Swarm question

[gingerbees]

Our old queen (born last year) swarmed 2 weeks ago, we caught the swarm and re-hived. The original hive she came from has produced a virgin queen.

My question is: How long before the old marked queen starts laying again in her new hive, if at all. Up until swarming she was a good layer.

We plan to reunite before the winter. We can't choose one queen over the other until they prove themselves. Any ideas how long we should wait?

 

[enrico]

The old queen will lay as soon as she has cells to lay in. But you know what she is like, it is the quality of the new queen that is questionable.

 

[Mike a]

Should be reasonably quick if she has drawn comb to work with. Once the cells are polished and clean she should make a start. Also bear in mind they will need pollen to raise new bees, pointless laying if they can't feed the young

 

[gingerbees]

pollen going in, blackberry, bright orange and balsam and we have put a syrup feeder on, there isn't a huge amount of bees, about 4 frames max, so probably need to reunite for the winter.