When I got home from work yesterday I was depressed to discover that my bees had swarmed. They settled on the garage roof and have been there ever since. (The picture on the bottom shows the swarm. The picture on the top shows two queen cells; they're the peanut shaped things sticking out of the bottom of the frame.) Unfortunately, I have no extra woodenware so I guess they're going to become a feral hive. Otherwise I'd take the opportunity to hive them. I can't figure out why they swarmed. There seemed to be plenty of room in the brood frames although the upper hive body is honey bound. I guess I'm a victim of my own success.
I opened the hive this afternoon and pulled the Apistan strips. Pulling apart the two brood boxes I noticed several queen cells had been built between the upper and lower boxes. These were ripped in half. Oops. I inspected the frames, however, and found several other queen cells throughout the frames. There must be close to a dozen all told. I saw no eggs or larvae, but there was some capped brood. The old queen must have stopped laying eggs in preparation for swarming a while back. I'll have to see if the new queen mates and begins laying in the next few weeks. I'll post on the beemaster forum to see if it's best to let nature take its course, or order a new queen. Next year I'll have to do more to prevent another swarm.
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