Conumdrum- queen and capped QCs present

[subbuteo]

Just checked my hives on the rape. They were inspected same time last week and were in a good state, eggs, larvae and room to expand. Found the queen, couple of frames in the brood box yet to be drawn out so,I closed up and left them alone. Obviously a mistake- as this evening there were around nine capped queen cells on three different frames, I would say supersedure cells- all were mid frame surrounded by brood. The queen was still there though- but no eggs were present.

Needless to say, I will be down sharpish tomorrow morning to do an artificial swarm. I am considering splitting the whole hive into three and making up nucs as well.

Anyway, my question- what the hell were they thinking?! We had a hot sunny day here, first of the year. Why didn't they swarm? It was windy- 20-25mph- so that may have put them off.

I am fully expecting a swarm tomorrow if the wind dies down (or even if it doesn't). What would you do in this case?

 

[Poly Hive]

If it helps I had, have a very similar situation today and I had them lined up for cell starting...

On a double brood box they had 9+ cells some of which were fused together just to be awkward,

I took three nucs off them, bless them, and put in 10 grafts. We shall see....

PH