Warre gives with queenless(?!@)half swarm-sorry-long story!

Hi all.I am a fairly new Warre hive beekeeper. I was concerned that my hive might swarm bc there were soooo many drones +a swarm cell on the margin of the comb. A local guy brought over a Lang hive body with dirty old comb (bc I didn’t have any another hive)just in case.Long story short,they stayed put.
So I go to return the item to the gentleman, who happens to live just a few blocks from my mom,and as I’m on the phone with her (driving!), she is like “OMG there are a million bees landing in my backyard!!” A swarm!!

I place the old,broken ugly Lang next to the swarm (my first swarm!!),use some lemongrass and a bee brush and dust pan,and collect as many bees as possible. I let them be,and check in the next morning.
Not having a new hive to rehome them in,I reached out to my mom’s neighbors, several of whom keep bees.One elderly neighbor comes late after dark,drags the Lang body down the block to his house,dumps the bees,returns the hive body,and is done.Meanwhile,a sizable chunk of the bees remain.In they went to the now returned hive body,or at least some.Others, a lot,stay,hiding out below. Stupid bees,lol.
Two days pass,and the guy doesn’t return to collect the stagglers,of which there are many.He sucks,but he’s old.So I gather them,and jury rig a mini Warre hive,presumably queenless.I look for a queen, for eggs,for signs of a queen etc,but I am a newbie(but not blind).Nada.
Sixty bucks in for a new(caged,marked) queen,and waaay more for ordered hive parts.Watched a billion YouTube videos.Am waiting 3 days to uncage the queen,as per queen seller. Have zero drawn comb,and ditto on brood comb(new top bar hive).How to tell if they’ve accepted her(they were four days w/out queen).Help! Xo,L

Hi Laura, I would wait about 5 days before lifting some bars near the bee mass to see if there’s any eggs in any new comb the bees may have built.

Hi Jeff!There won’t be any eggs to check for-there was no queen in the straggler group,no comb(yet)and the new queen is in her cage.

Check 5 days after the queen is released is what I should have said. cheers

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