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.
My beekeeping supplier set me up with a sugar powder mixed with an AFB treatment to do this fall. I hadn't read this in my books but apparently the fall when robbing happens a lot is when AFB is most often picked up and spread around.
I'm so sorry to hear of poor Ethel not making it. She really did struggle all summer to make a comeback. Let's hope her robbed honey is in your other hive and giving those bees the winter feed that they'll need.