Queen uncertainty in DIY nuc

Hi. Wonder if anyone with a bit more experience could give me a bit of advice? About 3 weeks ago we noticed a couple of swarm cells. Having inadvertently restricted the brood box space for a few days a couple of weeks previous, i thought they might be trying to swarm in response to that, & having since given them more room they might now give up the idea, so i took out the frame with the cell on it (of 2 larvae, one had disappeared & the other cell been capped when i went back in to do this) plus 2 more frames of brood & put them & their attendant bees in a new hive. I also gave them a frame of honey & some pollen supplement.
Since then the original hive has swarmed a few days ago, & i’ve dealt with that, but i’m not sure what to do with my little potential nucleus colony. The bees are very good tempered & taking in a steady stream of pollen & presumably nectar. Just been in & they’ve not eaten much of their stores. All the brood has hatched apart from a tiny section that, i presume, got chilled early on through not having enough bees to cover it. Theres no new open brood, & i was thinking i should give them a frame from the other hive to raise a new queen before i get laying workers or anything…then, on one of the frames i took out i started hearing an intermittent, high pitched buzz, a sound i think i’ve seen written down as ‘zeep’, which is a sound queen bees sometimes make. Apparently, i’ve not heard it before myself.
I gave the frame a shake & a lot of the bees dropped off, but the zeeping continued, moving quickly up & down across the frame. Try as i might i couldn’t see who was making it, & i think i’ve read somewhere that bees can turn against a new/virgin queen if you disturb them at the wrong time, so i put everything back together & left them be.
So now i still don’t know if i’ve a queen in there or not! If so she hasn’t started laying yet, but i’m in north england & the weather the last 3 weeks has largely been unseasonably wet &/or cold, with some nice dry, sunny days, but really not that many, so maybe a virgin queen wouldn’t have taken her mating flight yet? or only just. I’m thinking, i could just do nothing & check again in a week or so for brood, or i could go with plan A & stick a frame of brood in, then if there isn’t a viable queen they’ve a chance to raise one, & hopefully might be deterred from starting to lay themselves, & if there is we’ve not lost anything, there’ll just be a different distribution of young bees across the 2 colonies. The colony with brood is the stock the nucleus came from, which has since cast a swarm. still got a decent number of bees though, & a fair bit of brood, i’ve not met its queen yet (generally proving myself not very good at finding queens!).
Does that sound sensible? Anything else i should do/haven’t thought of?
Thanks
rich

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Hi Rich, I’ll try to help you clarify things if I can, considering I’m maybe an intermediate-level beek at this point.

It is tricky to avert swarming once the bees have made preparations. I’m thinking your existing mated queen swarmed off with her contingent of workers, if you definitely took out the frames with queen cells to make your nuc. Perhaps there was one you missed, but keep an eye on it just in case.

For the nuc, did you see an emerged cell? These will get torn down fairly quickly so if you did see one, it gives you a closer idea of the day the queen emerged. Based on your info I’m thinking that the new queen could still be very new indeed, and keep in mind that she also needs to rest for maybe 4-6 days after mating, before laying eggs. So, check your calendar and give it several days to a week after that to look in again.

Good luck & let us know how it goes!

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Hi Eva. Thanks for that. I was assuming the swarm was led by the old queen- easy to tell, shes the only one so far whos marked, if i can just find her again. We might easily have missed a cell, the ones i took out were perfect swarm cells, long & hanging off the bottom of the frames, but there were several unoccupied cups on different bits of the combs. Or i think they’ve had time to raise another queen from scratch since then. 3 weeks, if they started a cell straight after we went in there’d be time for a new queen to have just emerged? I’m finding quite varied ideas about on whether they tend to swarm when a new queen emerges, when shes capped, after her mating flight or what, guess maybe it depends on the circumstances…& the bees.
Anyway, i think we’re done swarming for this year, swarm is rehoused in its original hive with the flow super, all the bees who were in it at the time, new frames of foundation & no brood. The original colony is a way off, having lost half its brood & a lot of bees to the nuc, then loads more bees to the swarm, as long as its new queen is ok i don’t think they’ll be off again.
The cell in the nuc was gone. Totally, not even a smudge of wax to show where it’d been. To be honest i’ve been pretty slack about checking for queen cells, partly because we’ve had a load of stuff on lately & not much in the way of suitable weather, but i also don’t really like doing full examinations & shaking my poor amenable bees all over the place, i can’t help thinking they’ll likely be happier where they are, & thus less likely to swarm, if i don’t go in & mess them about too often.
So, they’ve had long enough to completely clear the remains of that cell away, & even if it’d only just been capped when i moved it, at least a fortnight since hatching. But, as i say, the weathers not been very conducive, & the few days’ rest period after mating gives me hope that all is well.
Another thing i’ve read (tons of reading, very little practical experience!) is that bees tend to be quite grumpy with a new queen til after shes mated, & that that high noise i heard is something queens do when they’re not feeling very secure. I’ve kept wanting to go in & have a look, contrary to my usual feelings, & leaving it in case i disturbed them too early & caused the bees to attack her, & i’m now hoping i’ve not done exactly that. Anyway, sounds like you think its better to leave for a bit rather than disturbing them again to add another frame…so i’ll go along with that, check again next week, & yes, will let you know what i find. Cheers!

Hi again. Just had another look in today, still no sign of queenie, but there is now millions of capped brood, plus quite a lot of open brood, so i’d say thats pretty conclusive. Hard to believe its the same hive actually, where a week ago it was nearly all just empty cells, now theres a full frame of brood, a couple more with a good patch of brood, & everywhere else is full of a mix of capped/open honey & pollen. Fast workers, these girls!
So, thanks again. Don’t suppose i’d’ve done any harm by adding another frame, but its very satisfying to see the original plan has worked…

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