, make an A, follow the rules. Boy, beekeeping is really throwing a wrench into the works. I am forced as a beekeeper to face this "follow the rules and get it right" issue all the time.

So I switched hive positions, moving Mellona which was housed in three boxes - two 10 frame and one 8 frame - into the position of the Easter hive which had five ten frame boxes stacked. Mellona was then bursting out with bees at every possible opening, as the bees from the Easter hive returned to their old hive position.

But they hadn't used the frames in the top box so I didn't add a box. After all, the rule is to add a box when the box below is built out 80 %.

Also, I realized that they weren't solid with honey but didn't feed them because I thought they could manage with what is blooming now (although we are in a dearth). And I didn't want to feed sugar water before fall, if then, because it isn't natural.  And the rule is to feed the bees going into the fall, if you are going to feed them.  Not in the middle of the summer.

Well, pride goeth before a fall and all of that. Mellona absconded, leaving NOTHING behind. No bees, no brood, no honey, absolutely nothing.  A great lot of good it did for me to follow the rules so rigidly.

I sat down on my deck, smoker beside me, and cried. Why didn't I give them a box so they could spread out more? Why didn't I recognize that they needed food? Of course they've been gone for days and I have no clue where they went. There's no nectar anywhere in my neighborhood right now.

The pictures below show what they left - NOTHING.


Swarming:  A method of hive reproduction in which the queen and half of the bees in the hive leave to start a new hive, leaving behind the other half of the bees, queen cells, brood, honey, pollen

Absconding:  A desperate hive leaves with all the bees, the queen and everything else except the honeycomb. This happens when circumstances are not survivable in the hive as it is constituted.  The hive has no stores and no room.

Colony Collapse Disorder:  Adult bees are gone, but honey, pollen and some brood remain behind. The difference in absconding and CCD is that the honey, pollen and brood are left behind  Sometimes the queen and a handful of bees are left in the hive.  Opportunists (SHB and wax moths) seem slower to take over when CCD is the cause of the dead hive.
Robbing:  You can see dead bees and parts of bees on the tops of the frames and strewn all over the screened bottom board.  The edges of what had been capped honey are ripped, ragged and torn.  The hive may survive but the bees are disheartened and have no stores.

I remember last fall hearing a new beekeeper saying that she lost her first hive to colony collapse disorder. She didn't, I'm sure. I imagine she managed her hives as badly as I did this one and they absconded.

When bees leave at this time of year, that's what is going on. They have no stores and no hope because there's a dearth.  These bees were also bearding off of the hive in every single space - they didn't have enough room.  Then the bees leave because they have no hope of surviving in the hive as it is. They will probably die wherever they went, but they don't know anything else to do.

I am absolutely distressed.

See - completely empty comb. It hasn't been robbed out. You can tell because the edges of the comb are smooth - no torn and ripped wax. There just were no stores for these bees.  And not enough room.  Because the beekeeper was too rigid about following the rules.



The screened bottom board wasn't strewn with dead bodies (as it would be if the hive had been robbed out)  - just a little detrius from the hive.



I put the frames out on the deck to kill any wax moths who might feel inclined to take up residence.

 My dog Hannah is looking through the deck railing for the absconded hive.

And I am despondent.....it's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.