Did I miss her?

[Gardenshed37]

I rehived a swarm about 4 weeks ago , I was fairly certain at the time that I didn’t have the Queen as I saw her flying away!, left them for a week and then added a frame of brood and eggs from the adjacent hive, since then they have been very “stingy”, they swarmed again today although the brood box is only half full of bees, did a check and there is a sealed Queen cell, no eggs or brood, question is did I miss her the first time round?, not having another spare brood box I’ve shook them back into the hive, should I get another brood box or hope for the best?, many thanks in advance.

 

[Levitt53]

Firstly yes you should have a spare hive. You'll need it for occasions such as this. Do you have any experience. It sounds like this is your only/first hive but then whose hive is the adjacent one. I'm not sure of the exact timeline but perhaps they swarmed on a virgin that opened first. I guess now you will have to see what happens.

 

[enrico]

I rehived a swarm about 4 weeks ago , I was fairly certain at the time that I didn’t have the Queen as I saw her flying away!, left them for a week and then added a frame of brood and eggs from the adjacent hive, since then they have been very “stingy”, they swarmed again today although the brood box is only half full of bees, did a check and there is a sealed Queen cell, no eggs or brood, question is did I miss her the first time round?, not having another spare brood box I’ve shook them back into the hive, should I get another brood box or hope for the best?, many thanks in advance.

Can I just make sure I understand? Was it the swarm that swarmed again? If there are NO eggs or brood then I doubt that queen cell is viable. You need more kit anyway! If they don't swarm again immediately I would check for a queen. If you can't find one then another test frame would be the next step.
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[jeff33]

If you catch a Q- swarm they will try to make Qcells from laying workers. I had one the other day (2 frames worth) which I was certain was Q-. Sure enough within 24h of re-homing the swarm they had started making Qcells with eggs from laying workers. I just shook the lot out in the nearest apiary and hope they begged their way into other hives. If I was you, I would shake the lot out in front of the other hives, it seems like a hopeless situation.

 

[Gardenshed37]

Thank you all, that’s very helpful. sorry I didn’t make it very clear, the swarm was from one of my other 2 hives which I captured in a nearby apple tree, it seemed to be settling well but as I mentioned I thought I had mislaid the Queen, following advice From an experienced beekeeper I introduced a frame of eggs and brood and left them to it but it still swarmed- I introduced them on a board back into the hive they left as I didn’t have a spare , they now seemed to have settled down again! the other hives I have are doing well, the hive that swarmed now has a laying Queen and is building up well and the other is doing very well, I have ordered more equipment and fingers now crossed.just another question if I may, when I shook them onto the board they happily marched into the hive, would you take this as an indication that the Queen had gone in or was it just instinct? Many thanks.

 

[enrico]

Well! I am still a little confused as I don't know the time lines but clearly there was a queen in there for them to swarm presuming they had been in there for a while. If neither the queen or the queen cell has been removed they will probably just try and go again at some point! You MAY be lucky and they dispose of the cell or the queen themselves but...... They climbed back into the hive as they are probably as confused as I am . Good luck and let us know what happens!

 

[Ian123]

My guess! You lost the queen when collecting the swarm first time around, when adding the frame of brood they raised a number of emergency cells. When one emerged they chucked another swarm leaving virgin/cell behind. You should have gone back in and seen results on the test frame. Ian

 

[enrico]

My guess! You lost the queen when collecting the swarm first time around, when adding the frame of brood they raised a number of emergency cells. When one emerged they chucked another swarm leaving virgin/cell behind. You should have gone back in and seen results on the test frame. Ian

Good point, but you are still in unknown territory so you need to find it what is going on inside the hive!