I watched one of my hives swarm on Father's day.
Started with two packages of bees this spring. The weather was good, then bad, and my brood chamber got plugged before I caught it. On Wednesday last week I saw about 15 queen cells, two of which were capped. I went back Sunday to try the "shook" method of artificial swarming. When I got there they were just starting to swarm out.
Lucky for me, the bees lit on a near-by low hanging branch. I was able to capture the swarm and put it into a two box hive with 8 frames of bare foundation in the bottom box. (I used the top super as a funnel to help catch the bees.).
So now I have three hives, and I'm wondering the best course of action now. Should I recombine the daughter hive with its parent, or keep three hives going? And how would I do the recombine, if I decide to?
Phil in Minnesota