Do I leave flow super on after hive swarm

My newly established (2 months) hive started from a nuc swarmed yesterday. I caught the swarm and it’s in the nuc box with 5 empty frames. The parent hive still has heaps of bees and brood and about 8 new queen cells. My question is do I leave the flowsuper on that the bees had started to wax up but hadn’t yet put any nectar in, or do I take it off and let the colony build back up again and then add the super back on?

I think the same logic applies to your situation as others - if the brood box is covered with bees and full of brood, pollen, and honey, then they can use a super - also depending on the status of the nectar flow in your area - which I am guessing is still ongoing.

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If I was you I would immediately go into your flow hive and destroy most of those queen cells. I personally would only leave the best looking one. You may choose to leave two. If you don’t do this it is highly likely your hive will swarm again - any moment now- over the next week or more. You can leave the flow frames on if there are still bees in there. If there are hardly any bees in it- you may be better off removing it until the population rebounds in a about 6 weeks from now.

If your hive fails to requeen successfully you can merge your Nuc with it in a 8 weeks.

When you go to remove the excess queen cells- you could well see a virgin queen emerging. Or you may see an open cell. There could already be a virgin in your hive. If you see some of the queen cells have been ‘torn down’ with a hole roughly torn into the side of the cell- that indicates a virgin is already on the loose and murdering other queens :wink: A neat hole in the tip of a cell indicates a queen that has emerged.

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Thank you. Yes, I’m out in the bush at Georgica northern NSW and there’s an over abundance of gums, silky oaks and brush box all flowering. I’m 50m from an unlogged forest many hectares in size.

Ok thank you for that clear explanation. As a newby I was excited to see queen cells, but then I read and downloaded a 25pg document from thus forum on queen cells and was going to learn what to do but you’ve told me concisely. Thank you. I’ll do that. Cheers.