Swarm Trap deadout/abscond

[Occam]

A few weeks ago I posted in another thread about bees moving in to a swarm trap I had placed at my parents house. All frames were foundationless, the bees were very active for about 3 weeks inspecting before moving in and have been active since. My parents went out of town last Wednesday and the bees had been busy going in and out, all seemed normal.

Today when they looked at it there was no activity at the hive which they alerted me to. I stopped on my way home and sure enough, no bees. I opened the top and could see bees in the bottom of the box. I also found a fair amount of wax moth larvae crawling around. I had brushed melted wax inside on the walls, I assume that was the attractant there.

I found one very small bit of comb being started, only a couple inches. There did appear possibly to have been a bit more started on some starter strips but if so there was only faint crumbles, and the weren't on an adjacent frame to the new wax. There were dead bees in the box but not a full swarm and no queen that I could identify. I suspect a poison situation followed by an abscond when the wax moths got too strong. Any other theories out there? Here are the pictures I took.

[Ben Framed]

Occam
Im sorry you lost your hive. Usually wax moth larva are not a problem in my area until the hot Sumner and Fall. Even then with plenty of bees they are not a problem then. (SHB is another issue.)
Even though the picture was not clear there seemed to be a good bit of dead bees in your box. Neither SHB or Wax moth larva should kill the bees.

[Occam]

Yeah, the moths wouldn't have been the cause of the dead bees. I think the neighbor behind my parents got nervous and used a pesticide or they found a pesticide somewhere. It's nowhere close to the whole swarm that moved in so either some died outside the box, the remaining bees absconded when the wax moths started to multiply and they couldn't keep on top of them anymore, or both. My theory at least

[beesnweeds]

Any other theories out there?

When you catch a swarm its best to hive the bees as soon as possible and start feeding.  The photo of the little piece of comb tells me they didnt have full honey stomachs and probably a smaller secondary swarm with a virgin queen.  If the queen doesnt make it back from a mating flight the population will crash, some of the bees may have made their way back to the original colony or just starved. 

[Occam]

Thanks for that! Sounds like a reasonable theory, I appreciate it

[BeeMaster2]

Occam,
I just inspected a swarm trap that I had filled with old comb to see how it would work out. The wax moths moved in before the swarm and they had filled in most of the space between the top boards with moth cocoons. I left the bees in there for over a month. They started dropping Greater Max moth larvae  out the front door. By the time I got in the hive only the cocoons in really tight spots were still in the hive. I did find a lot of old wax the bees would not use that I replaced.
Jim Altmiller