I caught a small swarm yesterday. I am assuming it has a virgin queen or no queen at all. The size of the swarm was about 1/3 of a pkg. Should I let this swarm try to make it on their own or try to combine it with a recent split to boost their numbers? Any advive is appreciated.
Options for a small swarm
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If it were me, I'd try to get them to make it on their own, because it's early in the season and they can build up brood pretty fast if you help them out by feeding as long as they'll take it. If you see no evidence of a queen in 30 days, combine them to save the remainder.
If you're like me, you're at least in large part after the genetics of the "survivor" bees. My last swarm appears to be queenless. I put some eggs/brood from my Carni hive to help anchor them, and they began starting queen cells. I could let them raise their own Carni queen, but opted to purchase another queen and try to introduce her to them. While it would be nice to let them raise one and let her be locally bred, I'm a bit more interested in numbers at the moment for our first year. Attempting to get several hives/nucs going in hopes of having at least a few make it through the winter.
I'd say put them in a hive of their own for a few days and see what they do, if they start drawing comb and hauling pollen... maybe you've got a nice "wild" queen. If not, you can boost your split via combination.
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