Bees hell-bent on swarming

[Abbee]

Hello
Back in April we carried out an artificial swarm. Hive no2 (new location with old hive) is thriving with their new queen.
Hive no1, new hive and old queen (her 2nd year) was fine for over a month. Lots of brood, lots of honey stores. Then we noticed a couple of weeks ago new capped queen cells. On advice we removed the queen (into a nuc box) and destroyed all but 3 queen cells.
On Monday there was a small swarm into next door's garden. We got a spare brood box and collected them. (mini hive no3) On inspecting hive no1(not2), found that one of the 3 queen cells had hatched.
We thought that without a queen in the hive, when a new queen emerged she would stay put but that didn't seem to be the case.
So to safe guard this happening again with the remaining 2 queen cells, we put a queen excluder in the bottom of the hive, we also put another brood box with just foundation. But then yesterday a huge swarm went to another neighbour’s garden but then after a while all flew back to the hive. On inspection the 2 queen cells were still un-hatched. So we figure they swarmed but realised there was no queen, so came back?
Today another swarm into yet another neighbour’s garden!
On inspection one of the queen cells has indeed hatched. But again after a couple of hours, the swarm hasn't settled and as I'm writing this it looks like they are all coming back. The queen excluder is still in the bottom so maybe she didn't get out with the swarm.
Also we found apart from 1 remaining capped queen cell there are a few supercedure cells everywhere.
Can anyone explain what is happening to this hive and what we can do about this situation now? We know that when bees are set to swarm nothing will stop that but you can take steps to fool them into thinking that a swarm has taken place which is what we thought we did by removing the old queen.
Any advice please asap before the neighbours start complaining!

 

[Swarm]

The old queen was in no1 and no2 had a new queen but then you say hive no2 had cells. Typo?
Have you checked the old queen is still where you put her?

It appears your AS did not suppress their swarming, sometimes it won't, I've heard of prime swarms building queen cells immediately after being hived, this year. Those supersedure cells are just more swarm cells and the excluder underneath is not an ideal situation (IMO)
If it were me, I'd go through and break down any queen cell they have left on the premise that there is a Virgin present and see what they do next. You have the old queen and the other one so you still have options to unite.

 

[itma]

Lots of misapprehensions there I'm afraid.

Beginning with the advice to "leave 3 QCs".
No.
Normally leave one chosen open one. Chosen because it is well-filled with Royal Jelly. Open so you can see it is healthy pearly white looking.
No open QCs? Leave 2 sealed ones, chosen to be similar size and appearance (equally ripe), and close together in the hive.
Only one hive? No fallback source of other eggs/brood for a second chance? (Or more concerned about getting a new Q than preventing cast swarms?) Then leave 2, chosen, nearby, open cells.
No need more than 2.
Why similar 'ripeness' and neighbouring if leaving 2? So that if they both produce a viable Q, they will do so almost simultaneously, and you are maximising the opportunity for one to deal with the other without causing you problems.

Putting an excluder under is also totally wrong here (and nearly always).

Those other cells are not supercedure cells. There isn't a Q to be superceded. They are emergency cells.

Best advice is to start by (re)reading the Welsh Queen Cells leaflet.
Added - LINK - http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28463

 

[Tomo]

Great advice ITMA. I printed off the leaflet that you suggested at the start of the year and use it as my Queen Cell Bible. Knowledge dispels all (or rather most ) fear

 

[Abbee]

Thank you for the advice.
Mystery solved. Turns out we had some other queen cells in the middle of some frames!! We totally missed those as they were totally covered by bees, there were a lot of bees and we're newbies. So upon that discovery we then set about looking for the other hatched QCs and queens and found 3!! No wonder they wanted to swarm
Although it's not a good idea to put the queen excluder at the bottom, we're glad we did because once the swarms had gone (could have been 3) we would have never known the cause. Well maybe when the hive was empty we would have discovered those rogue queen cells but this way hopefully we've rectified the situation.

Anyhow we now have only one virgin queen in the hive, we've said goodbye to our old queen in the nuc and are going to replace her with a new queen) and we're keeping the 3rd in another nuc with some bees and will contact the local BKA to see if anyone needs 2 queens.
What a day! Today it's raining so hopefully the hive1 will settle down now.

 

[beeno]

Well done Abbee. Good to hear that they did not hop it as soon as you opened the hive! Hopefully, if you get through the weekend that will be it. Lots of luck.

 

[Swarm]

Make a note, if queen cells seen you need to choose one and then shake the bees off every other frame.

 

[Fatbee]

Thank you for the advice.
Mystery solved. Turns out we had some other queen cells in the middle of some frames!! We totally missed those as they were totally covered by bees, there were a lot of bees and we're newbies. So upon that discovery we then set about looking for the other hatched QCs and queens and found 3!! No wonder they wanted to swarm
Although it's not a good idea to put the queen excluder at the bottom, we're glad we did because once the swarms had gone (could have been 3) we would have never known the cause. Well maybe when the hive was empty we would have discovered those rogue queen cells but this way hopefully we've rectified the situation.

Anyhow we now have only one virgin queen in the hive, we've said goodbye to our old queen in the nuc and are going to replace her with a new queen) and we're keeping the 3rd in another nuc with some bees and will contact the local BKA to see if anyone needs 2 queens.
What a day! Today it's raining so hopefully the hive1 will settle down now.

Make sure you remove that queen excluder because if you have a virgin queen in there she will remain a virgin...

 

[dn170221]

Thanks for sharing your story.
Those queen cells can be hiding anywhere especially in frames where the foundation has been chewed away towards the bottom.
As above if you see one queen cell it may be worthwhile shaking all frames to look for more even if it means going back to frames you had already looked at!
Although don't shake but brush on frames that have a queen cell you are thinking of keeping.
If shaking lots of frames I sometimes spray the bees with a little water or light syrup which keeps them down a bit!

 

[Abbee]

Yeay! Harmony seems to have been restored since clearing out all the extra bees. We did remove the queen excluder as soon as we were all done.
Got to tell you we wouldn't have managed to do it on our own without the knowledge and expertise of a member of our local BKA who is also the bee swarm catcher in this area. He came over and it was with his help that we were able to manage this. He knew exactly what to do.
Now I realise what was meant by shaking the frames. He put a board leaning from the entrance to the floor creating a slope we put a white sheet over the board and ground. Then he set about taking every frame, looking for queens, (removing them if there was one) then shaking each frame over the sheet. It was amazing that they didn't fly off but just started walking up the board in a mass towards the entrance. Like in a trance. Then of course it was so easy to see the mysterious queen cells that we couldn't see before. It was such a great master class.
In less than an hour and a half they were all back in (with only one queen!)
We learned so much that day and from the advice here.
Thanks

 

[beeno]

I am soo pleased for you. Thanks for posting how it was done it will come in handy for a lot of people on this forum.