Apiary vicinity mating

[busybeephilip]

I have seen it from a full hive at Minnowburn where we have the association apiary.
I was working with the bees and I saw the mating swarm in the air. The queen landed on a post and the bees settled around her.
............ I checked there was a colony with an open supersedure cell.

So the colony had already swarmed with original queen or original queen was removed or died, first queen to hatch heads out with a cast, remaing cells hatch and head the colony ?

Maybe you distracted the swarm/mating swarm from returning to their hive? It does not make sense for them not to return to the hive if this is part of a mating event

[Jon]

I didn't know where the queen had come from and I collected her with the bees in a spare apidea. It was the next day I found the hive with the open supersedure cell.
I probably wrecked a perfectly good supersedure.
Funny enough, that colony went on for another year before superseding again. I found both queens laying together. The queen was in her 4th year at that point.
I mark and clip all my queens so if I find an unmarked queen in a colony it must have superseded or swarmed.