Swarming with out a sealed or charged queen cell?

[andy_mac]

Had anyone has a colony swarm without a sealed queen cell? I'm a third year (forum lurking) beekeeper with two hives. I overwintered a new queen in a nuc and she's been doing well. There have been play cups on the last few inspections, but no eggs in them when I've taken them apart. The colony swarmed today and I could only find one play cup like queen cell with an egg in and no royal jelly. I went through the frames twice removing the bees so I could take a really good look. No queen cells in the super either. I'm going to inspect again in a few days to see if there are charged cells. There are eggs and large available for the bees to create more cells.

Is there anything else I can do?

 

[Boston Bees]

Very unlikely they went without capped or nearly capped cells. Frustrating I know. Check again fully in a few days as you say.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did you shake the bees off the frames?
If you did and you missed a QC you might well have dislodged the larva.

 

[andy_mac]

Did you shake the bees off the frames?
If you did and you missed a QC you might well have dislodged the larva.

I didn't shake the frames, a combination of blowing and shooing with my hand

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

they like to tuck in the QCs between the edge of the comb and the side bars of the frame - very easily missed, been there done that.

 

[Swarm]

I didn't shake the frames, a combination of blowing and shooing with my hand

Next time you do that, follow up with shaking the bees off and frighten yourself

 

[Erichalfbee]

I didn't shake the frames, a combination of blowing and shooing with my hand

If you don't like shaking frames then you can brush them off but they hate that! A quick shake inside the box produces very few flying up at you and has enough of the bees off to make sure. Along the side bar is a favourite site for swarm cells.