a Mr Stone snip..
'I've always been perplexed with the behavioral mechanism of an established colony absconding. I began beekeeping in 1965 and have often posed the question to others, "Have you ever witnessed an established hive absconding event, observed bees departing as a mass event and followed up confirming no swarm preparation in the hive?" " Did they cluster as in a swarm - simply fly away into the sunset?  I'm still searching - any takers ?'

my comments...
I likely witnessed my first absconding event about the time you stated that you started keeping bees.  Since then I have seen similar events perhaps half a dozen times.  The 'event' looks much like a typical swarming event although the bees in 'the swarm' do not produce exactly the same sound and their initial flying patter doesn't look like a replication swarm < looks and sounds much more frantic.  Another distinction is that all the adult bees did not land near by to reorganize as I see most replication swarms do.  All were produced by a predator (ant or wax moth) that gained a foot hold in the bottom box of the hive and after what appear some effort to rid the box of these that failed then the adult bees absconded.  In all cases some small amount of sealed brood and some small quantity of honey was left behind.

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