I read a lot but need a really simple answer…the more I read the more confused I got because all the advice was dependent on the objective…
I have two hives…both swarmed this past week.
I caught the first one and put it in a deep and started feeding it…it made a good bit of comb in 6 days but ZERO evidence of a queen…
The second one landed high in a tree and after 3 days left the tree and landed on post about 4 feet from their parent hive…today is day 5 for them.
I suspect both swarms were a virgin queen that left to mate and did not return…
What will happen if I dump these bees back in there hives of origin?
That makes sense for the ones in the box…I caught them on day 1. B
ut what about the ones on the fence post? Why would they essentially return to their hive like that? It is my understanding they swarm…land…scout out a new home…leave…typically in 3 days…is it safe to say the queen is not there in a case like that?
As an addendum the same thing happened last year…I had done a split and the main hive still swarmed…my mentor and I caught them and boxed them and they left the box within an hour and landed in a ball under the screen bottom board…after 3 days my mentor said just grab the ball and put it back in the hive…seemed fine after that…
It’s almost never safe to say lol.
Is the weather favorable for mating?
You mention you have 2 hives. Do any of them have a frame of eggs/very young larva that you could spare? Put the fence post bees in a box with a frame to eggs/larva and that will hold them and give them an opportunity to rear a queen if necessary.
I am in Alabama, US. great weather…nights are in the high 50’s…days high 70’s…I do have a spare frame of eggs and honey…let’s see what happens…thank you.
Swarm 1 had a queen…after 2 weeks she was doing fantastic…it appears 1 hive was queenless so I added newspaper and put that brood box on top of queenless one…waiting now to see the state of swarm 2