Swarmed hive

[omnimirage]

Yesterday, one of my oversized nucleus hive swarmed. The bees flew into a branch in my front yard, and in my panic grabbed the best thing I could find, a damaged hive scooped the bees into that. The bees easily moved into the super, I dropped my strainer into the honey so I gave them that to entice them. That night, I moved the hive to a more sheltered location. Now it's lunch time, and I see there's about three dozen bees where the bush once was.

I'm not sure what to do now. I have a empty nucleus that isn't damaged, I think it'd be best to move them into that, but I'm not sure. Last time I moved a weak hive into a new box, the bees didn't transition well and mostly died. Should I do anything about the bees at the branch? They may have just fell onto the ground when I moved them last night. There's still a bit of activity at the super itself. What should I do about the hive that they swarmed from? It's still crowded, combwise, but there's few bees left in there now. Should the swarmed bees, and the bees left behind, all have a queen? Do I essentially have two colonies now?

[cao]

Should I do anything about the bees at the branch?

They are probably scout bees that was away from the swarm when you boxed them.  They will eventually find a home or die.  I wouldn't worry about them. 

I have a empty nucleus that isn't damaged, I think it'd be best to move them into that, but I'm not sure.

Its best to leave a swarm alone for a while til they are sure they have found a new home. Maybe a week or so.

What should I do about the hive that they swarmed from?

If the hive did actually swarm there should be a queen or at least a queen cell in the original hive.  I would take a look.  A friend of mine had what looked to be a swarm from his hive but there was no queen or queen cell left in the original hive.  Apparently they absconded snd not swarmed.  There was only about 50 bees left in the hive.  I assume they were foragers that were out of the hive when they left.  I hope this isn't the case for you.  Typically a hive will swarm after they cap the queen cells so there should be at least one in there.

[omnimirage]

I ended setting up an empty hive where the branch is, so that swarms can possibly go in there in the future, and to doubly provide shelter for all the bees that frequent there. Even days afterwards, bees are still mingling there. I opened up the swarm hive, and the bees look like they're going strong. They've occupied one frame entirely, the one with the honey strainer in it, and have already developed some amount of comb on a frame. I saw no reason to disturb them. In two days time, rain will be coming in. I'm going to seal up the damaged hive with duct tape, to protect them against it. After this rain has passed, I'm going to move them into a smaller nucleus.

I looked at the hive where they originally swarmed from, and holy moly, here are some pictures:

http://imgur.com/a/RRyKQ

This hive was originally a swarm I captured off a branch. It was quite weak and fragile at the time, I wasn't able to secure it's comb without removing the branch, so I decided to leave it in there. I went to open it the other day, but it was difficult to pry off the lid and unstucking it disturbed the bees, so I left it, the following morning is when they swarmed. Apparently they've had a huge boom recently. I wonder if it's some season thing, I've noticed my hives have all been floushring here. There's a lot of bees in here, so could there be queen cells in here somewhere?

I'm really unsure how to proceed with this mess. How would you attend to this?

[cao]

There appears to be some queen cups in some of the pics.  I couldn't tell if there was any queen cells.  Since you are going into winter soon, I can't really give you much advise.  If they are big enough to make it through winter I would probably wait til spring and cut out the brood and rubberband them in some frames.  If you still have a flow going and there is enough time for them to get prepared for winter then I would do it now.  It would probably be best to seek some local advise if possible.

Part of the problem with that hive is there should be more than one frame in that box.  Is that a 5 frame nuc box.  If so there should be 4 more frames in there.  If you leave any frame out the bees will inevitably draw crazy comb that has to be cutout.

[PhilK]

What a mess! That's certainly a good lession about why you shouldn't give the bees empty space - make sure you fill your hives/nucs with frames to avoid that crazy comb in the future!

I would either seal them up and deal with them in spring, or if the weather is still pretty good I would cut those combs out now and rubberband them in to frames.