Swarm / Queen trouble

[Haddon]

I dont know what it is but if a hive swarms in my yard we might as well order a queen for the parent hive.
I have no clue why but queens dont make it back after mating flights.

Anyone else have this trouble anyone know what I might be doing to cause it. Maybe its just bad luck but even using queen cells to do splits I have a very low survival rate I dont go in the hives a lot.

I split my 4 hives the on 4/12 and went to check today maybe had 3 queen right they were all the splits non of the parents had queens I even combined a the 4th split with a parent looked like they balled the queen. Anyway this is not the first year I have had the trouble so if anyone has a tip or mistake I am making let me know.

I dont have to make splits for this to happen if a hive swarms and I dont know it you could call it dead most days.

[don2]

Sounds like something is catching the Queen's when on their mating flight. Unusual for it to happen each time.d2

[Kathyp]

i have swallows that hang around my hives.  they fill up on bees morning and night.  have had queens lost to them.  i also have robins that sit on the hives and eat bees.  those i can scare off with whirly gigs  :-)   i'd guess it's something like that.

[Michael Bush]

>I have no clue why but queens dont make it back after mating flights.

Swallows?  Dragon flies? Other predators?

[Haddon]

I hope yall are right that would me when I open the second yard the survival rate would be better for at least a short time.

Over all I just plan on trying to to convert most all my hive over to Italian or Russian bought queens. I am tried of mean bees and low producers so every time I get a little cash its going to kelley this year. And for someone that lives by the fact I dont buy bees thats a big step but you just cant beat a Italian for building up new hives.