>My best educated guess is that they are absconding swarms trying to get
away from intolerable varroa levels.
I share the same guess. I've observed this phenomenon with colonies
infested/infected with tracheal mite, nosema, varroa, or any other
problem. There is apparently some trigger that causes colonies to either
blame the queen, and thus produce supersedure cells (resulting sometimes in
small swarms), or to abscond completely. This would be an interesting
subject to pursue with research (lurker academics might suggest it to their
grad students).
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
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