Hi, I have just started keeping my own bees after helping a local beekeeper who keeps a couple of hives in my garden for a year. We are both mystified about what has just happened with my hive and I wondered if you guys have any ideas... We inspected it a week or so ago and found that the marked queen had gone and there were no eggs and very little uncapped brood. There were five or six capped queen cells so clearly the queen has gone/died and the hive is re-queening. The number of bees suggests the hive hadn't swarmed but I cannot be certain of that. We selected a frame with two nice looking queen cells on and left that in the hive, destroying the remaining QC's. The plan was then to leave it well alone for a few weeks, assuming that the first/strongest queen would dispose of the other one and and hopefully get everything back on track. Sadly the bees haven't read the same books as we have. Two days after the inspection the hive swarmed. I collected the swarm and it is now housed in a nuc and seems to be doing well, with pollen going in and no sign of the bees wanting to move out again. I haven't checked to see if there is a queen present yet. I did check the main hive and the 2 queen cells are still there and haven't opened. What I don't understand is why they swarmed. I am sure there were no eggs in the brood box when we looked ,s o even if there was a queen present she must have been virgin. Would a hive swarm with a virgin queen? Would they swarm without a queen? Why when she sould have taken out the two queen cells and stayed put? Any ideas?
Easy, They swarmed with original queen...bee numbers don't look very different. You left two queen cells.
1st queen cell emerged and they swarmed (caste) again and you are now left with last virgin queen.