I had a hive swarm yesterday, I caught the swarm and put it in a box with drawn frames and put a queen excluder below, should the queen excluder be enough to keep the queen from leaving or should I try to find her and put her in a queen cage for a couple days, because I know she does slim down to swarm. I caught it on monday afternoon. I did notice quite a bit of activity of them coming and going, where my other hives were doing nothing due to the cool weather, are these guys scouts looking for a new place or are they just trying to collect resources for their new home?
they will probalby be fine. you have started seeing orientation flights right away. don't forget to take that includer off! it will clog up with drones and if that swarm had a virgin, she needs to get out..
i would take it off by this pm or at the latest, tomorrow.
it also helps to feed a new swarm for a couple of days. they may not really need it if there are resources, but it helps to anchor them and give them a little boost.
Thanks for the quick reply Kathy, makes me feel a little more confident in what I am doing.
I caught another swarm today so the yard is growing. This should be the last swarm hopefully.
(http://i1181.photobucket.com/albums/x424/ronwhite3030/IMG_0059.jpg)