Swarmed without Queen

[Stickyfingers]

Watched a hive swarm today. Found the clipped queen on netting surrounding apiary. Popped her in a box but they still decided to fly off into one of my mating hives a and filled that. Seem happy enough.....just hope they don't bugger off again. Anyone had this?

 

[thebhoy]

is there a queen in the mating hive and how big is it?

Mine took off today but clipped queen only got about 3 feet from the hive, bees a few gardens away in top of a neighbours tree.
Popped queen back into hive and rest followed, slowly returning from tree, sky etc.....many still on outside of hive just now as it is so warm.

 

[Stickyfingers]

is there a queen in the mating hive and how big is it?

Mine took off today but clipped queen only got about 3 feet from the hive, bees a few gardens away in top of a neighbours tree.
Popped queen back into hive and rest followed, slowly returning from tree, sky etc.....many still on outside of hive just now as it is so warm.

Yeah there's a queen in there just mated about a week ago. They must like her. It was small but now looking quite substantial. Was actually going to use her to requeen my super hive (3 deep brood boxes) but best laid plans put to a stop.

Just found it quite funny they accepted her so readily.

 

[thebhoy]

Just found it quite funny they accepted her so readily.

Or they decided to take over that hive themselves.....hopefully as you still have the original queen all will be well with the new colony and their new queen.....
and you still have queen for the original hive