Swarming Hive

[bullybrink]

First off, I live in West Virginia and we had a pretty mild winter here. I have one hive of Italians that I got last year in the spring as a package and they took off without any problems. On April 7th we watched this hive swarm (which totally caught us off guard) and were able to catch the swarm which was a massive swarm. I did a relatively quick hive inspection days later in the original hive and everything looked good. I also checked the swarm hive which is in a 10 frame deep and they had quickly drawn out comb and were packing in the nectar and pollen. I did another inspection yesterday and only saw a dozen eggs or so. Also, yesterday we witnessed this same original Italian hive swarm yet again and were able to capture this swarm as well.
So my questions are
1. How long should I give the first swarm captured to start laying eggs? It has been 13 days now and only about a dozen eggs. Should we requeen or take a frame or two of brood from the original hive and put it in for them to raise a new queen or what?
2. Is it normal for a hive to swarm twice within 2 weeks?
Perhaps I goofed somewhere since I am a relatively new beekeeper.

[Dimmsdale]

Is is possible that your broodnest has become honeybound and the Queen does not have room to lay which is causing them to swarm because of overcrowding??  Have you been noticing swarm cells being built in this hive?  If I were you, I would try to open up the broodnest by putting some empty drawn comb or foundation between a couple of frames of brood and consider throwing a super on if it is looking crowded in there. 

I would give the swarm a little time.  The Queen probably just got mated and is starting to lay.  You should see her production increase rabidly if everything is OK.  I have heard that if as colony swarms, its not uncommon to have throw 2 or 3 more secondary swarms as well.  I haven't had any swarms from my hives so I'm not the best source here.  At least you are catching them and expanding your apiary! 

[bullybrink]

Wow, so your in Berkeley Springs too Dimmsdale?

The hive did not look honeybound and I did see one queen cell but figured it was from the first swarm. We just put a super on a couple days ago so maybe that will help.

I will give the first swarm a little more time since I too was thinking that she may have just got mated and is just now starting to lay but I also then worry about a laying worker and that maybe we killed the queen in capturing this swarm. I have not seen the queen and am really bad at picking her out unless she is marked. I guess I will just wait a little longer and check again.

[Joe D]

May need to keep a close watch on them.  I am also fairly new, got 3 hives last fall, they were 1 deep brood box and 2 supers each.  On a warm day in feb. I put on another deep foundationless, mixed the frames.  Before spring they had most of supers about 2/3 empty so I gave a little sugar syrup.  Later added another super, now I have 3 super on 2hives and 4 on the other.  They all swarmed this week.  did catch em though.  Good luck with your bees.  Don't know but they maybe swarming more that usual this year.

Joe

[wadehump]

The second swarm is called an afterswarm. I have caught 2 this week from the same tree home owner saw the prime swarm last week  you may need to inspect them for more queen cells the original hive can swarm several times depending on the strength of the parent hive.