Heya

[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?

[rober]

the original queen should be with the swarm. the swarm cells in the original hive will provide a new queen. the stragglers at the swarm site will eventually move on.

[Perry]

Agreed. You could always squirt the remaining  few bees on the branch with sugar syrup and then dump them in front of a hive, but they will probably just do it on their own (eventually).

[Bee Commander]

I've hived my swarms out of trees before. I put the hive that I put the swarm in directly below the branch they came from and somehow the lingering bees usually find the hive the swarm was installed in.

[iddee]

That works well unless the scout bees have found a new home. In that case, they also can find it and lead them away. I prefer to leave a few and get the swarm away from the scout bees.

[brooksbeefarm]

Like iddee said, i don't worry about the bees left behind they will find a new home. Jack

[LazyBkpr]

few bees left in the original hive that swarmed? Are there queen cells in that hive?
   if the bees you dropped into the box are still there, it is likely that the queen is there with them. If the hive they swarmed from has queen cells, then it is likely that one will reign supreme and be mated, so you will have two colonies.
   If, there are no queen cells, thats another story...

[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?

[rwlaw]

That box is a poster child for the concept of bee space laws. Anything over 3/8" inch they'll build comb, under, they'll propolize.
As your going into winter, and the chances of having fresh queen cells in there, I would leave it till spring and do a cutout. Bees don't expand that much with the shorter days.

[LazyBkpr]

The lesson for today as rwlaw said, dont leave extra space in a hive. In this case it looks like there were no frames in there at all? Taking the time to do it right is necessary, and usually the time required is not very long. Do it right to start and the rest will be easier.