Hi tony,
I did say 'queen cell... reduction', not total elimination.
Now, if you have been knocking down queen cells, the oldest ones in there currently could quite well be 'late conversions' and she may have completely gone off-lay as they had likely completed slimming her down, so be careful on when you go in and which cell(s) you leave. The maths shown above is rather misleading. More likely a one or two day old lava (day 4 or 5) capped 3 1/2 or 2 1/2 days later, hence the swarm issued. They do not work on 9 days before swarming, that is for sure!They could also go a bit early because the queen is just sitting there doing nothing (being completely slimmed down by the workers).
The usual conclusion is to retain the young queen on uniting - providing she shows good temperament, laying pattern, etc. The old queen is far less likely to swarm again - more likely she will be superceded just when you don't want it to happen. But in this particular case things are a little different from the norm!
The bees may well still be in swarm mode as so far they have 'aborted' their initial swarm en bloc, not transferred as flying bees, etc. Can't tell as it is not the normal A/S situation (queen portion still with a frame of open brood). You might get away with nine days before swarming from them as the queen may need a couple days to restart laying.
Think carefully about replies and draw your own time line - far better than accepting, without question, some of the replies.
RAB
