My husband and I just started keeping bees. We've had a hive living in the master bedroom wall of our house for 5 or 6 years (dont ask!) and in April this year, they started swarming. My husband thought it would be a great opportunity to start keeping real hives, so he captured the first swarm, and we went out and got a (deep) bee box. A week later the hive swarmed again - so we got another box.
The really fun thing is that I started hearing the queen and virgin queen piping in the wall just before the second swarm. I thought it was my husband playing with a duck call down stairs, till I overheard a bee keeper describing the sound when we bought the second box. Just after the 2nd swarm, I heard the piping again, and sure enough about a week later there was a third swarm. And another bee box in our back yard.
So, we now have three hives (the hive in the house swarmed a 4th time, but they returned to the house hive after about a day, thank goodness!).
Its been a lot of fun and we are learning alot! The third hive lost its queen -possibly in the process of the swarm being captured. We noticed the bees making queen cells after a couple weeks, and the hive did not grow as fast as the first two. But a few more weeks, and we started seeing brood cells, so all is good.
I already have lots of quetions and look forward to getting advice, and learning from everyone!