I am at the top of a developed sand dune in a coastal town of California. There is a fair amount of wildlife including skunks, possums, racoons. The hive was in a cosy corner off the front deck with a jasmine bush to one side and a tall lavender to the other. There were no ants and I did not see any evidence that the skunks had scratched or otherwise disturbed the hive. 
There are no rodents like mice, shrews and so forth in our property as we have 4 large and very active felines. There was no scat of any sort around or near the hive. No chewed up or mutilated bees, honey cells were capped, hive was intact. Honey that they left behind was silky and delicious. The beekeeper who has been advising me looked at the hive and could not say what had occurred except the bees had absconded. He said that several other members of the local beekeeping group had also had absconding and two weeks later he lost two hives. We do have skunks on the property but I didn't see any indication of that kind of predation. They absconded just after November 11th, Veteran's Day, there had been some skunk activity (we know from the smell) but the hive is close to our house and we didn't hear anything. However, there was a great disturbance caused by a water main breaking and the crews were in the street with lots of machinery and noise for over 16 hours.

Thanks so much for your insights.

Deborah Carol

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