Aborted Swarm from a Warre Hive?

[Coldwater]

Looking after a Warre hive for a friend and my wife sent me these pictures today...

Lots of bees clustering on the front of the hive, and within about 30 minutes, they had settled down into two quite big cludters, one no the front of the hive and one under the hive. I left work to go and knock them into another (national framed hive) but by the time I got there, the cluster on the front had gone (I think they aborted and went back into the hive) and the cluster on under the hive had shrunk and was getting smaller (see final pic).

If it was an abortive swarm, presumably they will have another try in the next few days (the queen is not clipped)?

What would be your bet, will they go tomorrow (weather looking dry but overcast and warm-ish) or one of the other days. I can maybe work from home on one day this week but not more.... Tricky.

Or does anyone have any other ideas? I dont have a spare Warre hive, so an artificial swarm will be tricky.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Maybe a non-starter, but you could try a Taranov split. Information on Dave Cushman's site as well as on several blogs, google will find them for you.

The flyers will return to the original location, where they will (should) make a new queen. You can then put the queen and her entourage into another type of box.

 

[Coldwater]

Thanks for that suggestion, it looks an interesting idea. As it was, the cluster under the hive reduce a little but was still determinedly staying there and looked like they had no plans for going back into the hive. I was planning on nadiring the main hive to give them a little more room anyway, so I took the opporunity to shake the cluster and a few bees from the hive into a 7 frame 14x12 bait hive I had nearby. I put a QE across the entrance and left them to it.
My thinking is - if there queen is with the cluster, they will stay in the bait hive (chances of absconding reduced by QE over the entrance) and if they are looking good in a couple of days I will feed them and see if I can bring them on as a colony. If there is no queen in there, the flying bees will all return to the parent hive and any non flying bees that I shook in can be returned to the parent hive today.

I'll just need to keep a look out today and see if the swarm emerges again....