3 bunches of bees.How many Queens?

[boda200]

Recently I got 3 bunches of bees that swarmed from a guys house in the same yard. The 3 balls were all in the same tree. Two of these were larger and a third was maybe a quart or so. My question is how many queens would be in this type of situation? Three one one? I joined the first two which I started a hive with 2 deeps. The smaller bunch I put right next to that hive in a nuc box. Upon checking the nuc box several days later I found there is no queen but some of the workers appear to be practicing at it,backing into the cells etc. I saw no eggs though so they probably are not yet laying workers. Should I have joined all 3 bunches? It seems if they were all with one queen they would have stayed together.

[Clayton]

Hi,

This is one of those case where there could be many queens or just one. You have to inspect carefully. If you have a frame of open brood you could see if this bunch of bees will raise a queen. Or you could combine it with the other? It is not that odd to see a swarm in several bunches but actually bee one swarm.

Clay

[tarheit]

It's possible for even a single hive to throw multiple swarms, the first typically with the old queen, and the rest with vigin queens. It also possible for a single swarm to become divided. Though the two divided swarms I have encoundered moved in together after being hived for 20 minutes or so.

It is possible even for one swarm to have multiple queens. I've seen one with two and others have seen ones with 8 or more. Sometimes even a virgin queen leaving with the primary swarm with the old queen.

Check the small swarm in several days, I may take a vigin queen 2 weeks (or more) to mate and start laying eggs.

-Tim

[Michael Bush]

I agree with Clayton. Sometimes it's just three parts of the same swarm that haven't quite got together. Sometimes it's three swarms. I tend to put them in seperate boxes next to each other and then if they don't have one they all end up in the box with the queen or they end up back on the branch.