I am unsure what happened with my hive. I started over this year with bees and decided to go foundationless with 8 frame mediums and do a top entrance. I installed my 3lb package around 2 months ago. I checked them 1 month ago and they were doing great, building lots of comb, very active and taking lots of sugar syrup. I stopped feeding them sugar syrup when the berries began to bloom since they had a half a box of comb built (was that a mistake?)
I just went and checked them today I had been meaning to for a couple weeks but we have had lots of rain. And it looks like we had an abscond? I don't know what went wrong, but I would say there are hundreds if that bees left and the majority are gone. :? I did notice some ants around the hive, and when I pulled the bottom entrance guard off there were very few dead bees there, but there was some yellow powder there? could that just be pollen? I don't see any signs of disease or anything. I think they just up and left. Is there anything I may have done wrong to cause this? is there any saving the remaining bees if I get a new queen?
- Tara