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I had two bait hives on my garage roof, one Pains with eke and a home made wooden 5 frame nuc. They chose the 5 frame one!

4 overwintered hives up to 7. Have also caught a swarm in a bait hive. Hoping to unite some at the end of the month to get the numbers down again.

maybe they were calm because you gave them a bit of smoke!

I am assuming you have the QE on try and encourage them to stay? If she is not mated I think I would give them a frame of brood to try and anchor them and not go anywhere near them with a QE, she needs to get out and mate!

A frame with eggs might give an indication if they draw queen cells!

She flies mates on the wing.

That was on my list of possibilities. A few months ago I noticed a nice thick piece of plycarb lying in a ditch. It was there for about a week so I acquired it, I couldn't work out where it came from. About a week later I saw a guy working on a bus shelter about 30m away replacing one of the...

Nice board Pargyle, what did you use for the rim for the bee space, and how did you attach it?

" was thinking of making a few nucs with the QCs because don't really know what else to do because if I leave it any longer, the boxes will be empty after all the castes have absconded. " Sometimes it feels like you use the advice given here as a pick and mix but do whatever you fancy, THEN you...

Did you use a lure ;)

My kids would love that ( I do secretly as well)

I would choose option3 An artificial swarm. In my view, once they start making preparations to swarm they don't stop!

Not sure if is drone "culling" but I have one hive in particular that draws comb below the brood frames in the lower box. I let them seal about 4 frames worth. Found one or two out of all those I opened with some Varroa. Have a good photo somewhere, I will post if I find it.

The mesh was too wide, Ts sent a replacement all good now.

Does it flatten out if you put a brood box and roof on top? Otherwise try wedging them apart. (have made this mistake myself and forcing apart worked)

After the inital pain I would get some itchiness the next day. I have absolutely no advice I can give you need to stick to your doctors advice would be my 2p.

When you say the start of queen cells, could you describe exactly what you saw? They may be queen cups which aren't so much a concern especially if they have no eggs.

Some good info here: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/excludertypes.html

If you don't want the third colony you could give them away. "I installed an overwintered nuc of dark bees three weeks ago." were you feeding them? Seems like a quick swarm.

Is a "trap out" out of the question?