[Bumbles]

I opened my hive of Russians Easter Saturday, and it was doing well. Plenty of capped brood, fair amount of eggs, and filled with bees. A week later, my wife heard a swarm in one of our pine trees, and before I could check it out, it was gone. It didn't look as active the last week or so. I opened it up, and it appears to have swarmed. Little more than half the bees, very little capped brood left, no eggs. Couldn't find the queen. When I saw her last year, she had her marking cleaned off off, and it's hard for a 3rd year beek with bad eyes to find. Should I see eggs yet? (I know they are microscopic at first) Could the hive have swarmed without a replacement queen? I have a nuc with a hatched queen from a swarm cell on a frame I pulled 2 weeks ago. What procedure should I use to requeen the hive? Can I just pull a frame, and replace it with the one from the nuc that she is on? HELP!

 

[RayMarler]

The bees can swarm when the queen cells are sealed. 8 days later, queens emerge, 14 +- 7 days later queen is mated and laying. Has it been 3 to 4 weeks since they swarmed?

If the hive is queenless, and they have no queen cells started, then yes, you can just grab the frame from the nuc with the queen on it and place in the hive. It would be better with two frames of brood with the queen in between them, with adhering bees.

If it has been queenless long enough for the hive to have turned into laying workers, it will be more difficult to give a queen, and even with a couple frames of brood with her, they may kill the queen being introduced.