Colony swarmed twice!!!!

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Busy Bee

House Bee
Joined
Mar 1, 2009
Messages
465
Reaction score
15
Location
N. Ireland
Hive Type
National
Hi All, Chain of events could you's give me your opinions please.

*Hive swarmed, lost old queen and bees
*Found Virgin queen in grass
*Removed all queen cells , everyone
*Put Virgin into BB
*4 days later Virgin swarmed and is in new hive
*Checked hive continuously for eggs
*Put a frame of eggs into hive
*2 days later another swarm and in new hive not looked at yet (yesterday) when this swarm was leaving for the gorse the bees on the old site was fanning the air out on the landing board as if calling back the queen, is this normal when a hive swarms.
*Today (day 4 after eggs on frame) 5 queen cells-4 now broken down.

Can't work this out.

Anyway can I re unite the two swarms with the original colony and if so how do you propose to carry this out. Or can I leave well alone and let the virgins queens mate and have increased stock. Or can I take 1 swarm (ensuring queen has mated) and re-unite with a queenless colony on an out apiary.

Regards

Busy Bee:ack2:
 
I had a similar problem. I hived the swarm in a brood chamber and left them 24 hours.

I went through the old hive and removed 3 queen cells (put them in mating apideas with some nurse bees). I went through the hive to try and find a queen. None was found, but if she had of been I would have squashed her or moved her to apidea. I then put the brood chambers back together. This was within 24hours of the hive swarming. Any longer than that I would have used news paper as an extra precaution.

That was 2 weeks ago and up to press they are working fine.
 

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