It is final. She’s gone. All of the activity that I saw happening in Ethel the last few weeks was just robbing by the other hives.
I took the top off and there were no bees (except for a few scavengers) in the frames and all the comb was clean of honey. I should have harvested when I could. It took a few months for all of the bees to die and then the robbers cleaned it out. I thought that there must have been a queen because there were so many bees, even if I didn’t see one.
If the weather is good this weekend I will break up the hive and clean out he dead bees.
Technically I should not reuse any of the hive parts, but my other bees have been all through it cleaning out the honey, so if the other other hives survive, then the hive should be safe for a new package in the spring.
