Inspecting a double brood box national hive last week I found two queen cups with eggs ( so much for my swarm prevention). Decided to put the marked clipped productive 2nd year Q (present at a previous inspection) into a nuc as my swarm control. Two searches then failed to find the queen. Went for the usual cup of tea to consider and decided to split the hive and look again for Q the following day. The search again failed to find Q.
In the garden later in the day a swarm occupied a bait box (old national with a frame of old drawn comb). It was still there in the late evening. Next day afternoon it had absconded.
The following day during another search for the elusive Q in the double box split I found an unmarked, unclipped Q in one of the split boxes and a lot of eggs in worker cells. In the other split box there were Q cups with eggs. My conclusion was that the bait hive swarm had absconded to this box.
Is it known for a swarm to do this?
In the garden later in the day a swarm occupied a bait box (old national with a frame of old drawn comb). It was still there in the late evening. Next day afternoon it had absconded.
The following day during another search for the elusive Q in the double box split I found an unmarked, unclipped Q in one of the split boxes and a lot of eggs in worker cells. In the other split box there were Q cups with eggs. My conclusion was that the bait hive swarm had absconded to this box.
Is it known for a swarm to do this?
