The situation involves a newly installed colony, installed about four or five days.  The queen was observed and marked.  The colony of bees was installed in a ten frame deep with all foundation and fed sugar syrup.  Location of the hive is about 90 miles north of Mobile, Alabama.  Weather was moderate - 40's to 60's.  The bees had started drawing some comb and were covering two complete frames plus part of a third.

As an assist, a frame of dark, old drawn comb and a frame of brood was installed about five days after the bees were installed in the colony.  The old drawn comb came, as far as I know, from a healthy colony since I had no deadouts over the winter.  More sugar syrup was added.  The queen had been marked a day before the installation of the two new frames.  The day after the new frames were added, the bees had absconded.  There was moderate nectar flow and plenty of pollen available.

QUERY:  What are the thoughts about what precipitated the absconding?  My thinking is that it was something present in the old comb, meaning that I need to replace the comb in the other old combs that I have and probably use a Clorox solution on the frames. 

Mike in LA



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