[BaconStreetBees]

Yesterday, my strongest hive seemed quiet. I feared that they may have swarmed and I looked around, but did not see anything unusual. Went out this morning to open up the hive, heard a loud buzzing and saw a cloud of bees about fifty feet off the ground drifting away towards the woods and then out of sight.
The colony left in the hive appears to be perfectly normal except with fewer bees.
Is it reasonable to think that they will reproduce or have reproduced a new queen?
Not to sound unfriendly, please do not tell me how much I screwed up in not doing enough to prevent swarms. The bee inspector was here a week ago and said the hives looked good.
Thanks

 

[Beeslave]

They should be fine. Check back in 2 weeks to see if they have a laying queen yet. If they don't give them a frame or 2 of brood from another hive and check back again in another week to see if they have a laying queen. If at that time they don't have a laying queen(or made queencells on the brood frames given the week before) you may need to buy one for them or give them eggs to make one from.

 

[charmd2]

If they swarmed they should have left queen cells, which means you will have a new queen hatching soon, if it hasn't happened already.

Ten days or so until she gets fertilized, then a few more days to begin laying nicely. Check back in two weeks for any signs of eggs.

No big deal, most of us have lost a swarm.

 

[northbee]

Usually a hive that swarms has made preparations beforehand for swarming. this primarily consists of raising several new queens.

 

[beedeetee]

Losing a swarm is unfortunate, but we all (everyone that has kept bees more than a couple of years) have lost swarms. You can stop most swarms by keeping your hives from getting strong, but a lot of us (I suspect, although I may be the only one) walk a fine line trying to keep very strong hives without them swarming.

Sometimes it works and sometimes not. This year had been difficult for me because of all of our rain. Getting into hives has been difficult and they sit in there making more bees while foragers are not working and dying. The first warm (yesterday at 9:30 am at 53 degrees but with sun one of mine swarmed - now in a nuc box) day off they go.

There is almost a 100% chance that you will have a new laying queen within 3 weeks and maybe sooner.

 

[Peter]

I had one swarm about 4 weeks back, thought I'd got all the swarm cells but I guess not, 3 deeps leaves a lot of space for them to hide them. Never saw them going just noticed that activity had died down somewhat. The appeared to have requeened Ok and I have brood again. Need to go in this week, after these 90+ days, and see exactly how things are going.

 

[WI-beek]

You will have a new queen laying soon unless you lose the queen in a mating flight to a bird. I would wait at least three weeks my self before adding a frame of eggs because sometimes they will start making a queen when they dont need one. I just did this to a colony I thought went queen-less and added a frame of brood and soon seen a queen cell being built. Next inspection showed I had a laying queen and a just released virgin which Im sure killed my new queen and the queen that I got from frame of brood was probably made from a larva to old and now I have the worst brood pattern I have ever seen. The pattern of larva (from queen the new virgin most likely killed) I seen right after the queen hatched was fantastic. The colony is already raising a new queen. So I believe because I added this frame of brood I just basically screwed my self for the rest of the season with this colony. I may have something else going on but I think this is what happened.

This (above) is just my opinion. Others like beeslave have more experience but it can take longer than two weeks to have a laying queen. some times up to a month if you have poor weather. It is common knowledge that a queen raised in a swarm cell raised from day one to be a queen is usually far better than a queen developed in an emergency situation like when you add a frame of brood. The first queen to hatch will be the one which has been raised from the oldest larva and will be the poorest queen of the bunch.

If they swarmed they know what the are doing and will take care of themselves. In my case I thought I killed the queen because I dropped a frame from it on the ground knocking off the bees then proceeded to step on them and even if the queen would have been able to fly she may have went in the wrong colony and got killed. I think I was wrong and they swarmed on me and I just did not know it. I looked through the colony frame by frame twice for the queen and never found her. She may have been on a mating flight or I just missed her but she was there and now I pay the price.

 

[Todd 64]

Sorry for your loss, can`t stand to see all that hard work fly away. Watch for after swarms. I have a few hives that produced 6 swarms with virgin queens one week after main swarms. Two of them had more than one queen. Is their a tree within fifty feet of your hives? If not, you may want to plant one. My bees usually only go a short distance.
Could you have tracked them? If they flew into the timber and not over it they maybe within sight. Besides, a little walk never hurt any one and ya just never now.
Good luck, Todd 64

 

[Beeslave]

My reasoning for adding the brood after 2 weeks is to keep hatching brood in the hive. This is to reduce the chance of the hive having laying workers which to me appears to happen within 3-4 weeks of being queenless. If they make queencells off that brood they usually are queenless or they have a poor queen/virgin.

 

[WI-beek]

Beeslave

I did not know that putting brood in the colony could prevent laying workers. I take it then that a lack of open brood triggers laying workers? Thanks for sharing that. How often do you think this backfires like it did with me? Do you think I maybe just had bad luck? I made sure they had very young larva to work with and they picked older larva on opposite side of comb to make the queen with. I was kind of stunned with that when there was perfect age larva for them to work with.