Four year swarm free streak broken (added pics)

[pistolpete]

I tried, I really did.  The hive that swarmed had their queen removed close to a month ago.  Then I used their queen cells to make up a couple of Nucs and removed a Nuc from them as well.  So I guess with the mother queen gone, technically what I got was an after swarm. 

My wife called me at work that there were thousands of bees spiralling around the yard.  So I rushed home, and sure enough, there was a swarm in the ash tree, about 12 feet off the ground.  I shook them into a bucket and then upended that into a hive box with frames.  Then I cut the branch with the rest of the bees and put it on the landing board to let them walk in.  Hopefully they stay put.

How long should I wait to check on the queen?

What really puzzles me about this swarm is how they can have 2 queens in there.  I took their queen away April 18.   So the first possible date for a queen to emerge would be April 30 (10 days ago) The latest possible date for a queen to emerge from an egg laid on April 18 would be May 4 (6 days ago).   There have been no eggs laid in the hive since the 18th.   
 It's a mystery to me.  Can two young queens emerge and co-exist in the hive for a week or more?  What about if a queen from one of my mating nucs went into that hive by accident, would the bees swarm with her?

[capt44]

I've been studying hives for a couple of years now and have come to the conclusion that hives with 2 queens is more comman than folks think.
Alot of folks look for the queen and find her and quit looking.
I've seen a queen in the lower box and the upper box at the same time.
Last year a feller said he found a queen and it wasn't marked but a month later looked and found a marked queen.
He actually had  2 queens, one up and one down.
folks make the mistake of removing queen cells to stop swarming which to me is wrong.
The hive was crowded which made the bees make swarm cells so that means 2 weeks or so back the hive was in the swarming mode.
You remove the swarm cells and the hive swarms, the queen leaves and there is no queen cells to make a queen.
You are left with a queenless hive.
Even when I do splits and don't see the queen I make sure to leave a queen cell in each hive.

[pistolpete]

I don't disagree with any of that,  a mother and daughter queen will often co-habit for a time.   But I know for a fact there were not two queens in there to begin with because there were no eggs or larvae present a few days after I took the old queen out.    Here are some pics from today.

[jb63]

Nice pics. Pete.

[efmesch]

Pistol says: ..."So I guess with the mother queen gone, technically what I got was an after swarm."

After a first swarm has left the hive, it isn't unusual for two or more virgin queens to be in the hive together.  The's how one gets second and third swarms that deplete the original hive.

You really stuck it rich with that hive: a few nucs, a swarm and a remaining family.  You can choose to develop each one individually, or if you should want, you could re-unite some of the hives to strengthen one of them with whichever queen you want, after they  have mated and shown what they are worth.

" Hopefully they stay put. "----they should, but if you want to permanently place them in a different location, tonight would be the best time to do it. 

"How long should I wait to check on the queen?"    Since we know that she must have been a virgin, give her a week of nice weather to get mated and start laying.

[pistolpete]

I checked the mother hive and the swarm a couple of days after the swarm.  Definitely a brand new queen in both.   Both queens are just filling out and starting to lay.   

So much for having swarm prevention figured out.  I remember I checked that hive the day before they swarmed.  There was just a little bit of capped brood left from the old queen.  I remember thinking there's a lot of bees in this hive.   But they were working on drawing out multiple frames and they had a new queen, so I didn't even entertain the possibility of a swarm.