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A small torch helps too! I'm not as good a spotting eggs as I used to be (I wonder why? 🤔) but a torch helps especially in dark comb. Also much easier to see that there are eggs than to see there aren't! I keep meaning to try my UV torch but I've mislaid it.

Just wondering how you got on with the suit, I could do with something better than my very cheap one

They must be really old bees then! 😂

Ooh - where can I get one? 😁 Mine go for flying pigeons

I'm just thinking out loud here so take it all with a pinch of salt & check my thinking! If you have eggs then the queen has been there recently. However don't underestimate how busy a hive can look after swarming! As to the hive (is it your only one?), you could buy a couple of queens, then...

Though sounds like they need a new queen anyway!

Hmm, could you have missed a swarm and they are requeening? If so you should go through them and reduce to one cell, though I'm aware this is not a welcome prospect!

Is this the only time they have been defensive? If so maybe look for other reasons like end of a flow. Do you have any other hives of friendlier bees you could use to requeen them?

You could do a vertical split so it is still "one hive" and reunite once they have got over it.

Or you could use a frame with one of the EQCs the nice hive deprived of their queen will make to requeen it, that way you have 3 colonies with her nice genes!

I often put a veil on but they usually ignore me anyway.

A "step up" platform (sold at DIY shops) long enough to accommodate you and with space to put a super down makes it easier.

I have seen a "uniting board" for sale - bee proof mesh with a very small patch of queen excluder in one corner.

Maybe a single screen would be better? Stop fighting but let trophylaxis and colony scent mix.

So far I haven't tried a demaree. Have split (or collected the swarm!), or nuced the queen, and tried to unite after. Downside of spring unites is dealing with the 3x brood box hives! Trying a reverse a/s under a split board currently!

I had a swarm go on queen "cups" charged with just an egg. However there were very extenuating circumstances!!

Not necessarily, you can shake eg 3 frames onto the rest of the waiting frames then put them under the qe

Not that reassuring as I haven't used this method before! 😁

The sieving works better if you can place a few frames of open brood (minus bees) under the excluder. I've found them nigh on impossible to smoke down otherwise.

What you are doing is essentially the same as what I am doing - leave the queen with the brood but bleed off the flying bees who drive swarming. What I've read says they will take down all the QCs but I did it anyway. The flying bees on the old site should make QCs (though maybe not good ones)...