I got a call about a swarm in my neck of the woods. Guy says there were two swarm in this bush, one left some time ago, the other stayed lower one stayed. There was a group of bees probable 8x8 square and 2" thick building comb on some small branches (about 2 or 3 square inches of comb built thus far with a lot of wax coating the branch. They have been there 2 weeks per his account. I Snipped it down and put it in a nuc box with some drawn comb and uncapped honey. What are the chances a queen would still be there? Or could this be left overs from the 1st swarm? The guy was in a hurry to have them removed or else I would have left the box there until this evening.
If there are no eggs in 2 weeks, I would say it's queenless. I would dump them in front of a hive and let them beg their way in.
Quote from: iddee on June 20, 2016, 03:56:31 PM
If there are no eggs in 2 weeks, I would say it's queenless. I would dump them in front of a hive and let them beg their way in.
Haha. Ok.
Do you think they would have stayed there for any length of time (assuming the persons estimate of two weeks) without their queen? Or would they just have returned from the hive they swarmed from, assuming it was a swarm.
I would think it had a virgin queen that didn't make it back. By then, they had forgotten the old home. But check closely for eggs first. There may only be a dozen or so. Many swarms leave with more than one virgin. Sometimes they split, sometimes they stay together and choose a queen.