Lots of differing views about swarms here in the forum. Maximum production requires a bit different technique than the johnny appleBEE style. :lol: The swarm will have to hurry if your weather is anything like ours right now. As an aside, I was just rereading some of George Imries Pink Pages. I don't know if he could document it, but claims 90% of all swarms perish the first winter. He's an ornery old bugger, but has alot of experience. The bees here are running out of time to get ready for winter. (and so am I) As for the parent colony, IF they get a new queen laying, and don't cast a bunch of afterswarms, I would think they should be alright. Their harvesting is gong to be severly retarded now, and a gap in brood rearing, so you'll need to evaluate feeding them if you took off most of the honey. One thing you can always do with late swarms, is hive them, then in a couple weeks, recombine them with the parent colony using the newpaper method. Gives you back the colony strength without jumping through hoops to nurse a weak colony through winter,