We knew we had a task last week as the previous week Joseph had found several queen cells in the hive. Last Wednesday we performed an artificial swarm, there are several techniques but we put the old queen and some frames of bees and the stores in the 2nd hive in the original position and left the queen cells plus a few frames in the old hive but moved it to one side of the other hive. We put on some syrup as there would be fewer foraging bees.
The following day when I was on my sick bed I had a call that there was a swarm, I came in and couldn't find it but in case it was a cast swarm (newly hatched virgin queen flies off with any flying bees when 2nd QC hatches) I took out all but one beautifully formed and sealed QCs in the new colony.
Today we checked the original colony and old queen, we didn't spot her but we did see newly laid eggs. There was 1 sealed queen cell which we probably missed last week which I removed. We moved the new colony to the opposite side of the old hive (stop me if I'm losing you!) this confuses the returning bees when they return to find their hive gone and they then go back into the original hive.
Hopefully all will be quiet for a while, we might be able to open up the new colony next week and check if the queen is laying, if so we then take the decision to recombine or not!
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