When doing the cutout had noticed quite a few SHB in amongst the combs. When putting brood etc into the frames and box, decided to put in an Apithor trap hoping to eliminate them.
Well to my disappointment, the owner of the property who was hoping to keep the hive and build them up, called me and said the bees are pretty much all gone, there is a terrible smell in the hive and it is full of larvae!!! There must have been a lot of SMB eggs and the disruption weakened the bees defenses and they gave up. What a pity! Another victim of SHB. One concellation is that he managed to get at least 20kg of lovely honey in comb.