Unite & Swarm

[Jeff M]

I have 2 hives. I recently had 2 cast swarms from one hive, one of which I managed to catch and home in a nuc. After a couple of days I decided to unite that swarm with my other hive. The swarm turned out to be queenless for whatever reason.

Two days later with the united box still on the hive it swarmed unexpectedly.

My question is, is it feasible that my action to unite a smaller queenless colony initiated the swarm in the main hive?

I caught the swarm last night and put them in a nuc this morning. Though I'm tempted to look today, I was going to wait a few more days before checking the hive for queen cells.

 

[Eyeman]

The swarm turned out to be queenless for whatever reason

How did you know they were queenless?

Two days later with the united box still on the hive it swarmed unexpectedly.

The main hive was probably making swarm cells and was planning on swarming anyway.

 

[YorkshireBees]

I have 2 hives. I recently had 2 cast swarms from one hive, one of which I managed to catch and home in a nuc. After a couple of days I decided to unite that swarm with my other hive. The swarm turned out to be queenless for whatever reason.

Two days later with the united box still on the hive it swarmed unexpectedly.

My question is, is it feasible that my action to unite a smaller queenless colony initiated the swarm in the main hive?

I caught the swarm last night and put them in a nuc this morning. Though I'm tempted to look today, I was going to wait a few more days before checking the hive for queen cells.

A cast swarm contains a virgin queen and as such it is very hard to spot the queen. Generally a cast swarm will not start laying until the queen has had chance to get mated.
Personally I would guess that the cast swarm contained a queen. What happened when you then combined that with a Q+ colony would require further inspection to determine.

 

[Jeff M]

Quite possible that there was a virgin queen either not laying yet or who never returned from her mating flight.

I now have a dilemma, about what to do with the swarm. I had intended to unite them back with the colony they left.

Would it be a good idea to do that now and allow the old queen to strip down any queen cells in the hive, or do away with the old queen and wait for a new queen to emerge and mate?

Just thinking that waiting may be too late for the colony to be ready for the main honey flow?

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Nige.Coll]

It wasn't queenless is the simple answer.

Find the queen in the swarm.
Find the queen in the hive.
Keep one and get rid of the other remove queen cells and unite them. I would probably keep the laying queen, she could be in the swarm or in the hive.
Your lucky they didn't fight. Your laying queen could have been killed.