I had my hive swarm a week ago.
I added the super as the brood box was full, however after two weeks the bees didn’t progress into the super and swarmed. after a fee\w days of minimal activity at the hive entrance it looks like the swarm has returned.
This is my second year of bee keeping without success, so any help would be appreciated.
i have a video however new users cant upload.
You can upload it to YouTube and post the link.
Very often when the colony swarms they leave behind a lot of capped brood, which will emerge in the week or 10 days after the swarm. Since one frame of brood is equal to three frames of bees it can seem that the hive is well populated once again.
However this is also when you are at risk of secondary and cast swarms which can considerably reduce these numbers again, this time without replacement.
What did you find when you inspected the colony?
It’s only a short video but shows what is going on.
Thankyou for the response,
We inspected the hive the day before the swarm and there was a number of queen cells, two frames of brood had hatched and the other 6 where mostly capped.
I watched the bees today as they were circling the hive and on the ground in front and they seemed to be going into the hive rather than leaving, but I am absolutely no expert.
My neighbor is an old school bee keeper and said I should not disturb the hive for three weeks after a swarm. Open to suggestions though.
Those 6 frames of capped brood have all emerged in the 10 days following your inspection. That’s an awful lot of bees. However no eggs will have been laid since then so the numbers will decrease from now on until a new queen starts laying.
The queen cells have also emerged, if you left them in place.
Classic advice in your situation would have been to split the hive on the day you inspected, which might have stopped the swarm and given you two hives, but this is not guaranteed.
It sounds more like orienteering to me. BUT there is a high risk of secondary and cast swarms if those queen cells have emerged. Did you leave them intact? I would have inspected after the swarm and removed all bar one queen cell. And maybe made a nuc with another sealed queen cell, as a possible fallback.
Yes, once you have a virgin queen trying to mate and start laying the hive should be disturbed as little as possible.