I killed the queen on first inspection

[Swarm]

Check the hive in a couple of days, emergency cells or not will give you a quick answer. Presence of cells means there was an accident. No cells and presence of eggs and there is likely a supersedure queen in there.

 

[Monbees]

Check the hive in a couple of days, emergency cells or not will give you a quick answer. Presence of cells means there was an accident. No cells and presence of eggs and there is likely a supersedure queen in there.

I'm afraid l couldn't resist checking the original hive today as bees standing around on the landing board looking aimless. There 'appeared' to be three sealed queen cells, quite old looking - with hive tool removed two but they were brittle with nothing inside. Puzzled, left the third one.

There were no eggs or sealed or open worker brood, but there were a few patches of sealed drone brood. I know that drone brood takes around 24 days to mature, so am wondering if, having lost the queen on first inspection, a worker started laying drone brood, and it was she who led the swarm a couple of days ago? (Incidentally the swarm still there and humming nicely). CAN A LAYING WORKER SWARM?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

a laying worker can't 'lead' a swarm. It doesn't take over as queen, usually you have multiple workers laying at any one time.
If all the worker brood has emerged any you are left with only drone brood, your queen has been long gone - a whole brood cycle ago.
You just have to hope there's a virgin queen in there waiting to mate.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

My feeling is that the colony had swarmed by the time you inspected on the 5/4,or was on the point of doing so and you missed the QC's (are you certain that there was eggs/larvae there then?)

 

[Monbees]

a laying worker can't 'lead' a swarm. It doesn't take over as queen, usually you have multiple workers laying at any one time.
If all the worker brood has emerged any you are left with only drone brood, your queen has been long gone - a whole brood cycle ago.
You just have to hope there's a virgin queen in there waiting to mate.

Well that's a relief, so l guess the swarm went with a virgin queen, as the queen was dead in front of the hive 17 days earlier?

 

[Monbees]

My feeling is that the colony had swarmed by the time you inspected on the 5/4,or was on the point of doing so and you missed the QC's (are you certain that there was eggs/larvae there then?)

There were certainly larvae, so assumed all was ok so wasn't looking for eggs as l find them hard to spot. Nor looking for queen cells as weather had been miserable, although about 18 degrees that day, hence the inspection.