Location is 1/2 way between Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama.

A two deep body hive was active a week ago the owner says.  Found it as a dead out this morning.  Going through it I found some very unusual signs.  There was about 40 to 50 pounds of capped honey in the top hive body.  There was capped honey on the outer, upper corners of the outer three frames, total of six frames, in the bottom hive body.  There was NO uncapped honey in any of the frames.  

The hive was completely devoid of any live bees.  There were about 50 or so dead bees on the screened bottom board.  In the back corner of the bottom board and on the side towards the sun (south) was a pile of dead hive beetles.  The hive is one of ten or so active hives in the bee yard.  There was one recently opened queen cell in the supercedure position at the top of a frame in the bottom hive body.  There was an indication that the bees had started to tear it down but then had stopped when they had gotten the bottom of the cell containing the flap of cell and cocoon taken down.  There was no indication of robbing going on at all and no indication that activity was taking place by either wax moths or hive beetles.  As mentioned earlier, there was a pile of dead hive beetles in one corner of the hive on the screened bottom board.

I have advised the owner to freeze the frames, both those with capped honey and those that are empty and to treat them as highly contaminated until we can determine what has been going on.  I also told him to boil the hive tool we used in breaking down the hive in water for 1/2 hour.  I have bagged all the dead bees we found on the bottom board and in a separate bag have bagged all the dead hive beetles we could pick up.  I also bagged propolis that I have scraped from the sides of the hive bodies.  I thought I would box up the samples and send them to Beltsville Bee Lab for analysis.

Anybody have any ideas or conjectures?   Any recommendations as to any other procedures to follow.

Mike in LA

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