Why don't bees read the books?
We went to check the bees today, Colony 1 very strong, well into second super at last inspection and filling up brood box well. Colony 2 lots of chalk brood, stuck on 6 frames brood for past three weeks, not interested in super, both colonies generally flying well. My expectation was that colony 1 would have open queen cells and 2 would not be near swarming.
The plan was this - carry out artificial swarm on colony 1 and, if possible, put a queen cell into a nuc, making up the numbers from colony 2 with the aim of using this to replace the chalky queen in colony 2.
Opened colony 1 and found queen cells at all stages from eggs in cups to sealed, queen was there so everything went according to plan.
Went to colony 2, little to no activity at the entrance, alarm bells! Went through the hive twice, couldn't find the queen but found sealed queen cells, on the third check we put the frames into another brood box and checked the inside of the original box absolutely no sign of the queen. there were eggs present so she was there 3 days ago but I'm 90% sure she isn't there now, also the number of bees on the comb was very low leading me to the conclusion that I have lost a swarm.

Here's the thing though, the queen was clipped, my understanding is that they swarm, she falls to the ground, the bees cluster there then eventually make their way back into the hive. This has clearly not happened as evidenced by the lack of activity and number of bees in the hive so where did the bees go? Has the queen not been sufficiently clipped and managed to fly off?

Anyway we made up the nuc as planned and left a sealed cell in colony 2 to hatch out

Steven