[beegineer]

Hived a small swarm , installed them in a ten frame medium box on drawn comb Question #1 do you think she is a virgin queen with such a small swarm. Question #2 how fast will she mate and start laying . And if not a virgin how fast will she start laying or should I give them some brood to boost them some

 

[RLBrooks]

If she's not a virgin, you should see eggs/larvae within a few days. I would go ahead and give a frame or two of capped brood if you can spare it so that they have a quicker availability of workers to cover the new brood the queen lays. She will probably lay quicker if she knows there are sufficient workers to care for the new brood. I feed my new swarms and it also gives them a motivation to start producing.

If she's a virgin, you should still start seeing eggs in a week or two.

 

[beegineer]

Thanks for the reply , tomorrow I'll slip a frame up and put an excluder under it and give it a couple of hours for the nurse bees to cover it then rob it out for the small hive and good luck with that swarm prevention in your quote I like that

 

[biggraham610]

One of mine was a good size swarm, bout a football, thought I had the mother queen, turned out to be a virgin, it took about 2 weeks. Good luck. They say open and capped brood never hurts if you can spare it. Good Luck. G :thumbsup:

 

[Colobee]

In my experience, primary swarms (with the "mother" queen) tend to be basketball & bigger. Soccer, football, & smaller -are almost always secondary swarms, with virgins. I'm sure there are exceptions.