Well, i lost everything. there was a barrage of invaders:
- small hive beetles: I put 2 beetle traps, it took a week or so, but they started falling for it and beetle population seemed to be under control
- ants: I put ant traps outside the hive and 1 on the very top, above the lid. i also scattered granules on the ground around the stones which the hive sits on. ants went away within 1 day
- wax moths: I did not realize it at the time, but I had an infestation of wax moths. It seems like they laid eggs in the comb, because of a weird pattern in the comb. i discovered a huge blob of worms at the base, I took everything out of the hive, cleaned it completely, and put the bees back in. Within 2 days there were worms on the bottom board again, so I started emptying the bottom board every single day for 1 week.
After checking on the bees on Tuesday, I went on Wednesday and every single bee was gone. It seems that they evacuated the hive, it is a complete ghost town, because the moth eggs hatched and there are big worms in the comb now (previously they were only on the bottom board). It has disgusting cotton-like web all over it and looks like from a horror movie.
Should I rip out everything from the hive, web, wax, and whatever else, burn it all, and hang up my hat? This was really devastating to me, and I don’t feel like I want to do anything now.
Is there any chance whatsoever that they bees will come back to a clean hive? I saw another post where someone said their bees went back (however, not the same situation that I am in): Bees coming back to old hive location
The comb is irrecoverable, so even if they came back, they would be started from absolutely nothing, which is even worse than starting with 5 frames in an 8-frame hive.