Need swarm recovery advice

[srf_onezero]

My daughter's colony of Russians (from a 10-frame NUC this year) swarmed yesterday. My daughter and I were able to recover it into a hive body of foundation and put it back on the hive (bottom). We put the other hive bodies on top and then put the honey supers on top of that.
We checked for queen cells and removed them. They appeared to be all hatched.

This was a strong nectar flow year--we have a super and a half full of honey on top of the hive, and the hive bodies have lots of honey in them--perhaps the colony got honey bound.


With the recovered swarm in the hive body of foundation, I put an entrance reducer on with the smallest opening--I figured it would help them stay in. The overnight temps were in the mid-40 F last night, so hope that helps them stay too.

-when should I remove the entrance reducer?

-Will the colony wait to see which queen succeeds to the throne or will the old queen be retained?

-any other things I should be doing with the colony?


Thanks,
Shawn

[Mr.Beeman]

Remove..... as in totally remove the entrance reducer?
No. I run about a two to two and a half inch opening most times unless it is being robbed. Then I go to the smallest for a few days.
The bees will decide which queen they like.
Sounds like you handled the situation alright.
Question, is there enough room now in the brood chamber? Sounds like a lot of honey to me.

[srf_onezero]

Remove..... as in totally remove the entrance reducer?
No. I run about a two to two and a half inch opening most times unless it is being robbed. Then I go to the smallest for a few days.
The bees will decide which queen they like.
Sounds like you handled the situation alright.
Question, is there enough room now in the brood chamber? Sounds like a lot of honey to me.

I had a honey super of foundation frames in the process of being drawn out that I used as the new hive body (brood chamber) that we dumped the swarm in. I also pulled a few frames of empty drawn comb that I could find in the old hive bodies and put them in the swarm box too. Then I put the remaining hive bodies above swarm box. Now that I think about it, if I wasn't so frantic and worried--perhaps I could have done a split given how many frames of honey we had in the hive bodies.

Thanks for the advice. This is my second year. I also have a colony of Italians that successfully over-wintered.
These Russians were for my daughter.

Shawn