I was injured and unable to take care of the bee hive in any way for about 3 months during the heat of the summer. The bee are gone. Could it be due to overheating. I will try again next spring, and want to keep the bees happy. Any suggestions welcome.
Hey Brad, sorry you were injured & hope all’s well now. Do you know roughly when the bees left the building? And, whereabouts do you live? Could be they swarmed, which is just normal reproduction & can be prevented (meaning you get to keep the swarm) with careful monitoring & specific interventions - impossible to do in your situation, but here’s hoping they’re alive & well in some tree hollow down the street! Hope you try again in 2017 
I live by Nolin lake in KY. I had a bad fall and tore my rt knee ligaments . They had to surgically re-attatch them. I’m getting much better now. Evan when they swarm don’t some of the bees stay? I’m new to beekepping, but learn fast.
THANKS
Sorry about your injury.
So you got bees in July? That is too late in my opinion. Start looking asap for a package or nucleus colony for an April/May delivery.
They’ll do much better.
A swarm in May is worth a load of hay.
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon.
A swarm in July ain’t worth a fly.
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Wow, sounds painful! But now you have a built-in weather report 
Broke my wrist to pieces & now I always know when rain or snow is coming.
Hmm, well you’re right about some staying behind with a swarm. I’m only a newbee myself & my next guess would be that they left because you didn’t have & couldn’t replenish a nearby water source because of being laid up…but you live in Nolin Lake! Does that mean you’re near a real lake?
Just saw RHCP’s reply & he knows his bee stuff. Listen to him 
That is usually true if they get overcrowded, or if they are a package with not much invested in your location. However, even if they are a nucleus, and then get overwhelmed with wasps/yellow jackets/aggressive ants, they may abscond with no signs of swarm preparation. I am speaking from personal experience… 
Hope things go better for you next year 
Yes bees that don’t like where they live and find life hard will abscond as a last resort in an effort to survive
I wrote an article on this you might find helpful: http://beekeepinglikeagirl.com/why-did-my-bees-leave/