Hi Dan We try to select against the absconding tendency in producing pedigree scuts. If you take wild scuts as a baseline, they can also be managed to reduce or minimise absconding. Absconding is normally triggered by continual extreme cold or heat, an end to a flow (especially a mono-flow, for example, sunflowers), or a bad outbreak of some pest or disease, such as chalkbrood. In other words, you need to place hives to neutralise temperature extremes, and move hives at the right time. I've often heard it said that in beekeeping, timing is everything. Also, you need to use good solid wooden Langstroth hives, regulate the entrance width to the hive, and consciously leave a honey super with the bees when you sense conditions may toughen up. Most of this is standard beekeeping practice? It's interesting that when wild scuts abscond, they take the easiest route. This past winter I saw smaller colonies in an apiary simply join other, bigger colonies. These giant colonies would then have sufficient bees to generate lots of heat, and field plenty of foragers, when flying was possible. The absconding colonies left everything behind - brood, pollen and honey. And, of course, queens were sacrificed. I guess the outcome of this process would be that when conditions improved, such giant colonies could produce swarm after swarm, giving more overall bees than if the smaller colonies had not absconded in the first place. This is a kind of “sum of the parts” logic. Barry in Kyalami