Advice on new swarm wanted.

[ladyrose1956]

I recently had two swarms checked the one this morning and they are doing well building combe in the brood and starting on the supper the second hive are just huddled in a corner of the brood box they have not started to build any comb in the brood box at all or start to lay i have a feeling that most of them have swarmed and took the queen should i get a new queen or wait to see what happens when the weather starts to warm up

 

[RoseCottage]

Hi,
Can you give a little more information on them, whether they were prime or caste swarms perhaps, when did you get them, what has happened since then, etc.

If you have a small swarm that is seemingly queenless has their behaviour changed? Are they tetchy, have you seen a queen, what are their living conditions? have you fed them at all? Have they drawn or undrawn foundation to work with?

All sorts of options from feeding (sugar syrup, pollen patty, etc), test frame, requeening, to combining with a stronger colony.

I guess more information will help a lot,
All the best,
Sam

 

[ladyrose1956]

Re swarm

The hive is new with new foundation the swarm when i had them was a fair size i have fed them with fondant but thet have not touched it at all they are just in a cluster in the bottom of the brood box i think they have swarmed a took the new queen with them becuse when i opened then this morning they didnt fly around at all so i was thinking of removing one or two frames from my good hive and placing then into the hive that is quit hoping they will rear a new queen from the larvey becuse i dont want to loose them perhaps this way it will jump them into action becuse at the moment they are not very active at all, i was not told if it was a cast swarm all i was told it was a swarm with a queen perhaps it didnt come with a queen if putting the frames dont work then i will re queen

 

[RoseCottage]

So have you actually seen the queen? I agree if you can pop In a test frame it should reveal whether there is one already present. If queen cells are present on the test frame this may allow you to recover the 'colony'. If they don't make much progress though you may choose to unite them and make one of your colonies stronger (you would need to be sure you were not transferring a queen to the bigger colony though).

All the best,
Sam