Pollen coming in = Queen Right? and How does an afterswarm work?

[Rebeccawing]

I tried to post this earlier, but I don't think it worked. If this comes up as a repeat, I apologize.

A little over a month ago I hived a small 1.5 lb swarm (Caught by my mentor. We never ACTUALLY verified there was a queen but he seemed confident we had her.) Then, +2 weeks ago he and I visited the hive (along with a newspaper reporter. See http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...ng-in-the-News) and he said he saw eggs and capped brood. My inexperienced eye wasn't able to detect either. But, I don't remember caring about anything but seeing the eggs. Anyway, on Father's Day (a month after I hived the bees) they still hadn't build any new comb (just working on two bars from a dead hive). They had one bar filled with nectar and a smaller/medium sized comb that was covered with about five queen cups. Not capped. I didn't see any capped brood or larva. I thought the population of the hive looked smaller than before, and traffic at the entrance has been abysmal for two weeks. (A bee here. Wait a second, a bee there.) But today while spending my daily 15 minutes watching the bees come and go I saw two with pollen on their legs. Does pollen come in when there isn't a queen? (I thought they only brought it in when there was larva to feed?)

But, I'm really curious to know: What is an afterswarm? What triggers them? Can they become viable colonies on their own? I've been looking in all my books and searching here, but I just can't seem to get enough info to see the big picture. I'm wondering if that's what I've got eeking out an existence in my hive.

Thanks All!

[wdcrkapry205]

I've had a lot of Q less colonies bringing in pollen, can't really go by that.

[Joseph Clemens]

They actually bring in pollen whenever it is available in the field.