Walk away splits - swarmed

[msully]

I created four nuc's 3 weeks ago using 4 frames of brood and one frame of foundation (walk-away).  I checked after 7 days and found queen cells, so all was good.  I got home from work on day 20 and found a 2-3 lbs swarm.  Day 22 I found another 3 lbs swarm, so it appears I started off with too many frames.  The weather the last week has been very rainy and cool, so I doubt the queens got mated

Anyone here ever see nuc's swarm with vigin queens?

I was planning to check on these nuc on day 28 to see if the queen was laying...

Thanks,

Mike

[Kathyp]

hives swarm with virgin queens all the time BUT that seems like to many bees to have come out of your nuc.  did you hive the swarms and were the queens actually virgin queens?  how many bees are left in your nuc?

[iddee]

My guess is the swarms came to your apiary from distant hives. A swarm will go to another apiary quite often.

[AllenF]

Can you tell if any of your nucs are under populated to see if the swarms did come from your nucs or somewhere else?  Do you think you may have crowded you nucs also with your bees to cause them to swarm?

[msully]

I checked my 3 hives on Wednesday and not a swarm cell or queen cell in sight.  I've popped the tops on the nuc's only briefly (since I'm waiting a few more days to see if the queens are laying) and they didn't seem under populated....

I've considered that these swarms came from somewhere else, but 2 in 3 days seems a little too much.  I've also heard that swarms usually land within sight of the original hive, so I gave that some consideration too.

Honestly I don't know where they came from, I just assumed that they came from my nuc's since I had multiple queen cells in them.  It seemed like a natural conclusion...

Thanks,

Mike