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Thanks, Malone.

I've found the letter to change (I think), but still don't have the three-word thematic phrase.

Ok ok I give up! I’m pretty happy with the grid fill (although my parsing for 32A has a slight question mark)

I’ve read through the various hints but still can’t get this so if anyone would be kind enough to give a more direct hint for the phrase or the word that would be much appreciated.

I was thinking I was looking for the name of a group of the disappearing things but can’t see the obvious word for that or what the phrase would be.

Put the title into an anagram solver and you get 2 words {6,8]

Put those words into google and one of the suggestions is the full phrase

Where that gets you is anyone's guess.

what happens when your 6,8 .... the ..... leave

...yes but for me they left about 6 hours before the phrase revealed itself - and I doubt I'm alone.

CD: look up the Latin for the disappearing thing. This appears in the grid as part of an entry, with one letter wrong. Change that letter and you get your Latin word as part of a new entry which is real word, as is the new entry with which it intersects. Tatters and Kirky should see you home with the phrase.

candledave, if you check Chambers for the 5 letter word that means 'relating to....' you'll see the 4 letter word in that entry (etymology).

Tatters, you're certainly not alone. If it weren't for your original suggestion, confirmed by Drxx, I'd be banging the walls of a padded cell by now!

Thanks tatters, don’t think I was ever going to get that phrase from the title. I was thinking about the right “thing” but couldn’t get climate change type stuff out of my head as the reason for all the little things disappearing.

So thanks. Not sure whether that gets me much further forward though although guess I know the letters from which the word comes from so I can stop looking for “hive”!