OK...
Get in from work today, on my 1/2 day Friday :), needing to knock a few things off the family to do list before my sister's rehearsal diner tonight and wedding tomorrow. Cell phone rings and it's the same guy that I got my 1st swarm from telling me there's another in a bush behind his business, basically 30 feet from where I got the other.
I should have...but couldn't resist! :evil:
Made a quick run out there and vacuumed up all the bees off the bush. Stayed out there till about 15:30 but couldn't stay any longer so I'm sure I left some foragers behind.
Decided on the way home that I would try to open the vacuum bucket on a sheet leading into the Nuc and let them find their way in. That didn't exactly go as advertised... :(
When I opened up the bucket a whole bunch of the bees flew out. When it looked like they weren't
making any progress, I dumped the remainder of the bucket into the Nuc. This Nuc was near the Nuc housing the swarm I had collected 2 days ago. It became apparent quickly that most of the bees were gravitating towards the other Nuc. Watched for a while and then had to head out....figured it would work itself out. But it was obvious that while a few bees were fanning on the new Nuc box, the 2 day old Nuc had significantly more bees fanning and were steadily and slowly attracting all the traffic their way.
Got in from the rehearsal dinner about 22:00 hrs and went check on them. As I suspected, the new Nuc didn't have a single bee in it....they had all merged into the Nuc from 2 days ago.
Any thoughts as to why this happened? Did I not have the queen? Was she maybe a virgin queen therefore not as appealing of a draw? Should this combination just strengthen my other Nuc, or is there a significant chance that they harmed it's existing queen? Assuming the new swarm had a queen, what most likely happened to her? etc. etc. etc.
As usual, I have more questions than answers! :)