how to deal with a swarm

Hi. I picked up a swarm in May having lost my bees over the winter. The swarm colony has done well and then on 1st July, despite checking every week it swarmed again. I managed to retrieve it and considered re-integrating it but found two frames with queen cells on so decided to re-hive it with new foundation (Bailey comb change?) I put the queen excluder on the bottom to keep the queen in while they draw out the foundation. One week on and the bees are going well 9 out of 11 frames drawn out and being filled with nectar and some pollen but no brood. Have I lost the queen? would they stay if I have? When do I take the QE off the bottom of the hive. Any help appreciated

 

[VEG]

better off posting this in the forum rather than the blog, but
as you have another hive put a frame with eggs into the hive you suspect is queenless. If there is no queen then they will start to make queen cells. If they dont then it means there is a queen of some sort in there.
A bailey comb chanbe is when you place a full box of foundation onto an existing colony they then move up onto the fresh comb and you remove the old box of comb after the brood has hatched out.