Absconding

Definition

In absconding the entire colony departs — queen, workers, brood abandoned — usually in response to disturbance, starvation, heavy parasite load, overheating or persistent robbing. Nothing is left behind to raise a new queen. It is far more common in tropically adapted honey bees, including African subspecies and Africanized populations in the Americas, where a mobile strategy suits a landscape whose forage moves.

Where the word gets used loosely

Regularly reported as swarming, which it is not. A swarm is reproduction and leaves a functioning colony behind with brood and queen cells; absconding is retreat and leaves an empty box. The distinction matters because the causes and the beekeeper's response are entirely different.

Guide records that discuss this

• How traditional harvesting differs from modern beekeepingNot a before and after. Wild harvesting, provided cavities, fixed-comb hives and frame hives are points on a gradient of how much a person controls, and most of the world's beekeeping sits somewhere in the middle of it.