How soon can you re-queen swarms?

[Angularity]

Getting ahead of myself I know, but...

Based on this year, it seems likely that our neighbours garden will again be graced with a couple of swarms (they had 4 this year).

If I collect a couple, how soon can I re-queen them?

How soon can I merge them?

The background for this is the following. One of the swarms was black and bad-tempered, and there are black bees (maybe even Black Bees) hanging round my hives, trying to sneak in, today. Another neighbour has a long-lived bee colony in his chimney, which doesn't bother him but may well be these wild types/hybrids. No-one else is going to want them, especially not a beginner, so I'm looking for what to do with a box of bees.

 

[Gaz1]

Iv been told you can requeen as soon as you are ready too! But Not sure you can plan that far ahead though as all swarms will be different base on their genetics, also a swarm with nothing to protect they may start off nice and become agressive once they have something to defend.

On the other hand not giving that queen a chance to prove herself seems odd to me as she may prove to be far better than one you could buy

Don't know about your area but after joining my local group I found I wouldn't have any trouble selling Mongrel nuc to people, most people have them around me already as long as there are no Italian drones around most say the the local mongrels are just fine. Mine have been so far....

 

[B+.]

If I collect a couple, how soon can I re-queen them?.

If you have mated queens in reserve, you can do it straight away. Just run the bees up a board into a hive with a queen excluder under the brood box. The bees will go through, leaving drones and queen(s) under the excluder. Dispose of these and suspend your mated queen between two frames. Allow them to cluster on the sealed cage for a couple of days before you allow them access to the queen.

 

[MartinL]

One of the swarms was black and bad-tempered, and there are black bees (maybe even Black Bees) hanging round my hives No-one else is going to want them, especially not a beginner, so I'm looking for what to do with a box of bees.

You'd be surprised
Black bees are VERRY SOUGHT AFTER in some climes.
pop them In a nuc and sell em to the highest bidder


Let them worry about re-queening

 

[Angularity]

Thanks everyone, I'll bear that in mind.

Anyone wants a colony of black bees in May, let me know!

 

[REDWOOD]

I would wait until you see sealed brood