Our bees are totally gone. They left some honey in the flow super which I drained mostly. What steps do I need to take before introducing a new colony?
Do a thourough inspection, take pics and post on here. For all your bees to have gone you might have an underlying issue so the inspection and assessment is the best idea I can provide but pictures of frames, comb, inside of hive, floor board will help for more advice.
I lost one of two hives over winter and have cleaned the full hive fully, flamed the wood inside, resealed outside and replaced all the brood frames with new.
Thanks for the quick response. Here are some pictures. I am new to bees and know very little. The frames in the brood box look very dark, but there were only a couple dead bees and a couple roaches. The frames in the flowhive box look normal. Appreciate any feedback. Mostly concerned about how to prepare for new nuc if I can still get one.
As your beginning in bee keeping my advice is to find an experienced bee keeper and have them look thru the hive for any issue to work out why the colony absconded. I donât know your climate but guessing your coming into Spring and maybe the swarming season but Iâm not suspecting the absconding is a result of the weather.
If the hive has a health issue just adding a new nuc colony could lead to you loosing them too.
Cheers
Hi @jjandjoj.
I think general clean up would be a good idea while you have this opportunity.
Remove old comb from frames. It looks quite dark to be useful for another season or two.
Drain honey from flow frames and clean them. Pressure washer is a good help in such situations.
Soak all cleaned frames in bleach solution 1 cup (8oz) of bleach per gallon of water for 5 minutes.
Wash hive itself with the same ratio bleach solution but add detergent to it as a wetting agent. 1 tea spoon per half a gallon would be sufficient. Let it stay wet for 5 minutes.
Rinse everything well with water and let it dry.
Use required PPE during the process of course.
Not sure if you want use this opportunity to sand and paint hive outside for preservation and aesthetic reasons.
From your pictures I would guess that ROBBING might be the cause and the bees have been stressed and left for a new home the clean patchy brood comb is why I say that but just my thoughts.
How often were you inspecting?
Mystery now so itâs a good old clean up. The dark brood frames how old are they. Dark brood isnât an issue itâs mainly due to the higher activity and debri. I would replace the patchy ones though.
Flow frames up to you looking at them id keep them as they are and add to the new colony the bees will clean it up and draining you might have a higher water content as only parcialy capped.
Petes advice of a mentor or local club for help is really the best advice.
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Not sure if this relates, but my first season I had a very strong hive get really mean in early fall. Following spring the hive appeared empty so I thought they had absconded. My mentor inspected and said the mean temper was probably frustration with mites, and they probably kept trying new queens (she always gets blamed) but because of the late season, they couldnât replenish. The few dead bees we found had deformed wings. So the biggest factor was I hadnât treated strongly enough or repeatedly to get rid of Varroa. (So even if queen could have mated, the Varroa burdened them too much.)
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Do you have a Varroa plan for this year? If not, I highly recommend Randy Oliverâs cellulose sponge method. Very low effort. @Eva is not too far from you, and she uses it too.
Welcome to the Flow forum, by the way! 
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Welcome Jeanne! Sorry about your colony. Same thing happened to me in my first year. I recommend the OA sponges highly, at least so far - I put them in each of my four hives this past late spring and all four are still kicking. When I did my finally inspection last fall the sponges were almost all chewed away. @Doug1 uses them too, and does a supplemental treatment he would best explain.
As for Philly being ânot far awayâ from The Burgh - my pal Dawn thinks that just because the Golden State represents almost the entire west coast, everyoneâs neighbors here in PA 
But, then again, perhaps we are!
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Thank you for the reply. I was hesitant but will certainly use OA!
If you want to use the sponges, I have a couple of suggestions.
- I bought the glycerine and sponges needed for it from Amazon and the Oxalic Acid from Home Depot (Savogran Wood Bleach is high purity OA and much cheaper than beekeeping suppliers OA).
- I cut the sponges in half to make it easier to position them in the hive
- Randy tells you to dissolve the OA in the glycerine in a small saucepan over low heat. As you donât want the solution to get above 70°C, I didnât do that. I used a kitchen scale to weigh out 40g of OA and 50g (= 40ml) glycerine into a small mason jar. I put the lid on and left it in a bowl of tap-hot water (not boiling, just sitting on the counter), swirling from time to time. It dissolved within a few minutes
- I put the sponges into a gallon Ziploc bag and poured the warm solution onto them. I sealed the bag and left them lying flat to soak up the liquid for an hour or two
- I used nitrile gloves over my beekeeping gloves to protect them from the strong acid solution when I put the sponges into the hives
Sounds complicated, but it really isnât. I love the method, it works brilliantly and you can safely use it during a nectar flow. 
As for @Evaâs distance perception, I personally think that 30 miles or so counts as ânot too farâ. Just as Lemon Grove is ânot too farâ from Point Loma! Maybe I should have used Evaâs phrase âyour neck of the woodsâ instead?? Still love ya, @Eva! 
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There are two sources that I have a lot of respect for when it comes to varroa mite treatments:
-
Randy Oliver - Extended-Release Oxalic Acid Progress Report #5 - 2019 - Scientific Beekeeping
-
Miller Compound HoneyBees and Agriculture - Home | Facebook This Washington State queen rearer (and veterinarian) uses the same mite treatment combo as I do. She also has a lot of other very good adviceâŚjust go back in her posts.
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Did you notice that those cellulose sponges felt damp and oily or soapy? Did you rinse and/or dry them before saturating with OA glycerin solution?
I did notice that, yes. I presume it is some kind of surfactant or wetting agent. I did not rinse it out, as Randyâs method didnât say to do so. They worked really well, and didnât seem to be problematic or toxic for the bees. 
I guess you cold rinse and dry them first, and that might be optimal, but I didnât
I did rinse - x2 in tap and then a final rinse in RO water then dried at 80°C until they were dry to the touch but still flexible enough to roll and put through the mouth of a ball jar with the OA solution.
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Did they foam when you rinsed? I guess it wouldnât matter too much whether they were completely dry, as I believe that glycerin is somewhat hygroscopic anyway, so the sponges would be expected to absorb some water over time in the hiveâŚ
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No foaming. But the water was distinctly cloudy after rinsing.
I donât think it matters either. In order to get them into my jar without breaking them, they needed to be flexible. They are much more flexible when slightly damp and seem to come in air-tight wrapping when purchased. Much like a regular cellulose sponge is very hard when dry but very flexible when even slightly damp.
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