Well... I lost a swarm yesterday, they were gone by the time I got back with a box to put them in, I did learn the importance of having an empty box on hand though....
Anyway, had another swarm this morning, they were going nuts while I was working in the garden, I got stung twice. They were very aggresive, almost to the point of a Hitchcock movie... I caught that swarm with a queen.
I went ahead and opened my oldest hive for an inspection. It has 2 queen cells in it. What do you suppose would happen if I removed the frams with the queen cells and put them in a box with a few drones and workers? Would them form a new colony or do you think they would all die?
I bought another colony from Hummer & Son yesterday, so far so good with them.
What do you suppose would happen if I removed the frams with the queen cells and put them in a box with a few drones and workers?
All things being equal they would raise a new queen.
> Would them form a new colony or do you think they would all die?
Probably form a new colony.
The hitch is it will leave the old colony hopelessly queenless and it will die.