my hive swarmed about 3 weeks ago, saw them but they were too high up tree to get down and wrapped around trunk, they departed the day after they emerged.
Found 6 queen cells in hive so split the hive into 3 with 2 queen cells each and divided up the brood and stores between them. Up to now lots of bees and no sign of brood.
Four days ago a swarm arrived around 11 am one morning and there was lots of fighting outside the hive that swarmed - did the swarm change its mind??
After 2 days no sign of swarm moving on so managed to put them in a nuc only to have them swarm on to another tree. Another 2 days and no sign of them going, and still fighting, so this time waited until evening and managed to get them all into a brood box with queen excluder on bottom. They are still there, have drawn a little comb but mainly clustered on front inside of brood box.
Problem is if this swarm queen is my only one do I take off queen excluder and take a chance they will swarm again or wait longer to see if they make an effort to settle in. I would have thought queen would have had chance to mate while hanging about in the tree but maybe I'm wrong.
That was my original quandary above but since then I have removed queen excluder and yes the swarm has settled down.
Feeling more optimistic now as a nice sunny day and drones have been visiting all four hives including the swarm and I hope this is a sign that there are virgin queens in there waiting for their mating flight.
I suppose its wait and see now and try to be more patient in future
Found 6 queen cells in hive so split the hive into 3 with 2 queen cells each and divided up the brood and stores between them. Up to now lots of bees and no sign of brood.
Four days ago a swarm arrived around 11 am one morning and there was lots of fighting outside the hive that swarmed - did the swarm change its mind??
After 2 days no sign of swarm moving on so managed to put them in a nuc only to have them swarm on to another tree. Another 2 days and no sign of them going, and still fighting, so this time waited until evening and managed to get them all into a brood box with queen excluder on bottom. They are still there, have drawn a little comb but mainly clustered on front inside of brood box.
Problem is if this swarm queen is my only one do I take off queen excluder and take a chance they will swarm again or wait longer to see if they make an effort to settle in. I would have thought queen would have had chance to mate while hanging about in the tree but maybe I'm wrong.
That was my original quandary above but since then I have removed queen excluder and yes the swarm has settled down.
Feeling more optimistic now as a nice sunny day and drones have been visiting all four hives including the swarm and I hope this is a sign that there are virgin queens in there waiting for their mating flight.
I suppose its wait and see now and try to be more patient in future
