Apiary Vicinity mating again

[Jon]

Do you think the little swarm comes out before or after the queen leaves to mate ?

They come out together. I have seen them leave the apidea and spotted the queen leave with them.
It is likely the same process as a swarm, ie the workers push her out.

[busybeephilip]

Are the drones pushed out too

[Jon]

Are the drones pushed out too

The apidea is usually completely empty unless it has a few bees just emerged which are too young to fly. All the drones leave.
The one in the garden I mentioned at the start was a 5 frame well filled apidea and it had a few bees left in it.
I think the mating swarm needs a relatively small number of bees which more of less coincides with the population of an apidea.
The single time I sawthis from a full colony during a supersedure it was a similar amount of bees, 3 or 4 hundred at most.