One of my hives from last year swarmed 3 weeks ago. I caught the swarm and hived them in a 10 frame box with drawn comb from a hive that died over winter. The hive that swarmed seemed to have a LOT of honey in the brood boxes and I didn't see ANY eggs or brood. I had on a QE and a super of drawn comb but the bees did not seem to use that (on any of my hives). I've since removed the QE's to get them to move up into the honey supers, maybe after they have honey up there they will use it. I also noted that even with smoking, they bees were VERY testy (my bees are pretty calm, IMHO). Did not get stung, but they sure seemed to want to. I closed up the hive hoping if they are honey bound, without the QE they will move some of the honey up to the super to make room for the queen to lay or the queen to move up and lay, either way. If this hive is queenless, I'm guessing my options are to get another queen, or, can I (would it be wise) to let them cap the honey, extract it, then (news paper?) divide the hive, with what bees are left over, onto 2 single deep first year packages to build up those to hives? I've got 9 hives ATM and I'm not looking to expand much past 10-12 hives, so building up a first year package seemed like the thing to do, however, this is only my 3rd year beekeeping.
Second, the swarm that I caught from this hive seems to be queenless too. No eggs or brood but quite a bit of open comb. I could have swarn I saw capped brood a week ago but can say for sure. I also saw an absolute perfect example of a supersedeure cell that I don't remember being there either; it was open. Is it possible that the bees supersedeed her the first brood cycle after swarming and I have a virgin/just mated queen in the hive? This hive, unlike the first one, seemed like "normal" bees to me. Not aggressive, just going about their daily business and when smoked, they went to the honey. I was planning on waiting a week to so to see if eggs/brood shows up but thought I'd pose the question here.
Thanks to all!
Dale
Second, the swarm that I caught from this hive seems to be queenless too. No eggs or brood but quite a bit of open comb. I could have swarn I saw capped brood a week ago but can say for sure. I also saw an absolute perfect example of a supersedeure cell that I don't remember being there either; it was open. Is it possible that the bees supersedeed her the first brood cycle after swarming and I have a virgin/just mated queen in the hive? This hive, unlike the first one, seemed like "normal" bees to me. Not aggressive, just going about their daily business and when smoked, they went to the honey. I was planning on waiting a week to so to see if eggs/brood shows up but thought I'd pose the question here.
Thanks to all!
Dale